mid-century modern house – Susan J Tweit

Re-Storying A House

Posted on December 9, 2018 | by Susan Tweit | Leave a Comment

When I first saw my Cody place, the classic mid-Century modern had clearly gone through some hard times. The signs of neglect were obvious and numerous: roof shingles curled and broken, the carport added to the front entry sagging, once magnificent windows filmed with age and dirt, piles of stained mattresses and filthy insulation in the garage, the antique boiler laboring to keep the house warm, the three bathrooms with two working sinks, one working toilet, and one dubious shower between them; the overgrown yard, a tangle of dead shrubs and dirt and trees growing too close together.

The living room when I first saw it, and that was on a good day…

It was a daunting project, no doubt about that. But I could see the promise in the place. What gave me pause–and also tugged at my heart–was what I can only describe as a sense of despair, as if the house and yard had given up.

So of course I had to buy it. I believe in healing and restoration–of houses, land, people. I could see that the place had a lot more years ahead if someone would only take a chance on bringing it back to life.

Which I've spent the last two years doing, with the help of some talented trades-folk, most especially my contractor, Jeff Durham. The house and yard are renewed from roof to basement, and from front to back and side to side. The place shines and sparkles and sings again.

The backyard before

The backyard now, after tree-trimming and removal, meadow-seeding, and many sweaty hours hauling gravel and rock…

Now that it's finished, I wanted to know if the place needed anything else from me before I head south. So I asked a new friend, an energy worker and healer in various modalities, to "read" my house. What Kim learned motivated me to do something I've intended to do all along, but haven't found the time for until now: research the house's story, at least as far as learning who owned it over the years. All I knew was that the house was built in 1956, and that there had been only two long-term owners.

What I discovered from the county records, the history archives at the library, and from friends and neighbors was fascinating. I am only the seventh owner of this house and, oddly, the third widow.

For most of the sixty-two years since the house was built, it was occupied by just two sets of owners: first, and longest, Inez and George King, who bought the house in 1969, and lived here until 2003 (George died in 1981, but Inez seems to have happily stayed on for another 22 years until her death in 2003). That year, Patricia Baumhover and Howard Madaus bought the house from the King's children; they, or at least she, lived here until 2015. (Howard, a military historian and former curator of the Cody Arms Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Cody's big museum complex, died in 2007. Patricia, a librarian at the Park County Library, lived here alone–but for her cats, according to the neighbors–for another eight years.)

The house might well be called the King House though, since the Kings were in residence for 33 years, just over half the lifespan of the house today. I searched the archives for a photo of Inez, and couldn't find one. (History tends to erase women unless they are famous.)

I did learn a good bit about the King family, who moved to Cody in 1946 and developed Wapiti Lodge, one of the older lodges on the North Fork Highway, the road to the East Entrance of Yellowstone. After George and Inez sold the lodge and retired in 1970, they moved to town, presumably to be closer to their kids and grandkids. (Their descendants still live in the area.)

Wapiti Lodge in 1948, in the early years when the Kings were developing the complex.

When I read Inez's obituary, I was delighted to discover that she was a gardener who enjoyed "working in her yard [and] tending to her flowers." In renovating the house and yard, I did my best to preserve the heritage perennials I uncovered, including the huge patch of fragrant lily of the valley (Convallaria majalis) in the back yard just outside the living room windows. I was careful to site the deck far enough away from the house that the patch wouldn't be disturbed. (My mom loved lily of the valley too.)

Lily of the valley from that big patch in the backyard

I also divided and spread the English iris (Iris latifolia cultivars) that I suspect Inez planted so they now bloom throughout the front yard, and did the same with the daylilies I found languishing in the shade along the east side of the house. And I planted peonies (Paeonia spp), another favorite garden flower of Inez's era, along with tall Asiatic lilies (Lilium hybrids).

One of the patches of English iris I suspect Inez planted, blooming this spring after I dug up and divided the tubers to give them more space to flourish.

As I pack up to move south, I think about Inez and Patricia and the other women who have loved this house and yard, and hope they approve of all I've given this special place. And that the new owners–whoever they will be–will continue to fill this place with love and laughter and joy.

More Practice in Endings and Beginnings

Posted on August 26, 2018 | by Susan Tweit | Leave a Comment

As those who have read this blog for a while know, 2011 was an intense year for me of learning about how to love someone and also let them go with as much care and grace as possible. I managed my mother's hospice care through her death in February of that year, and then, with the help of our daughter Molly, tended my husband Richard through his death in November.

Folks who work or volunteer in hospice care often say something like: "It's a privilege to be with you and your family in this journey." It's true: accompanying and/or shepherding someone through the end of their life is a privilege. It's a time of grace, when Life is often stripped down to what we value most, which is usually not things or power or status.

As our physical abilities drop away, we have the opportunity to leave behind the emotional and intellectual baggage we may have carried. Our egos get checked at the door, as it were. We may find it easier to express love, we may speak of our core values and our understanding of what mattered most in our lives. We may simply be with an ease and comfort we struggled to find in our complicated, hurried lives.

Of course, dying isn't all sweetness and light, trumpets and puffy clouds. As with the other major passage at the beginning of life, there is pain, sleeplessness, and no small amount of indignity and even fear. (For caregivers too.) Losing control is often one of our greatest fears–having to be dressed and undressed and fed, not to mention having the people we love (or relative strangers) change our diapers and wipe our butts.

Yet that's a normal part of the arc of our existence. It's both how we come into this life, and most usually, how we go out.

Now that ending part is coming up for my dad, Bob Tweit, who just turned 90 last month.

(The photo at the top of the post is a sweet one of Dad with my mom, in 2008, the year he turned 80 and mom was 77, when my brother Bill, my sister-in-law Lucy, and my youngest niece, Alice took the folks to Norway to visit our family there. My cousin Halvard Tveit told me in an email today that Mom initially said she was too tired to go on the midnight boat trip around the harbor in Trondheim, until she learned there was a possibility of seeing sea eagles. Then she decided to go, but she watched for sea eagles from a supine position with her head in Dad's lap!)

Dad on another of the adventures we planned to celebrate his 80th birthday, a trip to a wilderness yurt in the mountains on edging North Park, Colorado, near Rocky Mountain National Park. Dad and Mom hiked the whole three miles in to the yurt, and thoroughly enjoyed the days we spent there. That's Dad on the left, and my brother, Bill, on the right, relaxing on the deck of the yurt.

A week ago, Dad was diagnosed with lymphoma, cancer of the lymph system. It's a kind of cancer that is highly curable with high doses of chemo if you are young and healthy. Dad is neither–as his oncologist said, the chemo would kill him, after making him so sick he would wish he was dead–and the type of lymphoma he has is particularly aggressive.

The cancer was discovered when a lump appeared on the back of his neck while he was in the hospital. Ten days after that lump was biopsied, it has spread so much it's almost encircling the back of Dad's neck. His prognosis: two weeks to two months.

When I called Dad after he learned the grim news, I said I was sorry, and he responded in his age-slowed voice, "Everyone dies sometime." True words. But we're not all particularly thoughtful or gracious about letting go of life.

Dad's out of the hospital and in hospice care at the convalescent center at his retirement village. He's too weak to go back to his apartment in Assisted Living, so Lucy and Bill have decided to move him home to their house for the remainder of his time. I think they are saints!

My job is to consult from a distance, make sure all of his financial and legal affairs are in order, and arrange for his end-of-life wishes. Which will have me scrambling around quite a bit for the next couple of weeks. I'll have a hand in his care for ten days in late September, when I will go to Olympia to stay at Bill and Lucy's and tend Dad (and the household dogs and cats) while Lucy and Bill go to Germany to visit my middle niece, Sienna, and her family, a break that Lucy and Bill will really need by then, I suspect.

I am reminded (again) of how grateful I am to have a family that pulls together in times of crisis, and also enjoys hanging out together when it's not a crisis. We love each other, and we do our best to live that way.

A family expedition to the Beartooth Plateau last summer: Alice Tweit (holding Pepper, the Italian Grayhound), Lucy Winter (holding Sarge, also an IG), Bill Tweit, and Dad.

I am also reminded of Ralph Waldo Emerson's words about capital'L' Life:

Our lives are an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn. That there is no end in nature but every end is a beginning.

Dad's headed for that combined ending and beginning. Mom's spirit is waiting for him, I suspect, and probably getting impatient. For all I know, Richard's spirit is on the lookout for Dad too.

For the rest of the Tweit clan, our job is to help Dad through this journey on to whatever's next with as much patience, care, and love as we can muster. It's his last trip with us…

___

On an entirely different note, the for-sale sign is up at my house. If you want to take a virtual tour, check out the photos on Zillow. The place is looking pretty darned wonderful, I think. And if you know someone who would love to buy a beautifully renovated mid-Century Modern house in northwest Wyoming, please share!

A Personal Response to Global Climate Change

Posted on August 19, 2018 | by Susan Tweit | Leave a Comment

In late July, I set out for western Washington to celebrate Dad's 90th birthday with my family. It was a gorgeous day when Red and I pulled out of Cody: sunny, blue skies, and the temperature in the mid-seventies, unusually cool. As we headed north and west across Montana, the temperature soared into the high 90s, and forest-fire smoke hazed the views.

At eight-thirty that night when we stopped in Missoula, the temperature was 94 degrees F. The full moon rose in an eerie sky tinged orange by smoke. As I stretched out atop my sleeping bag in Red's topper, I checked the temperature for Olympia, our destination: the next day's high was forecast as 96 degrees, unusually hot.

I thought about global climate change as I drifted toward sleep, and made a resolution to make changes in my daily life to contribute less CO2 and other greenhouse gases to our planet's atmosphere. No matter that our leaders seem determined to fiddle while the world burns, I want to take what responsibility I can for providing a positive example. I'm going to be the change I'd like to see…

Starting with my travels. I love hitting the road in Red and wandering the West. I watch the landscapes as I go, thinking about geology and botany and the myriad interconnections that animate this planet. "Windshield time" is creative time for me.

By sleeping in Red's topper instead of staying in motels as I go, I save money and also energy (no A/C, no washing of bedding and towels each day, less water heated and treated, and so on). But Red burns gasoline and I use the interstate highway system, with its high speed limits (and drivers who routinely drive much faster than the limit). So I resolved to slow down.

Gas mileage and speed are inversely linked above your vehicle's optimum speed, usually between 55 and 60 miles per hour. The faster you drive above that optimum, the more your gas mileage decreases.

For example, if your vehicle gets 33 miles per gallon at 55 mph, by the time you go 80, your mileage drops to around 20 mpg (here's a graph illustrating the relationship), making it 28 percent less efficient, with a corresponding increase of CO2 to the atmosphere. Run your vehicle's air conditioner, and the mileage drops even more steeply.

The next day, all the way across the rest of Montana, Idaho's Panhandle, and the hazy heat of eastern Washington, I drove five miles under the posted speed limit. I still got to Olympia in time for dinner–delicious fresh Chinook salmon my brother had caught. And I filled Red's gas tank less often.

The time with Dad and my family was sweet. We celebrated his birthday with another great dinner and a delicious cake, plus a family gathering to hear my sister-in-law, Lucy, play cello with the Olympia Symphony at their annual outdoor concert on the state capitol grounds.

Duane Roland, my eldest niece's husband, in the front with Heather, middle left looking down, and their two younger boys, Liam (looking at his dad) and Colin (head hidden), between them. Dad (with the sun-hat) is behind them, trying to figure out where I am so he can look toward the camera (he's legally blind), and my brother, Bill, in the ball-cap beside him is looking at the symphony program. Lucy is in the tent with the orchestra.

It was also stressful and hectic. Dad's health is failing, and he wanted me to take over managing his finances (Lucy handles his day-to-day care). So I did paperwork, made calls, and filled out forms (online when I could to save paper and energy). By the time I set out for the long drive home on Monday, I was tired. Still, I resisted the temptation to rush.

I headed north to Bellingham to visit my youngest niece, Alice, and her boyfriend Dan and their two dogs, Riley and Jaxon. Red and I took the back route on two-lane roads instead of the congested I-5 corridor through Seattle, which yielded a lovely drive up Hood Canal, and gave Red her first ferry ride between Port Townsend and Coupeville on Whidbey Island.

Our ferry making the crossing.

The next morning, I headed east, taking the winding and two-lane North Cascades Highway and then following Highway 2 across eastern Washington instead of the faster interstate route (I-5 to I-90 east). The alternate route took only an hour longer (9 hours instead of 8) and saved me half a tank of gas. Plus I got to admire mountain wildflowers in the North Cascades.

Western red columbine, valerian, senecio, and other wildflowers crowd an avalanche chute in the North Cascades.

I still made it to Missoula in time to take a long walk and stretch out the road-kinks before retiring to Red's topper for the night.

Back at home, I worked on another part of my personal response to global climate change: Readying my restored mid-Century Modern house and yard to sell. I'm downsizing and thus shrinking my use of Earth's non-sustainable resources.

In renovating what was a very dilapidated house, my contractor, Jeff Durham, and I have saved everything we could, re-homed what we couldn't, and used new materials as efficiently as possible. The house is now much more energy-efficient than it was when we started, and the yard, my personal project, needs less water and almost no pesticides (I've used careful spot applications of herbicide to kill some persistent invasive weeds).

While Jeff worked on renovating the final bathroom, I hauled and spread 80 wheelbarrow-loads of pit-run, local gravel to finish the paths and sitting areas in the back and side yards. This "hardscape" reduces the lawn area, reducing the resource use, and also makes the yard an inviting place to stroll and sit. Eighty wheelbarrow-loads is enough gravel to fill Jeff's dump trailer one and a half times, or about 5,600 pounds of gravel–close to three tons.

Filling the first wheelbarrow load. Seventy-nine more to go….

I worked from Thursday night to Sunday afternoon, with a break on Saturday to meet a writing deadline. (Once I get going on a yard project, I have a hard time stopping. And Jeff needed the trailer back by Monday.) I was partway through when my friend Kate and her two small daughters stopped by for a visit.

The side path connecting front yard to back yard.

As the girls foot-propelled their Stryder bikes around by the east-side path, I heard Iris, all of four years old, say, "Let's follow the fairy path!" And then when she came around the corner into the backyard, she gasped: "Mama, Susan made us a fairyland!"

The backyard fairyland, complete with bridge for bikes large and small…

That may be the best yard-design compliment I've ever gotten.

Now the backyard is complete but for a bit of rock-work on the dry stream-bed, that final bathroom is light and bright and beautiful, and I'm contemplating what belongings I really need to keep and what I can give away and sell as I trade this wonderfully restored house and yard for something much smaller.

Glass blocks now break up the shower wall, adding natural light. A glass vessel sink on a simple steel counter brings the colors of the outdoors into everyday life.

My resolve is to continue to learn how to live more lightly on this Earth, and free my time to write and weed, speaking up for the planet and the species we share it with–working to restore beauty and health for us all. Being the change I'd like to see…

The front yard, complete with climate-friendly and colorful pollinator garden replacing part of the resource-intensive lawn.

Renovation Reckoning: Before and After

Posted on July 15, 2018 | by Susan Tweit | Leave a Comment

I was planting native perennial flowers from a local nursery's July sale this afternoon; the sun was hot, and I was sweaty and tired. "Why am I working so hard? Is it worth it?" Rescuing this dilapidated house and yard felt overwhelming and never-ending.

So when I came inside to clean up and cool off, I took a moment for a project-reckoning and scrolled through the hundreds of photos on my computer documenting the work. Looking at before and after shots, I immediately felt better. Here's a quick tour photos, so you can see the transformation too.

The photo above is the house when I first saw it in October, 2016; the photo at the top of the post is the front view now. Among the changes: a new roof replacing the crumbling old one, new gutters and eaves, ugly and leaking carport removed, new windows (including in the garage door), trees removed, trimmed, and relocated; gravel paths and sitting patio added, along with pollinator plantings, including a native-plant rock garden.

Here's the back view as I first saw the house and yard through a screen of sickly Rocky Mountain juniper trees planted too close together and never thinned. Not so appealing, is it?

And the backyard now, after much tree-thinning and trimming, plus new windows, roof, gutters, and that fabulous new deck. Oh, and paths and sitting patios in progress (I need a load of gravel to finish that project).

Oh, yeah, much better!

Let's go inside. I fell in love with the house for its classic mid-Century Modern details, including the big windows sited at the corners of the rooms, letting in lots of light and bringing the outdoors inside; the wood floors; and the fabulous original and very retro kitchen. All of which were in very bad shape then. I can admit now that the house was "scary," in the words of my friend Connie, who toured it with me when I first saw it. (But I knew I could rescue the place.)

Below is a photo of the living/dining room, which in real estate parlance "had potential." (Meaning it needed a lot of work: the windows leaked and were fogged with age, the floors were scarred and filthy, the chimney lining cracked, the paint and light fixtures cheap and ugly, and so on.)

Today, the room shines, with the floors refinished, new windows gleaming, energy-efficient light fixtures that pay homage to the 50s, and paint in mid-Century Modern hues. The original fireplace with its massive horizontal brick surround and mahogany mantel works again, with a new gas fireplace insert.

I love this room!

Through the doorway is the retro kitchen (photo below) that totally charmed me when I first saw the house, despite cheesy appliances and light fixtures, dirt, and a terrible paint and tile job.

Who could resist the sunshine yellow color of those metal cabinets (top of the line in 1956, when the house was built), and the original beach blue stove? Not me.

After some hard work, a little creative vision, and a chunk of money for new windows, light fixtures, paint, floor coverings, and appliances, that kitchen gleams again. (By the way, it's bigger than it looks: I've had a dozen people in there hanging out with me while I was cooking dinner.)

Turn around (photo above), and you see the kitchen even has its own breakfast nook, with attached powder room. Very '50s! It too, has come a long way since I moved in, when it was so NOT charming.

At the other end of the house in the bedroom wing, what is now the master suite was a sad and cold place when I arrived the winter before last.

I lay in my sleeping bag on my camping mattress one evening before my furniture arrived and contemplated what to do with a floor that was so scarred it couldn't be saved, and a room where one end was basically a storage area-cum-hallway leading to the attached office. (photo below)

The other half of my bedroom, with the steps down to the office on the right-hand side of the photo.

Gradually I saw the possibilities: an en-suite bathroom in one corner, a laundry center and linen shelves in the other. So it became, with some seriously creative design and a lot of Jeff's skilled and meticulous work. (The linen shelves and stacked washer-dryer live behind the screen.)

The rest of the bedroom looks pretty great now too, as you can see below. (For before and after photos of my office, part of that master suite, click here, and scroll down.)

Sleeping here is a pleasure now…

There's more. The downstairs, which was not only dark and dingy when I first saw it, but had this weird smell (Connie refused to even go down the stairs!), is now a light and bright family suite, with its own bathroom that has a cool sliding barn door with a full-light clouded pane. (photo below)

There's a laundry room down there too with an water-efficient front-loading washer and efficient dryer, plus Pancho and Lefty, the brand-new gas boiler powering the baseboard hot-water heat and inline water heater. And a new master electric panel replacing the two dodgy old ones. Overhead the attic is now insulated so the house stays warm in the winter and cool in the summers.

It's been a big project, and an intense one. But I've been fortunate to have a great contractor to work with–we enjoy collaborating–and other skilled and talented tradespeople who have come to respect my vision (even if they did think I was crazy at first!).

Looking at these photos, I'm proud of what we've accomplished in the past twenty months. Finishing doesn't seem so daunting now that I see how far we've come. (There's one more bathroom to renovate, the yard to finish, and I've got a punch-list of smaller details in the house.) But we're getting close. And Oh! does this place shine now…

The only thing I regret is that Richard, the love of my life, designer and builder and sculptor extraordinaire, isn't alive to see it. He would be proud of me for discovering my inner Tool Girl.

Tomorrow is his 68th birthday. I think I'll sit on the back deck after work, and raise a glass to celebrate his life and spirit. He'd like that.

Richard Cabe (1950-2011), always beloved…

Tool Girl Again: Why Rescue Houses?

Posted on July 1, 2018 | by Susan Tweit | Leave a Comment

I was trying to explain to a friend why I would spend a year and a half plus a tidy chunk of money renovating my wonderful but very, very neglected mid-century modern house, and then decide to sell it when I finish.

"It's the project," I said. "I can't resist a good renovation project."

That was a weak answer, and my friend knew it. She gave me one of those you-are-crazy-but-I'm-fond-of-you-anyway looks, and changed the subject.

So what is it about building/renovation projects that has me hooked? As I've written recently, I've clearly got a "Jones" for this work: I've finished, built, or renovated three houses in the past six years. That despite basically never picking up a tool more complicated than a screwdriver or a spade until I was in my late 50s. And only then because the guy who could design and build anything died of brain cancer before he finished our house.

That man, the one I loved with my whole heart, my late husband, Richard Cabe, was the quintessential tool guy. He owned hundreds of them, both power and hand. He could (and did) sculpt a firepit out of a one-ton granite boulder, design and build his own hand-operated crane, hoist the roof beam of our house using just ropes and pulleys, build anything with his own hands, and also out-fox an opposing lawyer as an economic expert witness. He was just that brilliant.

A boy and his tools: Richard adjusting the load-carrying beam on his gantry–hand-powered crane–after he set in place the 450-pound sandstone block that became the sculptural base for our mailbox. He had just had one brain surgery then, and would have another set of brain tumors removed in a few weeks. None of which deterred him from sculpting–or climbing ladders.

I used to say Richard could design his way out of a paper bag–only he would build a better bag first.

While he was alive, I never considered myself capable of conceiving, repairing, or restoring structures. I could design a landscape or restore a stream, yes. But build? No. Then Richard died, and out of sheer financial necessity, I had to finish both our house and his hundred-year-old studio building. Soon. Or lose them both in the morass of post-cancer bills.

Thanks to patient friends (that's you, especially, Maggie and Tony Niemann!) and knowledgeable trades-folk, I learned to use tools, to hang doors and trim windows, to frame doorways and build counters, and to envision the way buildings work (or don't). In the doing, I learned that while I'm not a great carpenter like Richard was, much less a sculptor, I do enjoy and find satisfaction in the process of solving design challenges of light and space and color and form, of materials and tolerances, of construction and restoration.

What precisely do I love about that process? Something deeper than only design: "Here is this neglected space with badly-designed, old windows that leak. What can I do with it?" It's more the challenge of learning the place well enough to hear its voice, to ask, "What do you have to offer? How can I facilitate that?"

As with my office in the photos below. I saw the paint colors right away; adding bookshelves to the walls, and insulation to the attic were also a no-brainers. But it took me over a year to hear that what that window-bay needed was not just new windows, but windows in proportion to the ones in the rest of the house, with a built-in seat below.

The north-facing "sunroom" opening off my bedroom-to-be as I first saw it. Yes, the floor was that filthy, and yes, the windows were so scarred it was like looking through fog.

Now that room just sings. It could be so many things for different people: an office, sure, but also a playroom, a craft room, an artist's studio, a kid's bedroom, a reading and movie room… Restoring it returned its beauty and its utility in the original sense, its ability to be a useful and comfortable space.

That same room almost two years later, brand-new window-seat, new windows, paint, insulation,and all. It's happy and inviting now.

That I have sweat and skin in the game (not to mention money) just makes the work all the more satisfying, all the more meaningful. My body remembers. Restoring the house becomes part of my felt experience.

Friday I spent four hours scraping and painting the west-side house eaves to stay ahead of the guys putting up my new gutters. When I finished, I was both exhausted and exhilarated.

"Yes!" I said to myself. "I did that!" I'm not as good a painter as Shantel Durham, my contractor's daughter, is. But I can do some of the work, and get some of the satisfaction of a job done, and done well. That feels very good.

Are those good-looking eaves and gutters, or what? The eaves on this side of the house were shabby and partly rotted when I first saw them. Now they shine. (Those are heritage tomato plants in the stock-tank planters, grown with seeds from Renee's Garden.)

As does relaxing on my deck as hot afternoon eases into cool evening. As robins chuckle and wrens fuss, a bright yellow tiger swallowtail flutters through the yard, and the twin fawns of the mama mule deer who haunts our block pick their way carefully, small hooves clicking, down the alley.

As this sixty-two-year-old, beautiful but long-neglected house settles in, ready to shelter, nurture, and inspire for another six decades–and beyond.

What I love about this process of seeing buildings anew, is that "re-storing." Or as my friend, writer and ethnobotanist Gary Paul Nabhan puts it, "re-storying." In listening and tending to these places, I am giving them back their voices, their stories, the gifts they have to give us.

That makes my heart sing.

New office windows (yes, those shingles need their color-coat of paint), new deck, which still needs steps, and new paths beginning to take shape. Old house and yard, new life.

The Gift of Renovation: New Understanding

Posted on May 22, 2018 | by Susan Tweit | Leave a Comment

One of the things that fascinates me about house renovation, or any kind of restoration work (including digging invasive weeds in Yellowstone, which I'll be doing next month) is that the process of changing something outside ourselves often shifts our internal perspective as well.

In the process of working with my contractor, the amazing Jeff Durham, and the other tradesfolk who have helped me revive this long-neglected house, I've experienced "aha!" moments that I'm not sure I would have seen in any other way. Certainly not so quickly or so clearly.

Take our current project, replacing the old, leaky, and cloudy windows in the bay in my office with new ones. (My office is the extension off the back of the house in the photo above, with the bay where my desk has sat since I moved in a year and a half ago.)

We replaced all of the other windows in the house last summer and fall. (Except for one other bay window, which I'm not going to replace, but I am going to refinish.) I didn't plan on replacing the windows in my office bay, first because I thought since they were 30 years newer than the rest of the windows in the house, I could live with them.

I could have, except that with new windows throughout the rest of the house, it was painfully clear how cloudy the ones in my office were. Looking through them was like looking through a perpetual mist.

My office, pre-window-replacement

Then over the winter, I realized how leaky they were compared to the new windows in my bedroom, which shares the same airspace with my office (the two rooms are separated only by a wide doorway and two steps down). The hot water baseboard heat was on in my office about twice as much as in the rest of the house, and I still had to run my electric fireplace to stay warm.

Once I decided to replace those windows, I ran into issue number three: design. My office was added to the house in 1982, when bay windows were in vogue and mid-century modern design was not. So neither the windows nor the bay follow the horizontal lines of the original house. (In the photo at the top of the post, notice how even the huge triple-window unit in the living/dining room is wider than it is tall, and the horizontal framing separating the lower panes emphasizes that.)

The office windows were taller than wide, proportionately wrong for the rest of the house. So the question was, without tearing off the bay itself (an expensive proposition), how could we give the windows a more horizontal look?

I decided to make them shorter, so they would be proportionately similar to the large upper panes in the living/dining room windows. After measuring the windows, we settled on two-thirds of their original length. Meaning below the top of my desk would be solid wall, with glass from there up.

We ordered the new windows and then Jeff got busy with other jobs, and soon it was winter, when neither of us wanted to tear out the old windows in below-zero (F) temperatures.

Window replacement time finally came this week. I spent Sunday evening moving my desk, plus printer stand and file cabinets, and reassembling the whole thing under the bookshelves on the east wall of my office.

My desk in its new location, before window replacement

As soon as I finished, I sat down at my computer to try out the new configuration. I looked over my left shoulder at the window bay and realized the now empty space would be perfect for a window-seat. So now instead of moving my desk back there once new windows are in, Jeff will build a deep, comfy window seat to fill the bay.

I would never have "seen" that window seat without moving my desk out of the space, and reconfiguring my office. And I wouldn't have gone to the trouble of moving my desk at all if it hadn't been smack in the way of replacing those old windows.

The open-air office: windows out, framing for the new ones in progress, with the studs for the wall behind the new window-seat in place.

Moving my desk shifted my perspective in some deeper ways too. Instead of facing the windows and my backyard-renovation-in-progress, my view is now my bookshelves with their rows of volumes by favorite writers on the West. Looking at those spines revived a long-dormant dream of spending more time exploring these expansive landscapes, and less time taking care of my beautiful but large-for-one house and yard.

New windows in, wall "dried in" with sheathing and house-wrap, and a much clearer view of my backyard…

Since I was a child, I've imagined "someday" hitting the road fulltime to wander, write, and explore wild places throughout the West. I'll be 62 this year, older for the first time than Richard was when he died of brain cancer. That fact reminds me that I can't assume life will offer me a "someday." If I want to follow my long-time dream, I need to start planning now.

So I've decided that my next house will have four wheels and solar panels on the roof. But first, I have a house and yard to finish renovating. With a great deal of love and care, and eyes open for what other new perspectives the process may yield.

Trimming the exterior of the new windows. Shingles and paint to come…

We Are All Tool Girls

Posted on July 30, 2017 | by Susan Tweit | Leave a Comment

It started out innocently enough: On Friday afternoon, Jeff Durham, my contractor, was trimming the outside of the new windows in the kitchen bay, which is right next to the front entry. (The photo above shows the old windows, the brick enclosure in front of them on the left is the "planter" box.) I looked at the brick enclosure, and said, "You'll have to climb over that stupid thing." "Maybe it's time to take it out," he said a grin, knowing I can't resist a challenge.

That planter box has been on my to-demolish list since I first looked at the house. It's not original, it doesn't fit the house design, and worse yet in my book, it's unusable, wasted space. Because (1) it's too far under the deep eaves which keep my house cool in summer to get enough sun to grow anything, (2) if you filled it with soil it would rot the original cedar-shake and redwood siding that abuts it, and (3) it's too deep to fill anyway.

"I'll take the first swing," I said. I had made good progress on one of two essays I'm writing for the 2019 Weather Calendar published by Accord, and I was feeling cocky.

Jeff said mildly that each course of brick was two layers deep, so a sledge hammer might not be the demo tool of choice if I wanted to salvage the bricks. (He's worked with me for seven months now, so he knows my "recycle and reuse" ethic.) He went out to his workshop trailer and got his Bosch rotating hammer, something I had seen guys use in the past (Richard had one) but never laid hands on myself.

My new favorite tool: an 8-amp rotary hammer with chipping bit.

Jeff plugged in and proceeded to chip out part of the first course of bricks while I watched. He set the hammer down and looked at me. "Maybe you want to do it yourself," he said, with that grin again. (He does know me!)

I did. I got my work gloves, and while Jeff finished bending and cutting the powder-coat metal trim for the two windows outside the planter box, I whaled away at the top three courses of brick on the box so it would be easier for him to step over to do the trim on the next window. It took me a little while to get the feel of the rotating hammer, which is like a mini-jackhammer in terms of impact and kickback.

Getting started on planter-box demo…

By the time he was beginning on that last kitchen window, stepping over the now-lower brick box, I had gotten my technique for separating bricks from mortar down, and had a good rhythm going. We worked companionably until about six-thirty, and then as he packed up his tools for the night, Jeff said,

"I can leave you the rotary hammer so you can finish up tomorrow."

I straightened my sweaty back and rotated my shoulders, aching from bracing the 8-pound hammer and its vibrating impact. I looked at what I had done, including the pile of mortar chunks and un-salvageable brick (some bricks are cracked, some don't come free of the mortar). "I think I need your dump trailer too."

He nodded and said he'd pick up the workshop trailer in the morning and leave the dump trailer when he did.

Progress… (Notice those beautiful new kitchen windows with their custom white metal trim.)

Which is how I came to spend most of my Saturday muscling a noisy rotary hammer, and sweating as I hauled bucket-loads of mortar chunks to Jeff's dump trailer, parked in my driveway. I honestly didn't think I'd be able to finish removing all the brick–12 courses high on one side, 14 on the other, double-thick, and 40 inches long by 50 inches wide equals a lot of brick and mortar to remove.

And that hammer got heavier and heavier over the course of the day, as I got sweatier and more gray with mortar dust. But I kept whaling away, and I swear I felt my skinny biceps growing with each course of brick removed!

I can't shoot a photo of me working with a rotary hammer, because keeping it balanced and aimed is a two-handed operation. But my friend Connie Moody stopped by late in the afternoon and shot some photos. So there I am, sweaty and filthy Tool Girl.

You'll have to imagine the noise, like a small jackhammer banging away… Thanks, Connie!

Brief commercial: Connie is half of the duo of Jay and Connie Moody, who manage the Thomas the Apostle Retreat Center outside town. If you are looking for a peaceful retreat place with gorgeous long views of the nearby mountains, check out the center's website. TAC boasts comfy and moderately priced rooms, a labyrinth to walk, Jay's beautiful Habitat-Hero-award gardens, and Connie's delicious meals. You don't have to be Christian to stay there…

I finished chipping out the last course of brick late yesterday afternoon, and then schlepped the remainder of the pile of mortar chunks plus the broken bricks to Jeff's dump trailer, one bucket at a time, my muscles groaning with each load. I swept up the worst of the mortar dust, and hosed down the newly exposed walls and porch post. (I'll remove the mortar stains later, with a small grinder equipped with a brush.)

Then I just stood there with a huge smile on my face, admiring my new, more open front entry. I can already imagine the built-in bench that will tuck into the corner once walled off by the brick planter, with a small wall-mounted water feature above it bringing the soothing sound of trickling water, which I will be able to hear inside the kitchen too…

I was sweaty, filthy, and weary, with every muscle aching, but I felt great. As I soaked in the tub later, I thought about what is so satisfying about this Tool-Girl work. Part of it is getting to do some of the actual hands-on work: I am project manager on this house renovation. I design (with Jeff's input), search out materials (ditto). But I rarely get to do the actual work, because I'm not the expert and I have a fulltime job already.

Another part is knowing that Jeff will lend me his power tools, that he trusts me to be careful and capable, even if it's my first time with a particular tool. Reminding myself that I can do this hard work makes me feel powerful, in a positive way, and capable, and strong.

That's a lot for a 60-year-old "girl" who grew up small and slight. And who didn't grow up or go through most of her adult life with any kind of tool-girl tendency or competence. I am Tool Girl, hear me roar…

Every "girl" should know how to use tools, and learn the basics of building and un-building, of creating and repairing what we and others build. Whatever we do in our lives, knowing how to work with our hands and muscles makes us strong and capable, more grounded.

The truth is, we are all of us, whatever our age or size or background capable of being Tool Girl. We just don't believe it, we don't know it in our bones until we do the work ourselves, even just once. Then our bodies remember that strength and power and pride in ourselves, and carry it into the rest of our lives. That's a good thing for everyone.

We are all Tool Girl, hear us roar…

The dozens and dozens of bricks I chipped out are now edging the gravel paths and patios under construction in my yard. (Gravel to come later.) in this new incarnation, they're both useful and beautiful.

Renovation: Four Guys, a Forklift, and One Big Window

Posted on July 16, 2017 | by Susan Tweit | Leave a Comment

Thursday, the hottest day this past week, was replace-the-dining-room windows day. That's the last in this batch of new windows for my wonderful but long-neglected house.

We didn't pick the hottest day of the week on purpose. Thursday just happened to be when the stars aligned for my wonderful contractor, Jeff Durham, to have three helpers, plus the big forklift needed to move the 500-pound window-unit in place. Through my backyard.

(The photo at the top of the post is pre-window-removal. You can see why I wanted to replace those particular windows: the right-hand one, a 60-year-old double-paned window, is so cloudy from having leaked decades ago that it's like seeing through a scratched lens. The left-hand window, while clearer, has an inoperable awning window with a rotted frame.)

The windows were built as a single unit, which complicates removal. As does the mid-century modern drywall "return," a rounded metal curve that conceals the drywall edge next to the window, without the need for additional trim. I love that clean, simple look. And its hard to duplicate if damaged.

Jeff, who I am convinced can do anything related to house construction or destruction, carefully Sawzalled (Yes, that is a verb!) between the old window unit and that metal bullnose to preserve it. And then he and Bo, a former construction guy turned personal trainer at the local gym who has been helping Jeff with my window-replacement, cut the awning windows out, and carefully removed the upper picture windows.

Each picture window itself weighed over 100 pounds, so just hauling them to the dump trailer was no small task. Now I had a big rectangular hole in my wall, and the real fun began.

I can see clearly now… But it's a bit open to weather and flies!

The new windows–same style, also built as a unit–were in my garage. Getting that window unit out of the garage and around to the back of the house involved all four guys and a four-wheel drive forklift.

First the guys muscled that window-unit onto the forklift basket.

And then off Jeff drove, with Matt and his brother Jake balancing the window unit! Down the street, around the corner, up the alley…

And through the backyard (if you wondered why I haven't gotten started landscaping the back yard, the need to drive heavy equipment across it for our various renovation projects is why).

Over the spruce stump, under the house eaves…

And into the big hole in the wall. It fits!

New dining room windows in place.

The new windows are so clear, and so much more efficient than the old ones (on a hot day, I can feel the heat through the old panes) that now I want to replace the bank of three windows in the living room area. Which is a big gulp! for my renovation budget.

That new dining room window unit cost almost $2,000 just for the windows, not including renting the forklift and the guys' time, plus exterior trim and painting. I figure the living-room unit will cost around $3,000 and need the same forklift but probably at least one more guy. But oh, my! are the new windows beautiful and a huge improvement…

So I've asked Julie at the Cody branch of Wyoming Windows & Cabinets for a quote. And while we're at it, there's the single unit in the breakfast room, and five awing windows I'd like to replace too: one in my office, one in the powder room off the kitchen, and three downstairs.

Renovating this long-neglected house is neither simple, nor cheap. But solving the challenges is so satisfying. And it is such a joy to see and feel a once-beautiful place come back to life. Restoring this house restores me too–it exercises muscles, mind, and creativity, and fills my soul. I feel very, very fortunate to be able to do this work.

Richard Cabe (1950-2011), sculptor, economist, father, husband, brother, friend, and the love of my life

I only wish the guy in the photo above could see it. He would so enjoy having his hands and creative brain on this project! (He's hand-hammering a steel bowl there, for a firepit he sculpted from a ton of granite boulder. Thanks to Harry Hanson, half of the ridiculously talented duo of Sterling & Steel for teaching Richard how to work steel.)

I've had Richard even more on my mind than usual because today would be his 67th birthday.

Happy Birthday, my love! Thank you for introducing me to design and building–I learned so much from watching you. You'd be surprised, and I hope pleased too, if you could see me now, Tool Girl, happily engaged in house renovation.

Family and Windshield Time

Posted on July 9, 2017 | by Susan Tweit | Leave a Comment

I didn't blog last weekend because I was in western Washington with my family. It's so rare that the whole Tweit clan can gather (only Molly was missing) that I wanted to soak up every moment. Even my middle niece, Sienna, and her husband and kids were there from Germany, where Matt is on detail with the Army Corps of Engineers. I haven't seen them in three years!

I left on Friday morning and intended to be leisurely about the 14-hour drive, stopping in Coeur D'Alene, in Idaho's Panhandle, for the night. Only when I got to Coeur D'Alene, it was only five o'clock and the temperature was 97 degrees. Not ideal weather for sleeping in my truck. I pressed on to Spokane (98 degrees) and continued west across eastern Washington in heat that just didn't let up. So I just kept driving.

By the time bug-splattered Red and I crossed the Columbia River upstream of Yakima it was nine o'clock, 95 degrees, and the sun was close to setting. I calculated through a gritty brain (I had been driving for 12 hours by then) that I had about two and a half hours to go if the traffic in the Seattle-Tacoma corridor wasn't too horrible.

I texted my brother and Lucy, his wife, that I was aiming for a late arrival. "So if you see Red in the driveway tomorrow morning, don't wake me up!"

They texted back that they couldn't wait to see me. "But drive carefully!"

I made it to their house on Tumwater Hill at a few minutes after eleven. They were still up, so I got to sleep inside in a real bed, always a plus.

The next day was a mellow morning, and then we all–Bill, Lucy, their youngest, Alice, and I–headed out to Ocean Shores for the weekend, where most of the rest of the clan joined us. (Dad and my eldest niece's husband, Duane, couldn't join us there.) We feasted on fresh Dungeness crab that night (I was too busy cracking legs and eating the succulent meat to shoot a photo), and ate at a seafood shack that Heather and Duane had discovered on an earlier trip. (Great choice, Heath!)

Some of the clan around the big table at the seafood shack (I couldn't fit everyone in the photo!). Left to right, my youngest niece Alice, who is channeling her uncle Richard and studying economics; my brother Bill; my sister-in-law Lucy; Sienna and Matt; Colin, middle son of Heather (who is sitting next to me and not in the photo); and Fiona, Sienna and Matt's eldest. (Not in the photo: Porter, Sienna and Matt's youngest; Liam, Heather's youngest; and Heather.)

In between meals there was beach-time (Porter and Colin even braved the cold waves, agile and fearless as seals), explore-the-nearby-playground time, put-together-ridiculously-hard-puzzle time (my great-niece, Fiona is the artistic one and a puzzle champ), and just hang-out time.

On the Fourth, half of us went to a lunchtime picnic at Panorama Dad's retirement village, and then we all gathered at Heather and Duane's gorgeous new house on Lake Tapps, outside Sumner, for a barbecue and fireworks. (Where I had such a great time I also forgot to shoot any photos.)

At the Panorama picnic: Sienna on the left, Matt next to her with Fiona in front, Bill with Porter in front of him, Lucy peeking over Dad's shoulder, and Dad showing off the walker he is using at 88 to help straighten up his spine (he's pretty stooped, but he'll be 89 in two weeks, so he's not doing badly).

By the time I set out for the long drive home the next morning, I was feeling full of family and love, and ready for some quiet windshield time.

I'm an INFJ-A if you know the Myers-Briggs system of personality types. (If you don't, you might find the test and descriptions of personality types at Sixteen Personalities illuminating.) The 'I' stands for introvert. I'm not an extreme introvert, but I do need a lot of quiet thinking and digesting time.

So instead of retracing the 14-hour route on Interstate 90 I took on the way to Washington, I took a longer route home. I dropped south to Portland, Oregon, on I-5, and then east through the Columbia River Gorge on I-84, over the Blue Mountains, and south and east through Boise, across southern Idaho, and then north along the back side of the Teton Range, and home through "The Park," as we refer to Yellowstone here where the nation's first national park is our backyard.

Mt. Hood in the distance over the Columbia River as I headed south to I-84 and the Gorge.

That's a drive of about 1,300 miles, instead of the just-under a thousand miles on the westward leg. Not a distance I could do in a day.

Going the longer route gave me more windshield time for thinking, and also meant I got to travel a loop, rather than out and back. I like seeing the West's open landscapes, the more variety the better.

It took me two full days of driving, and I spent the hottest night I've camped in Red's topper in a Walmart parking lot in Mountain View, Idaho, where the temperature at sunset was 97 degrees F, down from 100. (I was just too tired to drive on, and once the air cooled down, I slept pretty well.)

Still, it was a lovely time. I'm a reader of landscapes, parsing geology and landform, asking myself why these particular plants grow here but not there, or these plants are absent, pondering the human pattern of occupation, both historic and present day. I observe and think about what my observations mean, what the landscape and its patterns have to say to us. There is a lot to look at between Tumwater and Cody, and thinking about all I saw kept me pretty occupied.

Driving into the Columbia River Gorge on the west end…

And driving out on the east end. What's different about these two ends of the Gorge? And what explains that difference? Those are the kinds of questions I ask myself in reading landscapes. (Leave a comment at the bottom of the post if you guess the answer!)

I also spent time on my daily gratitudes, which include being grateful for these mostly wild and open landscapes and the many ways they inspire me. And being grateful for the time with my family, as well as for being able to come home to the place that is the home of my heart: Northwest Wyoming.

I thought about Richard, because he was always up for a road trip, and because he would have loved this family gathering (we talked about him over the weekend–my family misses him the way I do, like an ache in a limb you no longer have). And because part of my route home was on our Big Trip, the 29-year-late honeymoon drive we took two months before he died.

Richard greets the redwood forest on The Big Trip (September, 2011)

And I thought about the question that preoccupies me this year more than other because I will turn 61 this fall, the age Richard was when he died: Who am I in this post-Richard life?

It's a question that's been on my mind ever since November 27th, 2011, when I looked out at the slender silver sliver of new moon cupping Venus in the western sky and he was no longer there to share that sight.

For the first three years after he died, I focused on digging myself out of the financial hole that brain cancer and losing him left me in. With the help of family and friends (special thanks to Andrew Cabe, Grand Pound, and Maggie and Tony Niemann), I finished and sold Terraphilia, the big house he built for us but never quite got around to finishing, and his historic studio building, which he began renovating but didn't finish either. (There was always an interesting sculpture challenge to solve first…)

Then I was focused getting my little house built, and on returning to freelance writing, along with writing the first half-dozen drafts of Bless the Birds, the memoir about learning to love the end of life that I still haven't finished. (I has taken a lot longer to get the story right than I imagined.)

And now, I'm home in Cody and realizing again how much of who I became over those almost 29 years together was because I was half of "us," "Richard 'n Susan," a pair so close we often finished each other's sentences, a pair mated for life.

Richard 'n Susan, in the landscape he loved so much, and I loved because it was a home we could agree on, the Upper Arkansas River Valley in southern Colorado.

Without the other half of that pair, who am I?

That is what I am working on finding out.

I know that I am most at home here in the sagebrush country on the east edge of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. That plants are my "people." That my mission in life is restoring and celebrating this earth and its vibrant web of lives, plant by plant and word by word. And that love is perhaps my greatest strength. (Earning a living clearly is not! Still haven't figured that one out.)

That's a lot, don't you think?

But it's not everything. I'm still discovering parts of me I had forgotten for decades. This figuring out who I am as Woman Alone, the "just me" me, is a fascinating and sometimes disconcerting quest.

I am very grateful to be home to do it. And to have such a warm and welcoming home to return to. Seeing this house come back to life is so heart-filling. Maybe that's what I'm doing too: Coming back to life. As just me. Whoever she is.

My bedroom with new windows (same style as the old, just tight, thermally efficient, and the glass is so clear!), a new floor, and new paint. It's the first room in the house to be finished…

Road Report: Awards and Teaching

Posted on May 9, 2017 | by Susan Tweit | Leave a Comment

Last Friday morning, I backed out of my garage promptly at nine am, headed for Colorado. Specifically, for the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities to attend the annual Colorado Authors’ League Awards banquet. It’s an eight-hour drive to Arvada, and the first six hours were glorious. (The photo at the top of the post is the Wind River Canyon, about two hours south of Cody.)

Wyoming has many spring moods, ranging from howling wind to blizzard, to bluebird-blue sky and mellow. Friday was the latter, and my state had on its spring green, freckled with wildflowers and grazing pronghorn. As I drove, I watched for soaring hawks (I saw two golden eagles and three balds), counted pronghorn until 200 and then lost track, thought about geology (it’s hard to drive through Wyoming and ignore the geology, because rock layers and the structures they form are so obvious), and mused about writing and life.

Then I got to Colorado, and I-25 turned into a major traffic jam. Those final two hours of the drive were not fun. Still, Red and I made it to the Arvada Center, where I changed into my dress and sparkly sandals, and went inside to join the throng.

It was a delight to reconnect with nature writer Mary Taylor Young, childrens’ fiction and non-fiction writer Nancy Oswald, writer Carol Grever, and sociologist Eleanor Hubbard, among many others. And to share a table with poet Art Elser, and memoirist, fiction writer, and writing teacher Page Lambert and her husband John Gritts, artist and educator.

We ate, we talked writing, we listened to keynote speaker and former Rocky Mountain News sports cartoonist Drew Litton on the creative process of cartooning. And then came the awards.

I was a finalist in two categories: Blog (for this blog), and Essay (for “No Species Is An Island” in Humans and Nature). The competition was stiff, with fine writers in both (including Page in Essay), so I didn’t expect to win either. I hoped for one award–we always hope, I think. I was honored when my name was called as the winner for Blog, and then stunned when it was called again for Essay. Wow–Thank you, Colorado Authors’ League!

The next day I drove over the mountains on the familiar route between Denver and Salida, a drive Richard and I took dozens of times in our last years together as we commuted back and forth for his cancer treatments, and to care for my mom, who died the winter before Richard did.

I reached Salida just in time to rush to my first meeting of a weekend packed with meetings, teaching, and catching up with Salida friends. When I agreed to return to work with the finalists for the Kent Haruf Memorial Writing Scholarships, I imagined having time to hang out and read and write.

Not a moment! Still, it was a rewarding, if intense weekend. Especially the time working with four talented high school writers: teaching them in workshop and consulting with them individually on their work, and then selecting a Scholarship winner and another writer as Honorable Mention. (Congratulations, Berlin VanNess of Buena Vista High School and Mike White of Cañon City High School!) I also MCed the Awards Dinner…

By the time I left late yesterday afternoon, I was exhausted. And very eager to be home in Cody.

North Park and the Park Range yesterday evening

It’s a 9-plus-hour drive home, so I wisely didn’t try to do the whole thing last night. Instead, I drove to tiny Walden, in Colorado’s North Park, a sea of sagebrush rimmed by mountains that reminds me a bit of my home territory. I tucked Red into an inconspicuous spot behind at the Forest Service Work Center there, climbed into my nest inside the topper, and fell asleep to the chorus of spring peepers from a nearby pond.

My treat for getting an early start this morning was an extended stop at Split Rock National Historic Site between Rawlins and Riverton. (Split Rock is a gloriously eroded granitic dome rising above the Sweetwater River that was a landmark on the South Pass portion of the Oregon Trail.)

Spring wildflowers blooming on Split Rock

The “seams” in the nubbly granitic dome were bright with wildflowers and I happily climbed and wandered, reconnecting with plant-friends just as I had reconnected with writer friends on Friday night and Salida friends through the weekend: spring buttercups and chickweed, round-leafed saxifrage and stoneseed, Nuttall’s violets, and wax currant.

Ranunculus (buttercup) and Cerastium (chickweed)

Meadowlarks fluted their bubbling songs over the voices of sage sparrows, and tiny fence lizards hunted for insects among the rocks. It was the perfect way to recharge my batteries for the last four hours of the drive home.

I pulled Red into the garage at four pm and began to unload the truck. Inside, I found Shantel Durham, my wonderful painter, at work on the finishing touches of the new paint in the bedroom hallway. Once that hallway was a dark and uninviting corridor. Now, as Shantel said, “it’s like the sun came out.”

The newly painted bedroom hallway (I refinished that floor myself, by hand).

That pretty much sums up how I feel about my life since moving home to Cody: It’s like the sun came out. And I am very, very grateful to be here at home at last.