3/8/16 Tuesday

Another busy day at the Restore.  Dave was busy most of the day picking up items that were donated by people.  A lovely couch, table and chair set and a chaise lounge came in from one lady.  We also had people dropping by the store with donated items: sinks, toilets, hardware, stovepipe, etc.  Wilma and I priced things as they came in and got them out on the floor (in between waiting on about 100 customers).  Some things went as soon as they were priced.  The truck went out three times and came back with lots of items each trip so the day just flew by.  Dave is feeling much better today so the medicine in working - yeah!  Tomorrow is another pick up and delivery day so I imagine we will be busy again.  I think people are doing their spring cleaning.  We had a man come in looking for long poles.  He makes bluebird houses and donates them so we gave him a great deal on some poles we had.  I have only seen one bluebird since we have been here, but he said to take a walk down by the river as they are coming in to set up house and he has seen a dozen at a time.  I just fed the cats and dogs and we will have dinner shortly.  Hopefully, Louise will get home on time tonight.

3/7/16 Monday

We had a quiet morning - did some laundry and caught up on a bit of housekeeping.  Today is Kyle's birthday so I baked a cake: chocolate with lemon filling between the layers, lemon frosting on top and decorated with raspberries.  Angel, Kyle's partner came over to cook lunch as a surprise.  He made capreese salad, homemade pasta with veggies, shrimp, chicken and garlic toast.  Everything was delicious!  We had a good time chatting and laughing about different things.  The time just flew by.  I don't imagine anyone is going to be hungry for dinner after that huge lunch so I think we will just pick for dinner.  Tomorrow is back to the ReStore, but we will wait and see how Dave is feeling - I may go in on my own if he is still not up to par.  We saw a golden eagle fly across the pond this morning - magnificent creature.  Dave just threw a few more branches in the pond for the beavers, but it is still early yet for them to appear.

3/5 and 6 Saturday and Sunday

Dave wasn't feeling up to par on Saturday so we decided to go to the San Luis Valley Museum in town.  It was a small museum, but had some interesting exhibits,  I will included a picture of a wagon used by one of the first settlers to bring his family to Alamosa and a pic of the classroom they have set up inside the museum.  We had a lovely chat with one of the docents and told her that we would send them some scratch pens to exhibit in the inkwells on the desks.  We then ran some errands and came home for lunch.  Dave took a nap while Louise and I went for a walk with the dogs.  In the late afternoon, we went out to Monte Vista to the wildlife refuge and saw hundreds of cranes coming in to roost for the evening.  It was really quite amazing.  We drove up to Monte for dinner at the Mouintain View Restaurant and then drove home and watched a movie about birding called The Big Year.  It was actually pretty good.

Dave still wasn't feeling great this morning so Louise and I went to Zapata Falls.  We drove about 4 miles up a dirt road and then had to hike about 1/4 mile on an ice covered path from 9000 feet elevation to 9400 feet.  The views along the path were awesome.  The falls were inside of a granite walled canyon.  The falls were completely frozen, but I think they were all the more beautiful because of that.  We could hear the water flowing underneath the ice.  When we got back, Louise called in a Z-pack prescription for Dave as it sounds like he is coming down with bronchitis again.  We will have leftovers for dinner tonight and then we may watch another movie.  It is overcast and cloudy today.  The forecast was for rain, but the sun did come out for a bit this afternoon so I'm not sure that we will see the rain.

3/4/16 Friday

The weather is a little crazy here:  It was 28 this morning and in the 60's this afternoon.  Bizarre!  Although, everyone here says it is usually warm this year.  As we drove into town, we had to slow down to let a large mule deer stag cross the road.  We had rather a slow day today - about 100 people and $500.  Dave and Rhonda went to pick up a small desk that someone donated.  I chatted for awhile with Mary Susan, one of the volunteers.  She is one of six women in her family and they are all named Mary: Mary Victoria, Mary Geraldine, etc.  Sounds rather like what George Foreman did to his sons.  She is very nice - a former social worker.  The oddest customer we had today was a 76 year old woman who came in to buy paint.  She lives off the grid in one of those sheds that you can buy to store lawnmowers, etc.  She actually has 3 of them: one for nice weather, an insulated one for winter (which she heats with candles - sounds dangerous to me) and one for storage.  She had a neighbor rebuild her chicken coop and picked out blue paint for it.  She said "I hope the rooster likes the color".  I had to bite my lip so I wouldn't laugh as she was dead serious!  When we drove home past the golf course, we noticed quite a few people out playing - it was a lovely afternoon.  We hope to go the the sand dunes again tomorrow to do some hiking so I will try to get some more pictures.

3/3/16 Thursday

No pix today.  We were very busy at the store: 157 customers and $932 worth of goods sold.  We sold one of the saddles, two fridges, some doors, a hope chest, a chair and other assorted goods.  We were busy all day.  Weather wise, the wind died down overnight.  It was 30 this morning and the temp was 60 when we got done at 3:00 - nice day.  We went grocery shopping after work and gassed up the car in anticipation of our road trips this weekend.  I just put a meatloaf in the oven for dinner and a banana bread for breakfast. Louise got home late last night so I hope she gets done earlier today so she can eat with us.  Hope we have more exciting things to blog about this weekend.

3/2/16 Wednesday

I seems hard to believe that we have been here for two weeks - time really does fly, especially when you are busy.  We had another busy day at the store: 108 customers and $560 in sales.  For a small store, they certainly do a lot of business.  We had an older woman come in yesterday just after we opened.  She donated two beautiful saddles that she said didn't fit her horse any longer (not being a horse person, I'm not sure how that happens).  Everyone who came in today stopped to admire the saddles, but only one person seemed very interested and he didn't have enough money to buy them.  Dave, Rhonda, and Kim went out to do a pick-up.  They came back with a side-by-side fridge, 4 sets of Pella sliding glass doors, a glass shower door, 2 sets of swinging "saloon" doors, and various other items, most of which were heavy.  They were all pooped when they came back.  We unloaded and priced everything and Rhonda called someone on the wish list who was looking for a fridge so hopefully we can move that out tomorrow.  After work Dave and I went out to the wildlife refuge (Louise was going to come too, but she got slammed with patients this afternoon) to look for cranes.  We saw mule deer, a variety of ducks and geese.  Apparently, we were too early as we saw hundreds of cranes, but none were landing.  If you squint at the picture you can see one of the groups that flew overhead.  We would have stayed longer as people say that they tend to settle as dusk approaches, but Dave was really tired so we came home and decided we would go again with Louise this weekend.  It was in the mid 50's this afternoon, but extremely windy - we ran over some blowing tumbleweeds with the car.

3/1/16 Tuesday

We had a fairly busy day at the store today: 105 customers and about $580 in sales.  Dave and Rhonda took the van and cart and went to pick up aluminum cans (Habitat gets money for the cans.  I am so glad we have a deposit on soda cans in CT).  They took the cans to the recycler.  He is a sheep farmer and does recycling on the side.  They then went to Monte Vista and picked up a stove, dishwasher, a hope chest, a bicycle, a large mirror and assorted other items from two private homes.  Quite a few of the items sold as soon as we got them priced.  A customer that came in last week, came back again today with a large bone he found on this property.  Dave looked at it and determined it was a mammoth vertebra.  I will include the photo I took of it.  Dave and I ran to the grocery store after work.  We didn't see any new animals today, but I will put a few pictures on of the ReStore.  The weather has been lovely - 20's at night and low 60's during the day - quite pleasant.  I am a bit jealous as Dave saw a half dozen cranes while out in the truck.  We may go after work tomorrow to see the cranes as I am feeling deprived (or maybe depraved?).  Tonight we had mozzarella crusted chicken for dinner - yummy!