Ready to rent

Last Thursday night, exactly four weeks after closing, the place is ready to rent. Finished up some minor items inside, and wrapped up the landscaping.

After several comments about the yard I figured I really needed to do something. My wife's something of a gardener, so I twisted her arm into helping out. She picked up some plants at Lowes, and got those in last Wednesday night. I worked on the sprinklers, and mostly, but not completely, go those working. I realized I had missed getting one set of parts, so couldn't get them going. I also managed to blow the fuse in the sprinkler timer in the process of replacing the bad valve.

On Thursday I picked up the missing pieces, a couple more butterfly bushes and fuses, and finished up the sprinklers and landscaping. Unfortunately, it was rainy yet again. Normally, we would have very little rain by this time of year. But this has been an unusually wet year. By the time I got to the house on Thursday, it was pouring. After setting in the truck for a bit waiting for it to ease up, I made a dash inside. I worked on inside stuff for a while, mostly cleaning up. When the rain stopped, I started working outside. Unfortunately, the cloudburst had flooded the valve box. That made for an entertaining time of fixing the valves, but I managed to get them working. I had somehow messed up the wiring and even though the replacement was working, another wasn't. Alls well now. Got the remaining plants in, and got all the sprinklers working. Put down some grass seed and was raking it in when the clouds burst yet again. So, I took the time to run to HD for a few more pieces. The rain had eased up by the time I got back, but showed no signs of stopping this time. So, finished up hooking up the remaining heads (these little mini sprinkler things in the beds) in the rain. Of course, it stopped just about the time I finished.

Nevertheless, its all done. Crammed as much stuff from the garage as I could into the truck and headed home.

We had a long weekend in Glenwood Springs. This is out on the western side of Colorado. They have a big hot spring there and a gigantic pool that's too hot to set in for more than a few minutes on one end but cools down a bunch by the time it gets to the other end. We usually go up there in winter. Always an experience to set in a outdoor pool while the snow falls and the lifeguards wear parkas. We drove down to Aspen Saturday afternoon to check out the farmers market. Picked up a few things including some very cool but way too expensive handblown glasses. Had lunch at a place where all the waitresses looked like models. Didn't even bother looking in most of the stores.

After getting back I had a showing on the place. Yet again a very interested prospect who wants to move in at the end of July. I've had a lot of this lately, both on this place and another recent vacancy. Seems odd people are looking so far in advance of when they need to move. So, I now have a couple of folks who seem like good prospects but don't want to move in for several weeks. I'll keep trying for the next couple of weeks, and if nobody moves in, I'll give them a call back.