2 weeks ago, I think about mid week, we noticed that we could barely make out the mountains. We drove down to Edelweiss (local bar/grill in Clark) and they said it was because there was a wild fire in Canada and all the smoke was being blown down toward us causing a thick haze. It was like this for 3 days but finally on July 4th we could see our beautiful mountains in all their glory!
The first week of July was HOT! Two days were nearing 100 degrees in the shade of our trailer! Our biggest concern is our health and that of our cats too. We all survived and even had our one cat, Tiger, sit in the car in the air conditioner for about 2 hours one of the days. The others are not big fans of the car (Tiger is the weird one) so they stuck it out in the trailer. We kept refilling their water bowl all day long so they would stay hydrated, we kept putting water on the cats to cool them down, and even went to get fresh buckets of cold water from our neighbor's house and then dipped some of our rags and bath towels in the water and laid them in the trailer for the cats to sit on. They loved that!!
Back in June we went to our first Wyoming rodeo and our friend Jack joked about us going to a cat rodeo!! Well, we had our own cat rodeo in the trailer!! It was so hot outside that we left both screens in over night. The side screen has a small gap at the bottom where there is a step down. We managed to get ourselves a small furry visitor! About 10pm (July 5th) a small mouse got into the trailer. And let me tell you, I don't think any one of the 4 cats got a wink of sleep all night (and neither did we!). They kept chasing it and finally had it cornered in a crate under the bed, but the mouse was hiding in between shoes and some folded up luggage bags so they couldn't get it. Well, come 7am that mouse managed to sneak out and the cats had it at the back of the trailer behind their kitty litter box, the pee bucket (boy was I worried they would knock it over!!), and the laundry basket fully of dirty clothes. I got out and helped them get to him but in the back of my mind I was so worried that they would eat it! Now normally that wouldn't bother me, but we had just laid down mouse poison and I was afraid if the mouse had eaten any then it could poison the cats too. Tuffy had at one point gotten the mouse in his mouth and tried to carry it off, with all 3 of the other cats in tow! Buy he dropped it and after batting it around, the mouse went back into hiding behind the laundry basket. I knew I had to get it out of the trailer so I took down one of the crates, set it on the floor thinking that I could catch the mouse and temporarily stick him in the crate. Scott had the idea to put on the oven mitt to use to catch him!! Well, that didn't work out for me so well, but the mouse did manage to get into the crate and I kept him there while Scott got down to put on the mitt. And wouldn't you know it, Tuffy jumped into the crate to try to help out! But Scott was quicker - he got the mouse in his oven mitt and with one big toss he sent the little guy flying out the back door about 20' away from the trailer!! I still can't believe, against all odds, that it survived a whole night with 4 cats!
And speaking of mice... we also managed to get mice in our little white trailer which is used solely for storage, including the storage of our boxes of extra clothes! Scott noticed that they had been in his box of clothes, so we spent an entire morning getting the clothes out of the trailer to take to the laundry mat. But now we have everything taken care of and we will be putting some clothes in plastic tubs or putting them in the big trailer for safe keeping.
We finally have all our walls up!! We finished the last wall last night (~July 8th) and the day before we framed in the interior walls. We still have to frame up the area where the kitchen window is going (waiting to be sure we have the correct measurement for the window size we ordered) and we also need to make the rake walls (angled walls that the roof of the mudroom will sit on - finished them on July 13). But boy did we have a scare!! We slept in today (~July 8) - we are both exhausted from all the sun we've been getting and the nights where we didn't sleep much. We woke up to some crazy wind this morning and honestly we didn't think anything of it because a storm came through several days earlier and even with those strong winds there was no damage. But around 2pm (I think) I was getting ready to head into Cody to do errands and laundry and when I drove by the house I saw the south facing wall was collapsing outward!! It was about 25-30 degrees off what it should have been!! So I booked it to get Scott and luckily we had enough time to reinforce the wall with tie straps, 12' 2x4s and metal stakes. The wall was previously fully reinforced on the inside and braced some on the outside but apparently not enough. Luckily, we have saved the wall!! No damage appears to be done and it looks like all that we need to do is realign it to be sure everything is square. My hands are still shaking and my stomach is still in knots from this.
***The above I wrote last week***
Since last week, we have had even more excitement!!
On July 10th, my dad's birthday (Happy Birthday Dad!! I miss you!!), we worked on the house for part of the day then decided to have a treat and went to Pizza Hut for dinner. We get there and it was 1/2 off day!! Everything on their menu was half off! So we ordered our pizza, breadsticks, and soda and were told that they accidently made the wrong pizza but that they would give us the other one for free in addition to the one we ordered! And funny thing, the 'mess up' pizza was so good that's what we are going to order from now on. For just under $15 we got 2 pizzas, 2 orders of breadsticks and 2 drinks. Plus a coupon for buy one get one free lunch buffet was on our box too!
When we got back to our trailer, Scott hopped out of the car first and walked around the trailer on the outdoor kitchen side. Next thing I know I saw him jump way back!!! There was a rattle snake under our trailer!! He told me to get in the car, but before I could, he said it was on the moving heading my way, so I booked it away from the car to an open area so I could see if it was coming toward me. When it was all said and done, Scott shot the snake with his 12 gauge shotgun (and the thing still wasn't dead yet!), then pulled it out with a garden hoe, and chopped off it's head with a shovel.
If you'd like to witness this entire ordeal yourself, please check out the video I managed to take!! WARNING - the snake gets killed in this video and a few choice words were said along the way.
First Trip to Yellowstone!!
We decided it was about time we had a fun day and this past Saturday we drove through Cody into Yellowstone Park!! We didn't get there till ~2:30pm so we drove to and around part of Yellowstone Lake, to the Mud Volcano - then we were stopped dead in our tracks for a herd of Buffalo!! They got so close to our car that we could have easily reached out and touched them. A little further down the road, I think in Hayden Valley, we saw a black bear cub! The park ranger said there were 2 out there, but I wasn't sure if I saw the other one or not. Scott also saw a bald eagle flying over one of the rivers. At one of the lookouts, there was this funky bird, I think it is called a Grouse, and it was making this interesting noise that reminds me of a pulsating hum or purr. We also saw several deer, an elk, lots of these little creatures, I think called Pika's, and they look like really chubby chipmunks. The highlight of the trip was driving through Lamar Valley toward Cooke City where we saw at least a thousand buffalo!!
Update on our house
We are making really good progress! We have all the exterior and interior walls up (except one small wall in the bathroom for our walk-in shower). We have the roof of the mudroom completed, all the hurricane ties straps along the bottom of the 2x4s on (and I now officially have 'hammer elbow'!), we have most of the loft done (we ran out of 2x12s but are getting more this week), and we have now started sheeting the house with OSB!! However, we are being very careful to only sheet the mudroom and only the lower row around the main part of the house. This will help tie the house all together, but, we don't want to sheet the entire house till we get the trusses in place because of wind gusts.
Videos: click on the link and it will take you to youtube to view them.
Scott hard at work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuXJ8D6WgTM&feature=youtu.be
Rattle Snake video - reference to Jack (Miller) who keeps joking with me to make snake jerky!! And the reference to Marty is our electric guy who told us if we ever kill a rattle snake to always detach his head. WARNING**** We did kill the rattle snake in this video and there were a few choice words said along the way... just a heads up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuACbS6BrLk&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FSxOfbxoyE&feature=youtu.be
Pictures!!! of everything in the last few weeks - REMEMBER, click on the first picture and it will make it larger then you can scroll through them all that way.
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