Most thankfully we finished the last ceiling at 12:00 on Friday and had Borchst soup and cake from the coffee shop in the village before going out for our first walk of the sunny-season. Down to Wharf Park to see if the Osprey have started nesting yet (no) then up “Gulch Road”. What a great name and it’s so distinctively right. Bubbly - Dan would love Gulch Road. It has real Lord of the Rings quality. The Gulch is an old stream-bed, now dry with a road winding up it. It’s about 1 in 5 steep with near-vertical “sandstone” walls (though I think the sandstone is what’s left of an ancient mudslide – not so much stone in the sense of being pressed out of good, strong, sustainable molten rock). The rain (what we get of it) has moulded little rivulets out of the sandstone faces and created Skyesque pinnacles and towers which the cliff swallows have carefully undermined by building their burrows in. Someone has managed to shoe-horn rows of apple and pear trees into the thread of land that exists next to the road before the cliff face rises up to the sky, for in the summer, the sun in the village flies right overhead so the dark shadows of the Gulch are eliminated. For now though, apples that were frozen in the winter still lie rotting in the grass, returning their nutrients to the ground – a little glow of bright green in the grey/green of early spring and a gentle smell of cider on the breeze.
The first time we came to the village - in February last year for a look-see - we ended up driving up the Gulch (which is odd since it’s a very minor Scottish-type, winding, almost single track road). There was an inch of compacted snow/ice under-tyre and we were in the bug. It was just a little hairy but we made it and somehow also ended up on the KVR. It was that day that I knew I wanted to live here and although it took us another month and a false start with another property to finally own our little piece of the village, it was possibly the best gut feeling I’ve ever had. In one weeks time it will be the anniversary of our ownership of paradise.
This morning Slaughterpuss (the cat) was meowing to me from the upstairs deck. Lord knows how much of the night she spent up on the roof / deck space but I really don’t think there’s any other way for her to have got up there, other than when we drank our last cup of tea at 5:30 yesterday evening in the setting sun. Poor chilly-puss though had she not been a cat she could’ve slept in the hot tub to stay warm but that would’ve involved crawling under the 4” thick insulation cover and then…getting wet!
On my way into work this morning, the summer cleanup has begun for the City Council. There was a cloud of fine dust coming from a tiny vehicle (about the size of an electric wheelchair) driving up the pavement (sidewalk) and blowing all the grit (from efforts to melt the snow in winter) onto the road for clear up by the road sweeper following close behind. It might not officially be spring till the end of the month but I declare it here. SO I dug up my little blue spruce tree from it’s insulated wintering hole, popped it in a big pot and stuck it on the deck to soak up some rays. This week (in amongst the painting) I think it’s time for some hopeful gardening. (Hopeful because I’m not sure what state the garden will be in by summer but I hope it will be suitable for at least a few bedding plants and perhaps some yummy homegrown greens).
said...
I need to do gardening. Please don't mention it again cos my garden is a bog, and I just don't have the time, and let's not even think about dog poop. Home grown trees sound good, though!
Trepid Explorer said...
You can't eat my tree! It's only 6" tall and very cute. I protest that my mud heap is probably more impressive.
said...
Weirdo! Why would I want to eat your tree???
Sounds good as in sounds like a good thing. Not as in sounds like a good thing to eat.
Blimey! LOL!