Mobile Home Makeover

We had a smaller crew for our 3rd work weekend of 2024, with several of our regulars out of state or otherwise occupied. The agenda was to spruce up the dilapidated double wide trailer we are currently using as our home base and to get the lion’s share of the planting done in the ever-expanding garden.

It’s hard to describe the state of the trailer when it was first purchased. It had no running water or electricity. The people who had been living there had been filling a bucket at the artesian well about 150 feet from the door in order to fill the toilets so that they could be flushed. The outside was a mess. The original paint was peeling off in sheets. Shingles were missing altogether on the roof. The yard was filled with trash. The deck on the back was so rotted that walking on it was unsafe. There was mouse feces everywhere. It was a literal shithole. 

Some people would take one look at that tattered tenement and declare it a teardown with conviction and an expression of disgust on their face. 

Not this crew.

Katherine proud of her handiwork

In the past couple of years, we’ve fixed the water and electric, painted inside, tore down the back deck, replaced the roof, replaced the windows, cleaned, straightened, replaced appliances, and generally made it quite a serviceable abode, thank you very much. Yet, from the street, it still looked like a teardown. That changed this weekend. Katherine (pictured triumphantly right) and Roxie, armed with a paint gun, painted the entire house almost single handedly, with a crew helping with touch up around windows and doors and such. Meanwhile, another crew was adding aluminum skirting around the base of the house. What an incredible transformation! We also scraped the peeling paint off the front porch in preparation for painting, as it now looks quite out of place attached to this posh, palatial property.

In the garden, we did a lot of planting in beds that had already been prepared by Lincoln. Lettuce, radish, onion, fava beans, arugula, cabbage. He’s already planted carrots, mustard greens, kale, among others. It's still too early for frost-sensitive crops, as San Luis Valley has been known to zing its gardening residents with early June frosts to take down their tomatoes and peppers. We also painted lovely little signs for each bed to indicate what was planted in each.

There was, of course, fun had of the more traditional variety as well. We were blessed with near perfect weather. Saturday night was a hang out at the land. Sunday night was a group trip to Joyful Journey Hot Springs, just down the road. We ate well, as is our tradition, and laughed often, as is our proclivity.

Thank you to all who attended and participated.

We're not done with the house. Coming up is still replacing the flooring, remodeling the kitchen, painting, the front porch, and rebuilding the back deck.

Our next work weekend will be of a different sort entirely, and will be a very special occasion. SLIC will be hosting a Commemorative event and Dedication on July 27 to be attended by local community members, Russ's family, and anyone who would like to come. (Want to join for the dedication? Learn more and RSVP here.) We will be dedicating Gail's Way in honor of Russ's mother, who was instrumental in making the land purchase possible, but who departed from this life shortly after. We will be providing food and non-alcoholic beverages as well as shade from the mid-July Valley sun. The work that weekend is the community event, and so SLIC will be needing volunteers to help us to support it Friday, July 26 and July 27; we will hang out on Sunday together and celebrate. Please let us know if you can make it!

In addition, the weekend of June 21, we are having a members-only visioning weekend to start to get a picture of where we are going with this wild project. The original vision was the inspiration. Now it's time for the community to run with it.