Kitchen Remodel III

The grouting is all finished and the plumbing is connected.  Still has work to do on the hood system and more tiles were ordered for the backsplash in the butler's pantry.  The Kitchenaide mixer no longer fits on the counter so it will move into the pantry where the bar sink used to be. There's plenty of height there.  I would like to paint that back wall (where the sink is) a darker color like maybe a rust or coffee brown. Any suggestions?

 

This weekend was our annual tennis club dinner so here's a pic of Sim and me there.

October Weekend

I had a wonderful weekend with fun events both days. Saturday I went to a quilt show in Sanford that had some fabulous quilts and vendors. That night we had our Durham Savoyards 50th anniversary concert in which I sang. It was an hour long medley of Gilbert and Sullivan songs. We followed a very cute ballet, "Pineapple Poll" performed by a Durham ballet group. It also was all G&S music.  Sim helped serve the wine and soft drinks at the concert. I lost 8 pounds and 2 inches in the last 2 weeks so I could fit in my concert skirt -yeah!  With no kitchen, I didn't make carb-laden stuff like bread and pasta.

On Sunday our tennis club had 24 folks sign up for a Round Robin all afternoon. It was so much fun! We played one-half hour then the winners went to another court on the left and the losers went to another court on the right. Then they spilt up across the net and got two other folks from the adjacent court. Sounds complicated but it was fun and you got to play with lots of folks. The weather was perfect! I had to leave a bit early to attend a board meeting for my chorus, the I joined Sim and other tennis friends for a Chinese dinner in Chapel Hill. I did not eat the rice!

John Sparks is here putting up the tile backsplash and then grouting tomorrow. Then he'll hook the plumbing back up- can't wait.

Kitchen Remodel II

The hood box and granite are in. More hood work to go (electric, paint, etc) as well as hooking all up and plumbing. Backsplash and hardware to go so I would say two more weeks. I really like the granite!  Check out my cubbies.  Need to find some fancier counter stools.....

btw:  I updated my concert post from last June, Big Night,  to include some better pics and a link to some of the music.

Kitchen remodel

I have been in the throws of remodeling the kitchen for the last several weeks. Almost all decisions have been made. This week the granite folks made a template of the countertops and will return Friday a week to install said granite. I made so many changes to the order over the last few weeks that I was embarrassed to finally meet the three men who came. I don't think I could have faced the woman I dealt with. No changes now, because they are cutting the stone as I write.  That afternoon I decided not to use their granite back splash but to put in a glass and slate tile backsplash from the counter to the cabinets.  This will replace my beadboard which I put up when we moved in.

I have no water, counter, or cooktop for this week or next.  My contractor is home working on the island hood vent and will return next week to install it (I hope). The last decisions relate to kind and color of grout for the tile backsplash. I picked out new hardware which will match the beaten cooper farm sink, but am awaiting a price on that. Actually the hardware will match the Venitian bronze faucet.

Since I can't cook I am taking this opportunity to go on a low-carb diet for the next month so I can better enjoy the holidays.  I have to loose about five pounds by next weekend so I can fit in my concert skirt. Our 50th anniversary of the Durham Savoyards is Oct 19 and I am singing in a smallish chorus in a concert of a medley of Gilbert & Sullivan songs.

Today is my Aunt Liddy's birthday. I miss her very much.

 

Reflections

Our tour group, Sim and I are front and center

The Road Scholar trip was well worth it.  Since I have been home I have added more content to the older posts - fyi. There really is something special about the Black Hills and Badlands.  I couldn't always take a picture from the bus of the soaring scenery.  The granite and schist rocks stand up way above the road as you wind around.  The lighting ceremony at Mt Rushmore is very moving especially at the end when all the veterans in the audience go up on stage and take down the flag.  There were about 40 on the stage (but many more in the audience I suspect who did not go up). Each person said his name and branch of service.  One of our members was very moved as he stood up there.  He felt this was his parade and welcome home as he was in Vietnam in the '60s and got no celebration when he came home.

You can see from the drawn map below that we were in a small area of South Dakota.  The Black Hills are not part of the Rockies.  They are much older. Deadwood is in the northern area and Custer State Park is in the southern area.  The scenery is very different between the two.  My favorite moment was standing there next to Wild Bill and Calamity Jane in their cemetery home.  I found out from my brother, John, that Wild Bill and I are 12th cousins 5 times removed.  The common ancestor is Margaret Beauchamp 1409-1482.  Incidentally, Margaret Beauchamp was the grandmother of the person I am reading about in my book about Elizabeth of York.  Her name was Margaret Plantagenet and she was the daughter of George, Duke of Clarence and cousin to Elizabeth of York (Henry VIII's mother).  My mother was descended from Margaret Plantagenet, Countess of Salisbury.

 

 

Some of the wildlife we saw included big-horn sheep, prairie dogs, mule deer, elk, huge wild turkeys, pronghorn buck, and of course bison.  I do not need to do another bison roundup but it was really nice to do once.  I did see a lot of bison when I was in Yellowstone.  I was surprised to learn that most bison in the U.S. are actually beefalo.  You can't tell by looking because they appear like buffalo only smaller, but they are half bovine.  Evidently, only the ones in Yellowstone are pure bison.  Ted Turner has the largest supply of bison for his restaurants.

The Indians believed that the Black Hills were sacred ground and very spiritual.  There were no Indian battles there.  One of our speakers, John Esposti, who told us about the geology of the Hills and Badlands kept reciting poems by Badger Clark who used to live in Custer State park.  Below is one of his cowboy poems. A life-long resident of South Dakota, mostly in the Black Hills, Badger Clark was named Poet Laureate of that state in 1936, a title he retained for the remainder of his life.

Bison Roundup

On Friday, we got up early and rode the bus over to Custer State Park to wait for the bison to come over the hill and go into the corrals for culling. When there are more than about 800 bison, the park folks roundup the herds and find ones to sell or give to the Indian Reservations because the park grasslands will only support about 800. They will die of starvation otherwise. They thought there would be 1400 bison but only about 700 showed up for brucellosis vaccination, tagging, and inspection.

It was overcast and about 47 degrees; we were lucky we did not get the forecasted rain.  About 15,000 people came to watch the bison being rounded up by folks on horseback or truck.  It took about an hour of bumper to bumper traffic to get into the parking area at the southern tip of the park.  We took chairs and set them up by the road and waited about 2 hours before we saw the first bison come rolling over the hill.  We also saw a herd of elk who came to watch the roundup. It took about 30 minutes for the bison to come down near us, then they were running by very quickly so I didn't get really nice photos (see below - bottom one is a video). The parklands are beautiful and I would like to return there and stay in the cabins or lodges sometime.

We spent the afternoon at the Crazy Horse Memorial and watched the great grandchild of Sitting Bull dance for us with his son.  They are carving the mountain into a humongous statue of Crazy Horse ring his horse.  Not sure they will ever finish.

 

Crazy Horse mountain sculpture

 

 

1800's Train and Bison Lecture

On Thursday we rode an old train on a line from Keystone to Hill City.  We boarded the train from our hotel (K Bar S), and rode it about an hour passing the turning leaves of the aspen, ash, birch, and cottonwood trees.  We also passed ponderosa pine and woodbine (aka Virginia Creeper). In Hill City we went to a fossil museum that had all kinds of fossils, gems, rocks, and dinosaur bones including a huge T-Rex found in South Dakota. We had lunch at the Alpine House then rode the train back.  The train has been used in several movies and one "Gunsmoke" episode.


That evening we had a lecture from a Mohawk tribes woman who is an expert in bison. She brought a Buffalo Box filled with useful things made by dead buffalo. Most interesting was a piece of buffalo dung that is pure organic matter.  It has been cleaned by dung beetles that ate the undigested materials. Indian girls would have to go out each morning and collect the dried dung.  It was used for burning and made no smoke like a wood fire.  They used the brain stem bone as a paint brush because it was hard yet absorbed paint; excellent for painting on buffalo hides. For needles and thread they used carved bones and a long ligament that went from the tail to the neck.  They softened it and it shredded in long threads.  They tanned the hide by rubbing the brain matter over it which made it soft. It was all very interesting.