Life is good. Yours truly, Number 99
Judy is such a good wife
…she suggested we move up the coast so we could bird different habitat for a couple days and take one more run at the leader board. How nice is that? We’re at Mustang Island State Park. By not birding at all yesterday, at 131 birds for the year, we had fallen to 133rd place this morning. 9 new birds today. Marsh Wren, Greater Yellowlegs, Sanderling, Herring Gull, Royal Tern, Ross’s Goose, Eastern Bluebird, Painted Redstart, Gray Catbird. We’ll see where 140 birds ranks us tomorrow morning.
The big week
…is done. One week of continuous birding. Well, not quite continuous, but birding was the priority. We flirted with a place in the top 100, but didn’t quite make it there. At the end of the week, our results are: 131 birds, spread over 4 counties; 34 more species than at this time last year. This morning’s eBird placement: United States 102Texas 17Cameron County 9Hidalgo County 4Starr County 15Zapata County 2 A fun week. We did it at a pace that was enjoyable for the whole time, but we’re ready to move on and do other things again too. Like today. We stayed home and slow-cooked ribs and cowboy beans all afternoon. (I think another one of those things to do will be to plan how to get more birds the first week of next year.) 
The house of Mckee
You remember the McKees. Don and Barbara. They have this nice brick house on Lafarge Street in Louisville, Colorado. 
(The brick part in the front; that’s the original house.) They decided to add on.
(All that blue part back to the garage is the new part.) There is a lot more to this story than a simple addition. There is a plaque on the wall inside that says “Why make anything simple and efficient if a way can be found to make it complex and wonderful!” That’s what they have been doing with this addition for years. They’ll pick one little thing at a time that could be simple and make it wonderful instead. There is no way to describe it all; I’ll just pick out a few things. See that big round thing just to the left of the leafless tree; it looks like maybe a big stained glass window? The lower part of the circle is behind a berm so you can’t see it all in this shot. I’ll come back to that shortly. When you walk in the front door, you’re in the historic living room. From there it looks like this now.
The next room back is what used to be the dining room.
Past that is a wide bookcase-lined hallway, …then the new room, whatever it’s called.
It’s a combination dining room, music room, and sitting room with great natural light (Maybe that makes it a Great Room). Remember that big round stained glass window we saw from the outside? Here it is from the inside. It’s actually a Hobbit Door. It is an honest-to-gosh round functioning Hobbit Door (made with real stained glass and mahogany wood, of course) out onto a patio!
The picture of the bulldog over the mantle behind them is called Ramchunder. They didn’t paint it themselves, they stumbled across it and it picked them to go live with.
When we were there in December, I sent out a picture of Don and me together.
I neglected to pose a photo with Judy and Barb, so I’ll present this of them together as the best I have.
The stairs to the upstairs are hand-made and charming (as are the window moldings).
There are countless cubbies and discoveries.
But things get really exciting when one explores the hallway. When was a hallway ever interesting? Well, in this one, if you touch this side of the bookcase in just the right place…
Magical things happen.
A stairway to the basement (by way of the dungeon) appears!
…and, of course, if you find the proper lever to pull on the dueling pistol on the other side of the bookcase…
Access to the main floor bathroom appears!
…bright and full of light.
Did I mention that Don is a design engineer? He designed and machined the mechanisms to move these heavy bookcases. It takes more than just hinges to make this all happen. Trim molding has to extend and move out of the way to make room for thick walls to move. It’s not all just strong; he took the time to make the hardware elegant as well.
For years, the construction was all happening on the equipment filling the expansive new room. Now, the equipment has been moved, and the remaining creations happen in the shop in the basement.
Part of the charm is when storage of the woodworking tools becomes part of the art.
I would include a picture of this if I could think of what to say about it.
The only downside to this whole endeavor that I can detect, is that what with all the distraction of the house addition, the Lincoln Mk VIII engine with the tuned exhaust, that I showed you in a much earlier post, is not in the Valkyrie yet. It’s still on a bench in the garage.
(The brick part in the front; that’s the original house.) They decided to add on.(All that blue part back to the garage is the new part.) There is a lot more to this story than a simple addition. There is a plaque on the wall inside that says “Why make anything simple and efficient if a way can be found to make it complex and wonderful!” That’s what they have been doing with this addition for years. They’ll pick one little thing at a time that could be simple and make it wonderful instead. There is no way to describe it all; I’ll just pick out a few things. See that big round thing just to the left of the leafless tree; it looks like maybe a big stained glass window? The lower part of the circle is behind a berm so you can’t see it all in this shot. I’ll come back to that shortly. When you walk in the front door, you’re in the historic living room. From there it looks like this now. The next room back is what used to be the dining room. Past that is a wide bookcase-lined hallway, …then the new room, whatever it’s called.It’s a combination dining room, music room, and sitting room with great natural light (Maybe that makes it a Great Room). Remember that big round stained glass window we saw from the outside? Here it is from the inside. It’s actually a Hobbit Door. It is an honest-to-gosh round functioning Hobbit Door (made with real stained glass and mahogany wood, of course) out onto a patio! The picture of the bulldog over the mantle behind them is called Ramchunder. They didn’t paint it themselves, they stumbled across it and it picked them to go live with. When we were there in December, I sent out a picture of Don and me together. I neglected to pose a photo with Judy and Barb, so I’ll present this of them together as the best I have. The stairs to the upstairs are hand-made and charming (as are the window moldings). There are countless cubbies and discoveries. But things get really exciting when one explores the hallway. When was a hallway ever interesting? Well, in this one, if you touch this side of the bookcase in just the right place… Magical things happen. A stairway to the basement (by way of the dungeon) appears! …and, of course, if you find the proper lever to pull on the dueling pistol on the other side of the bookcase… Access to the main floor bathroom appears! …bright and full of light. Did I mention that Don is a design engineer? He designed and machined the mechanisms to move these heavy bookcases. It takes more than just hinges to make this all happen. Trim molding has to extend and move out of the way to make room for thick walls to move. It’s not all just strong; he took the time to make the hardware elegant as well. For years, the construction was all happening on the equipment filling the expansive new room. Now, the equipment has been moved, and the remaining creations happen in the shop in the basement. Part of the charm is when storage of the woodworking tools becomes part of the art. I would include a picture of this if I could think of what to say about it. The only downside to this whole endeavor that I can detect, is that what with all the distraction of the house addition, the Lincoln Mk VIII engine with the tuned exhaust, that I showed you in a much earlier post, is not in the Valkyrie yet. It’s still on a bench in the garage. That’s the problem!
It’s the Christmas Bird Count! The National Audubon Society’s 114th annual Christmas Bird Count. December 14th through January 5th. Really good birders all over the country are recording their sightings for the National Audubon Society. We’re screwed. We moved up in the rankings, but not enough. This morning we’re number 114. There are lots of ties ahead of us though. We’re only 6 birds off the leaderboard. This is January 6th, so maybe the pace will lighten up. We didn’t get enough birds today to make enough of a difference though; only 3 new ones. Oh well. One more day in our Big Week. Then there is always April. We’ll get them at the start of the spring migration. It starts here first! In the meantime though, Look out! Now she’s smiling.