RC car

 Kean got me a fun toy for my birthday, an electric radio-controlled car. It zips around and is very entertaining. The cats really do not know what to make of it though!

Alamos Vista

Kean is visiting, but no one wanted to go on a steep hike with me this morning, so I went myself.  Alamos Vista trail goes steeply up to the ski area, and provided a nice walk through the aspens, good views, wildflowers, and brilliant red poisonous mushrooms on my somewhat ill-advised route back down along the creek.

Pumice wick

We built a pumice wick in our back courtyard! This is something we've been planning for a while to mitigate the water than pours off the roof when it rains, but getting everything lined up to actually do the work took some time and careful consideration. Several patio flagstones had to come up -- how to keep track of their placement and orientation, so they'd go back where they came from? Will the tractor fit through the gate (and if not, are we willing to dig this by hand?) How much pumice will we need, where will it come from?

Fortunately, the tractor fit (although we had to take off the stabilizer feet, then put them on again...) and our local gravel outfit would load our little trailer one cubic yard at a time.

The trench is going to go right under those flagstones, they'll all have to move. The black pipe is perforated, and will allow water draining off the roof to flow into a bed of highly absorbent pumice rock. The water will then be able to slowly percolate into the ground, supplying moisture to the surrounding vegetation.

These flagstones have to come up too!

Thank goodness the tractor fit back here. We had to dig enough by hand anyway.

The trenching has begun. An amazing amount of dirt came out of that trench; about half got piled in the courtyard, the rest we wheelbarrowed into a pile around the corner for use in other projects around the place.

The trench had to go fairly deep.

The trench gets lined with geotextile, to allow water to flow through while keeping dirt and roots out of the system.

It was not a small trench! But look how nicely Anna got the flagstones back in place on the patio!

One of many loads of pumice. I couldn't get the truck much closer than about 50 ft from where the rock needed to go, so I shoveled it out into the wheelbarrow, which Anna then took in to the project and dumped. Repeat ad nauseam. Oh, it was hot too!

Last look before another layer of geotextile goes on, and then dirt, and then flagstones. You can't even tell now, that there was ever a big trench there!

All put back together.  You'd never know we did anything, except that there is no longer a waterfall off the roof outside the back door, and hopefully more water in the ground will support more vegetation.

When it's hot out, go up

 We escaped the heat today by hiking in the mountains up above Pecos.  There are still wildflowers blooming up here :)