Care packages! Camera lenses, Coffee, and (ahem) Curtains…

Okay, those pictures have finished uploading. Let’s give this a try.

Landlady was here this weekend! And the big news in care packages was actually stuff I had ordered for various projects, often months ago. Two examples…

I currently have two 5-gallon water bottles made for press-on lids – but only one cap, and that one has cracked in half. I use them for chicken water, which I have to haul with the Jeep from the Lair, and I have a line on more bottles which would allow me to store more at the chicken house for lean times like I suffered most of the winter – but only one cracked cap between them. Makes them messy to transport. Turns out you can order caps on Amazon, which I didn’t know till I thought to ask.

On that same subject of last winter’s water drought…

Something dried out in my sink faucet, and it’s been leaking ever since and the calcium from the constant seep is building a stalagmite in my sink. I can get a new faucet from the local Ace hardware – of course I can! For the wrong side of $100. Or I can order one online for much less money, and six weeks later it will arrive with the care packages. So here it is. I’m planning to spend part of the afternoon finishing the under-floor pipe insulation project, and then maybe I’ll man up and tackle my new faucet.

Care packages!

I mentioned this yesterday, an unexpected gift from Big Brother. Telephoto, wide-angle, and macro lenses that clamp on an iPhone. They really work, too, though in the small time I’ve taken so far to play with them the telephoto lens clamp is a real pain to align with the phone’s lens. The wide-angle is much more forgiving. (And now we’re definitely in the future, in which we do everything but actually make telephone calls with our telephones and someone is marketing aftermarket lens sets to address the “needs” of those of us who bitch about the lens quality of our “telephones.”)

A friend of the Gulch, returning from a once-banned trip to Cuba and recalling that Uncle Joel is a bit of a coffee snob, sent me a small jar of forbidden fruit just because.

I prefer a darker roast, but the flavor is really quite different and nice! Got to share it with Landlady during our Sunday morning kaffeeklatsch. We agreed that while different is good, this isn’t materially superior to anything sold in large quantities at any Trader Joe’s. It’s just the forbidden fruit thing.

Gifts of food from Big Brother and Colorado Hermit! Continuing CH’s holiday themes, I’m now caught up on Easter candy. 😀 Also, Torso Boy wishes it to be known that he likes Pup-peroni treats. More than is good for him, probably.

CH also sent a package of something she had lying around…

I’m not sure what this fabric is called; sort of a mesh. Not absolutely sure what I’m going to do with it, but – don’t laugh too loud – I have been thinking of whipping up some curtains for the front windows, and this would certainly match the flavor of the place. This chunk of fabric is roughly 5X12, which is wide enough for the front door and window if a little short for the window. Haven’t needed curtains in the nearly eight years I’ve lived here, but I was considering it just as this landed in my lap, so now I think I should take it as a sign.

Also! We’re ramping up to building season, probably (hopefully) the last major building project on the Secret Lair. In the next week or two we’ll be taking delivery for porch roof materials for both the Lair and Ian’s Cave, plus the Lair’s permanent porch floor. And Big Brother plans to come sometime in May for a brief but intense session finishing the porch construction. So that’s very cool – it has turned into an eventful weekend.

Thanks! You guys rock.