The Door (continued) and Prickly Pear Wine

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  new door in side

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  new door other side

So, last evening I finally hung the new door. There’s still work to do. I’m going to stain the inside, and then cover the whole door inside and out with a polymer to protect it from UV light, and make it water resistant. And I need to replace the damaged weatherstripping. This door should last at least 50 years. The old one was soft pine, not fir wood. Haha. I mentioned to my stepdaughter that the door was made of fir, and she pictured fur. A furry door. I laughed at that. It’s a really hilarious image. She looked at me like she was questioning my sanity.

She makes me laugh. We spent hours together recently, which was unusual. We used to have lunch together on her porch during the pandemic. Her job became a work-at-home one, and she was happy with that. She clocked in every day, and was meticulous about working her set hours, so we didn’t have more than an hour for lunch. Then, she got laid off. No more job. She’s OK for now; she’d put some money away in case that happened. It had happened to her before. We still had lunch a few times after that, but she was only comfortable with about an hour’s time. Sometimes she needs to keep to her running schedule; sometimes she likes her privacy.

But last Thursday, I wanted to show her some photo canvases I had made of photos I’d taken when we both used to work for the Anasazi Fields winery in Placitas. We both miss working there, and we dearly miss the winery’s founder and vintner, Jim Fish. So sometimes we drink the wines we used to make, and remember both wine and vintner.

Here is one of the canvases. She liked it and hung it right after I left.

It’s called a Nopalito Sunrise. Nopal cactus is better known as prickly pear cactus. Nopalitos are the pads of the cactus, which is used as a vegetable. We fermented the fruit only. Some people make prickly pear jelly, or candy from the fruit, which is called tuna. The word tuna is from the Taino culture in the Caribbean, but is commonly used in Southwestern Spanish for the prickly pear fruit.

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So, Jim Fish created this drink. Champagne is poured in the glass, followed by the prickly pear wine (Napolito, as coined by Jim). The wine is poured slowly, often using a spoon, just like a Black & Tan. In this drink the prickly pear wine floats on top of the champagne. In a Black & Tan, Guinness floats on top of a layer of pale ale.

So, to commerate the occasion, I brought champagne (local – Gruet), and one of the last half bottles of our Nopalito. The color of the Napolito wine is bright purple when fresh, and turns a bit red with the champagne. Unfortunately, the color fades over time in the bottle because we never used preservatives or sulfites in our wines. Much of what is left is a light brown, but tastes the same.

Perhaps it was the champagne, but we ate our spring rolls, and a skewer each of pork or chicken, and drank Nopalito Sunrises, and talked for hours. We’d never done that before, and it was great. We shared memories, and secrets, and laughs.

So, the door, the door. I always get distracted. In the process of taking this door from a large heavy piece of carved wood into an actual door, I used:

• a hand plane
• a hammer
• nails
• four short (2 x 4)s
• two joist hangers
• a pair of pliers
• two chisels
• clamps
• a sanding block
• a tape measure
• a combination square
• a drill
• a circular saw
• two hole cutters
• a nail set, or punch
• two sawhorses
• pencils
• a pencil sharpener
• a mortise gauge
• a drill bit
• a small router bit
• screwdrivers
• an adjustable wrench
• a linoleum or carpet knife
• and a 36 inch wooden ruler

It was a lot of work – for me – to hang a manufactured door, especially when I needed to perfectly match the existing frame, including the existing hinges, and the holes for the door lock and deadbolt. It worked! The door hangs centered in the frame, it opens and closes smoothly, and both the doorknob lock and the deadbolt function flawlessly. Did I mention how heavy this door is? Solid core, solid fir. I had to carry it to the sawhorses, flip it over, stand it on its edge and rotate it to the opposite edge or surface many times, including testing it in the doorframe after each modifcation. Sure, it took a lot of time, not the least of which was thinking about each tool, and concentrating on not ruining the door. I got a few small splinters, and a small cut which turned into a blood blister after a screwdriver slipped. But I never dropped the door on my toes, which would have broken them or my foot. Did I mention this door was heavy? It doesn’t exactly come with handles, so I had to stretch my arms wide and lift it in all directions. I’m not complaining.

In fact, I enjoyed it. I stopped when I wasn’t sure of something. I stopped when I got frustrated, like when planing took days, or when chiseling never seemed to keep those hinge slots level and uniformly deep. There are electric planes, I found, just like there are table saws, but this was mostly a by-hand project. I did use an electric drill for the door holes, and an electric circular saw to trim the bottom edge, but I think of those as hand tools. After all, I used them in my hand, not built into a large metal table with adjustable rails to keep everything straight and even. Not because I’d have been against that, but I have no place to house such things, nor a steady need for such things.

Things didn’t always go smoothly. The door still had some sap, right where I drilled the holes, and although I drilled each hole halfway from either side, it almost got wrenched out of my hand when it jammed up in a hole. As it was, the jig I slipped over the door as a guide got bumped, so the hole looks a bit funny inside, but that’s OK.

I’ve lots of tools left over from a lifetime of fixing things, or adding things, like a door, or a 12 foot by 20 foot addition to a house, roofing an entire house, and working with concrete. They don’t get much use now, as I rent the place I live in. I could have asked the landlord to hire someone to do work like this, but I’d much rather do it myself. And using tools is so satisfying.

The Door, part 2, no thanks to the HOA

If you have read the previous entry on this blog (The Door), you know I brought a solid Fir door home from a door shop. The shop is located near the train tracks where they intersect with Rio Bravo Blvd in Albuquerque, although that area is also known as “The South Valley.” Parts of it, especially along the major roads, are part of and serviced by the City of Albuquerque, New Mexico, officially founded as a Spanish colony in 1706. The rest is part of the County of Bernalillo, named for the Gonzales-Bernal family that lived in the area before 1692, and created by the Territorial Legislature in 1852. The town of Bernalillo was founded by Don Diego de Vargas, a Spanish Governor of the New Spain territory of Santa Fe de Nuevo México in 1695. Before that, the local inhabitants, now called Native Americans, lived here for thousands of years before the continent was named Amerigo after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci. A map created in 1507 by Martin Waldseemüller, a German cartographer, was the first to depict part of this continent with the name “America,” a Latinized version of “Amerigo,” although he only meant to use the name for a specific part of Brazil. In 1538, Gerardus Mercator used America to name both the North and South continents on his influential maps. Colonialism produces odd names.

Anyway, enough rambling. I am still working on the door. I cut off a section of the bottom edge easily enough. But I only needed to remove 1/4 inch of the long edge of the door. Although my hand held circular saw was good enough to trim the bottom of the door to fit the frame, I do not trust it or myself to use a 1/8 inch saw blade to remove 1/4 inch of material from a length of 78 1/2 inches, perfectly straight and at a perfect right angle with the flat plane of the door. So, speaking of planes, since, as I said, I do not have access to a table saw, I needed to plane the edge with a hand tool of the type created in the 1860s for that very purpose. Simple, is what I thought. However, Fir wood is very dense, and difficult to work with. You need very sharp tools with a strong edge. I had to sharpen the cutting edge of my hand plane several times over the course of several days to finish that one edge. But it came out beautiful – perfectly level and smooth. These are photos from just before I began planing.

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I could find no pre-made jig to hold the door upright on it’s opposite edge, so I made my own. I used a couple of 2-by-4s to hold each of two joist hangers, and braced one edge with the piece of the bottom edge of the door that I cut in half to use for that purpose. I butted one edge against my fireplace banco, so all of my planing had to be done towards the fireplace. As heavy as I thought the door was, and even after I placed a lead brick at each end, the whole door would still move in the direction of the shaving cuts of the hand plane. It was slow going, and very tiring. I took my time to make sure it would be done right.

So, when I finsihed with that a few days ago, I removed the old door, and placed the new one in the opening. It was a perfect fit on the upright sides, but the door frame itself is not a perfect rectangle. The top edge was too high on one side. So, then I had to cut off a tapered piece, starting from 1/4 inch deep at one edge, to zero about three quarters of the way to the other edge. Mission accomplished, but it is very slightly off according to my straight edge. However, it is so slight as to not be noticeable once the door is installed.

Now for the door hinges. I marked the hinge, door knob, and deadbolt positions from the current ones, while I had the door wedged into place. Now I am working on the notches for the door hinge. First I measured the depth of the notch, and made cuts to the 1/8 inch line I scribed. Then I made extra cuts to asssist with chiseling out the wood from the notches. More hand tools. I love it. Next time I will discuss cutting the holes for the door handle and deadbolt.

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In the meantime, I am having to deal with the beaurocractic nature of the Home Owner’s Association, which not only dictates the colors used to paint any part of the outside of the houses, but also requires that a form be submitted to the architectural committee of the HOA before performing any modifications, even to the choice of color and and the paint manufacturer. I learned my lesson about that before, but the HOA board changes all the time, and no one seems to understand what was written. This is what is posted on our bulletin board:

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Now, I studied this for a while to make sure I understood it. The first three colors are only for gates, doors and trim INSIDE of private courtyards (patios), and may only be used for those. The next five colors, and the attached piece of lumber depict the colors, including varnished natural wood, that can be used for gates, doors and trim BOTH inside and outside of the private courtyards. The first three colors cannot be used for any trim (canales, protruding beams, etc.) outside of the courtyards.

Here are the actual pertinent written instructions from the bylaws of the HOA:

“Beams/Vigas, Canales, Window Trim and Fences located OUTSIDE an individual courtyard:

“Natural wood colors (varnished, natural, stained), Sable (Sherwin Williams SW6083), Tiki Hut (Sherwin Williams SW7509), Whirlpool (Sherwin Williams SW9135) Turkish Tile (Sherwin Williams SW7610), and Jade Dragon (Sherwin Williams SW9129).

“Entry Gates, Front Doors, Window Trim and Beams/Vigas located entirely WITHIN individual courtyards: ANY OF THE ABOVE COLORS plus the following additional colors which may only be used on an entry gate, door or within a courtyard:

“Earthen Jug (Sherwin Williams SW7703), Salute (Sherwin Williams SW7582), and Rivulet (Sherwin Williams SW6760).”

These people are, like many HOAs, simply obsessive and compulsive. And who knows who originally chose those colors, anyway? Be that as it may be, these people who are walking around documenting violations of these bylaws, do not understand the bylaws they quote. I’m told that only those first three colors can be used to paint my gate or door. I repaired and painted my entry gate (with the approved color) after receiving a notice to do so. However, I did not get committee approval by submiting a form about my intended “modification” first. That’s absurd. There is a series of recurring $25 fines for violating the rules, which escalate to $100 per day. And you get fined if you use the approved colors without first submitting an “Architectural Control Committee Request for Approval Form” Just to paint! and with the “correct” paints. Beaurocracy at its finist. I’m working with my landlord now to get those requests in, so I can install the door. My landlord is having to restucco the entire house due to chips and cracks in the existing stucco, after just having to repair a leaking roof, a process that took a year to get approval for and schedule the roofing work, while it continued to leak!

I need approval to replace the evaporative cooler. And Lowe’s Hardware quoted $1500 above the purchase price of $400 to install one of their coolers. I and my landlord’s nephew are going to do it ourselves, if I ever finish this door and get approval from the asshats in the HOA to install it, varnish it, and seal it.

My landlord is tired of all this, and offered to sell the place to me with really good terms, but I don’t know if I could deal with these people anymore. All this aggravation, and I would have to pay about $380 a month in HOA fees just for the privilege of being told what I can and cannot do with my house. But the housing and rental market is rising. Rents are getting too high for me to move even now. I’m retired and seventy years old. I don’t want to move, but I can’t imagine buying a house again either.

Well, at least I have my health, huh?

Models Are Fun(ny)

I attended a shoot recently that the organizer themed as Bicycles & Miniskirts. Miniskirts were huugely popular in the 1960s. Some of the bicycles were vintage, and instead of a miniskirt, one woman wore a minidress, and everyone had fun. These are a few of the hundreds of photos that I took, on the mesa west of Albuquerque, NM. Please do not use or repost these copyrighted photos without permission, in fairness to the models.

Gracie Lou

Nicole

Marisol

Kristy G.

Kristy is represented by DMe Talent Agency, used with permission.

The photoshoot was for the purpose of using some of the photos in CliQ Magazine International, edited and published by Dave Stabley. See: CliQ MAGAZINE INTERNATIONAL.