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A couple of months ago, I bought an Epson 2100 projector and mounted it near the ceiling of our “lounge”.

The picture was impressive. At 150″ diagonally, from a couch it feels almost as big as being in a real theater. But the wall is a slight yellow color and has a bumpy texture on it, which can be distracting at times.

I did some research and decided to make my own theater screen. Now, it’s possible to buy “professional-quality” projector paint, but it’s a wallet-blowing $250 per gallon. No thanks. Instead, I called my local Sherwin-Williams paint store and ordered a quart of primer and two quarts of pure unadulterated white. On my way to pick that up, I stopped in at Lowe’s to grab a few other supplies.

Thom is always blogging about his house projects, and he includes tons of photos about the process. So, in homage to him, I present the obligatory shot of my initial tools: drywall compound, a mixing pan, and a ten-inch drywall knife.

A bit of painter’s tape, some plastic sheeting and a few tarps, and I was ready to go. I layered the “mud” right over the textured wall, making sure it was thick enough to hide all the bumps.

After letting it dry for a day, I went in with a power sander (yes, Thom, it’s a DeWalt). I figured I’d generate a little bit of dust in the process, but sweet glory, I had no idea how bad it would be. The entire room was coated with a layer of very fine white powder. And, naturally, it drifted into the adjoining room as well. I literally spent three hours cleaning everything afterward. Note to self: next time, drape the entire area in plastic sheeting.

A second coat of mud to fill in the dents and anywhere it wasn’t smooth:

After another day of drying, and some touch-up sanding, I had a really nice and really flat wall. I peeled off the tape and admired my handiwork thus far.

Then it was time to paint. First, a layer of primer.

Wait a day. After it dried, I added a coat of white paint. Wait another day. Add a second coat.

Finally, I surrounded it with black velvet tape. Not only does it give the screen a more attractive border, but it helps with the picture contrast along the edges. It looks pretty sharp!

And today, the final test:

Yeah, so Tron Legacy wasn’t the best choice in broad daylight. Dark movies don’t show up well with all the ambient light. But once night fell, we sat down to watch an episode of Lost and it looked amazing. It’s noticeably better than the old wall, and will be a ton of fun.

The only problem? It doesn’t get dark until almost ten o’clock. And it’s not even summer yet! I guess our movie nights will have to wait until midnight…

For the first time in the nearly eight months we’ve lived in Montana, the temperature hit 70 degrees!

Today was the warmest, nicest day we’ve had. A perfect time to sit on the porch eating dinner and overlooking the lake.

It’s been interesting to look at the COVID statistics for different states over the past few months, particularly as things start to “reopen”. In Montana, to date there have been a total of sixteen deaths, which is impressive compared with the 48 other states (only Alaska has fewer). Today I was looking at the graph of deaths over time, and I noticed something troubling.

On April 3, one fewer person had died from the virus. Obviously that means someone was either resurrected, or has become an undead infectee. It’s either a miracle… or the start of a (very slow) zombie apocalypse.

We have a lot of things growing in our yard. A lot. Over the winter, when most of it was dormant, it was hard to know what was dead, what would come back, and which were weeds. Now that things are greening up, we’re starting to see some cool plants and flowers blossom.

On the eaves of the forest is a patch of… something. Maybe these are weeds, but they look cool.

We have some enormous flower beds along the sidewalk and courtyard, and a gazillion tiny flowers are appearing.

I was picking dandelions (they’re everywhere) and it seemed like a couple of honeybees were following me around. They seemed to like the dandies, and got a little frustrated when I kept pulling them up and tossing them into a bucket. One of my little friends gave up on the dandelions and decided to go for this little white flower instead (see him just right of center?).

Now we’re deciding which plants to pull. There are a lot of dead and half-dead ones, and a lot of others that are just plain ugly (and may very well be long-time weeds). Ahh, yard work…

This package came for Pepper today:

You can pretty much tell by the packaging that it’s gonna be amazing.

All over the Flathead Valley, the cherry trees are in full blossom. There was a bit of a scare with a late frost a few weeks ago, but it looks like the trees weathered it okay. Our orchard is looking great.

I know very little about how to grow cherries, but with some hired help, we’ll get through the season. I’m excited for late July, when they’ll be ripe and ready to pick!

Finally! After a long afternoon of working in the yard, I enjoyed a nice relaxing soak in the hot tub.

Mission accomplished!

A few weeks ago, Kyra and I did some prep work on the hot tub. At the time, things didn’t turn out so well, and we learned that the motor was kaput. After some research, I ordered a new one online. I also ordered the myriad of chemicals one needs to keep the water in balance, and then sat back to wait.

Over the last few days, the online orders have trickled in and now I have all the stuff I need. Kyra and I cleaned out the spa (again) and I installed the new motor. It proved to be all sorts of adventure, as house projects tend to be for me, but in the end everything seemed ready to go. I filled it with clean, crisp well water (again), set the temperature, and walked away.

To my delight, everything worked and the water warmed up. It’s currently sitting out there at a nice 102 degrees. I still need to play around with the chemicals, adjusting the pH and alkalinity and all that, but I’ll get it sorted out.

Tomorrow we plan to go out on the lake, and after a few hours of that cold water, I suspect a soak in the hot tub will be pretty nice. I’m looking forward to Hot tub, part 3.

When we moved to Montana last fall, the trees were just starting to turn color. The larch were absolutely stunning, practically glowing yellow against the dark green of the pine and fir. This was the view of our backyard last October:

Larch are the only coniferous trees to lose their needles during the winter months, and let me tell you, once they do… they’re ugly. They look dead, with a bunch of spindly branches.

But as spring comes around in earnest, they’re starting to bud and the light green leaves are, again, an interesting contrast against the other darker trees in the forest.

Pretty soon it’ll look like a real forest again!

One of my favorite things to do is go out to a restaurant for lunch or dinner. In the midst of all this coronavirus hullabaloo, I’ve missed that. We bought a bunch of gift cards from local restaurants, just to provide them some support while they were closed. Now that Montana (and much of the country) is re-opening, it’s time to use those cards!

On Monday, we started out with lunch at Cove Pizza in Polson. We were the only ones in the restaurant, which felt a little weird.

Then it was dinner at Outback Steakhouse in Missoula. (No, we didn’t drive an hour and a half to Missoula just for that… we happened to be in the city anyway.)

On Wednesday, Kyra and I took a jaunt up to Bigfork for lunch at Rosa’s Pizza. (But I forgot to snap a photo…)

Today we were up in Kalispell, so we dropped in at Mackenzie River Pizza.

Everyone was being respectful of social distancing and all that, so it seemed fine. I’m excited for things to (gradually) return to some sense of normalcy.