Coming into the home stretch

Well, the house is nearing completion as the snow becomes a bit more frequent. We now believe we will be moving in right after Halloween (perhaps the 2nd). If you double click to see the bigger picture, you can tell we have had some landscaping. Mostly aspens, spruces, and Canada Reds. We even have a couple of hundred square feet of lawn. This is our first grass that we don't intend to spray with round-up. I wouldn't have done it, but I wanted a place where the dog could be outside and still avoid mud.



Lots of plants going into our Great Wall of Park City, the 750,000 pound retaining wall. This is a collection of shrubs with some vines to grow up the wall and some junipers to drape down.



Out front, you can see a million foot (hoof) prints in the dirt. These are from the local deer cruising through, check out the newly planted salad bar.



More faux painting. This is in the dining room. They are nearing completion.



The stone guys finished the stone arch going from the living room into the kitchen. The bright flash makes it a bit ugly. It isn't really.



Phone and ethernet are in and wired neatly.



Cable is in, but not terribly complete or neat yet.



Which just leaves us with all these. I am sure they do something important.



Two weeks! We are keeping our fingers crossed.

Moooooo se

Late this afternoon we got a call from one of our neighbors, Todd. He knows that I like taking pictures and I really enjoy moose. He said there was a family hanging out in the condos in the lower part of our neighborhood. Of course, I drop what I am doing and wander down.

This is a really mediocre picture, but it is the only one where I could get dad (lower) in the same photo as mom (left) and the kids (following mom).




Dad is pretty majestic looking. I think he was posing.



Dad is seriously big. He is a good bit further down the road than the car.



Whew. It's been a tough day. Time to hang out and rest on the nice squishy grass.



Meanwhile, mom is in charge of watching Steve while the kids eat a tree. The sad part is that the tree is in the back yard of our good friends Bill and Loris Benson.



Mom finally decided that dad had a good idea of lounging about and must have decided that I was little threat to the kids. I am shooting this picture from about 40 feet away. Normally I would not get this close, but I am confortably set on a flight of stairs and I am poised to run if mom gets annoyed.



Lots of fun. I just wish they would do this on a nice sunny day. It was 6:30 in the evening with light snow and the sun behind the clouds. Oh well.....

Housing updates

Things are moving along nicely and the fit and finish is much improved. Here you can see the ceiling, lights, and cabinets in the dining room.



In the kitchen, all but one little strip of granite is in. The big appliances got installed this week. Most of the plumbing fixtures are in.



This is our master bedroom. It's all done other than the faux painting.



One side of the master bath. Clearly, we could use some mirrors.



Stair railings are all in.



The faux painting just started. Kind of hard to tell from the picture, but it makes a HUGE difference on how the room looks.



They are almost done doing the driveway pavers. Between the patio out back and the driveway, I would guess they have put in 100 pallets of pavers. They all get done by hand, one at a time.



You can also see the snow on the roof. It is snowing again this afternoon.

I think the house is about 2-3 weeks from being able to move in. The heat is on. Almost all of the lights work. Still waiting to turn on all the water.

More fall colors

This is just a collection of pictures I took today up near Snowbasin. It is about an hour from Park City. Jasper and I drove about 160 miles and did a fair amount of hiking.

Jasper versus Bullwinkle

Yesterday Jasper and I went up the mountain behind our house to play a round of tennis ball fetch. After catching the first throw, Jasper decided he had better ideas than to bring the ball back. He saw a pair of moose on the hill and without hesitation, took off chasing the bull. He gave it a good run up the mountain before deciding to come back to me. He was quite lucky the moose didn't take a more aggressive posture. Perhaps he was just surprised at the 53 pound missile that was streaking towards him.

This morning we took a much more peaceful approach and I brought my camera (with 640mm of lens). After playing fetch for a bit, he started staring into the woods. I got him to sit and sure enough, out comes the bull. He was directly into the early morning sun, so pictures would have been terrible. We walked around him. A long ways around him and came up from the other side. This time Jasper was very quiet and calm. He sat at my side for about 15 minutes as I took some pictures. The moose was interested, but not terribly concerned. The female moose was somewhere in the trees ahead. We could hear her, but never saw her.

The moose is probably only two years old, and not that big for a bull. However, he would be very large for a cow, horse or car.

The first snow of the winter? fall? summer?

Monday, Sept 24th brought Park City's first snow of the fall. It dropped a few inches and most was melted off by Tuesday afternoon. It was quite pretty though, especially with the fall foliage.



Looking out at Jupiter Peak.



... and of course, another year of Where's Waldog?

Building the deck

This was from last week. They brought out the railings for the deck. The bulk of it was in 3 very large, completely welded sections. No way humans could get it up on the deck. They brought out a crane, which this time managed to stay upright. When they actually finish the deck and attach all the railings, I'll snap another shot. It's quite pretty.

Golfing in Utah

I went out with a friend (Bill Benson) to play a round of golf over in Midway. First, the scenery was beautiful. The trees aren't quite at their peak, but they have lots of color. Fall is coming quickly.



Momma Deer and her babies were having snack time out on the course.



On another hole, a herd/gaggle/group/flock of wild turkeys were chill'n. There were about a dozen of them and they were as casual as the deer.



Nice weather. Nice scenery. Nice wildlife. Medium golf. Shot a 92.

We can send the finish line, but it is far off

Lots starting to happen at the house. The people who do the pavers were busy this week grading out the driveway so the it forms the base for the pavers. Tons of gravel. Tons of hard work. Now the radiant heat guys are starting to lay the tubing. It should take them two or three days and then the pavers start going down.



The big news is that the painters have finished everything but a bit of touch-up upstairs. They have pealed off all the plastic and masking. Now all the other trades can come in and start working upstairs. Should be a busy week. This is an awkward look up at the ceiling. You can see the big beams have been stained and the ceiling is painted.



This is my office. The color looks a bit odd, but it is really the base coat for some faux painting that will be done.



Meanwhile, downstairs is looking much closer to finished. The shelving is in the closets and the carpet is down.



Here is a little better picture of the carpet.


This week we are looking for some progress on electrical, plumbing, the deck, and the driveway.

Hiking at Park City

In my never ending quest to empty the dog's energy reserves, I have found a tough, but nice hike up in the Park City Ski Resort. It goes up to the top of a major ridge, at 8700 feet. The resort actually goes up to almost 10,000, but that would be a good bit more involved for hiking.

This is a view looking across the valley at our subdivision: April Mountain. If you double click on the picture, you can see a larger, more detailed version.



One of the most interesting things on the hike was the mix of colors. We have an extremely short growing season up here and I think that results in some cycle-compression. Here are some trees that are getting the jump on changing colors. We are still probably two weeks or more from the peak.



This picture was taken from the exact same spot, looking the other direction. It was a field of pretty purple wildflowers.


This doesn't show how pretty things really were, but up near the top was a huge field of yellow and purple.



...and down near the base, an entire drainage ditch was full of yellow flowers as far as you can see.



The mix of early fall foliage and late blooming wildflowers makes for a nice distraction as we slog up the mountainside!