Skull Valley

Yesterday afternoon was very pleasant with white billowy clouds in the sky. We were caught up on other activities and so we decided to go for a little ride. We went into Prescott and down Whiskey Row, which happens also to be route 89 out of town. We followed 89 Southwest for about thirty miles or so over a mountain ridge that is in the Prescott National Forest. This is a hilly, curvy road with terrific views that would be just great on a motorcycle but not so much in a motor home. Since we were in a car, it was just fine. We headed down as far as Kirkland Junction and then turned West about 5 miles to Kirkland. Kirkland had a bar and hotel and restaurant all in one building right on the corner. It looked at least a century old. It was the only building in town. We turned right just before the railroad tracks and then drove North through Skull Valley.

When I saw the name Skull Valley I pictured the old cartoon of the two vultures sitting in a tree where one says to the other "patience, hell, I'm going to kill something". But Skull Valley didn't turn out to be the desolate wasteland I had anticipated. There is a stream that runs through the valley, albeit underground, that provides water for irrigation and there were many green fields and large cottonwood trees that gave the valley a lushness that has been hard to find. Of course, away from the valley bottom it was still rocks and sand and desert.

The village of Skull Valley has a few buildings, including a school, a garage (above) and a general store.

This is an old time general store that has been here for ages. It serves the community as a convenience store with a few common items and several coolers of cold drinks. One guy came in while we were there and said "I need an energy drink" and grabbed an oversize can of Bud Light. The store plays up the community name with an assortment of t-shirts and other items but it still is a community hub with local ads and announcements. It has the old wooden floors and a reminder of the time when the local store was also the post office.

The walls were decorated to enhance the effect with some stuff you don't see in a Cracker Barrel.

They had a couple of freezers stocked with grass fed beef from a local ranch just up the road. They even offered free recipes to go with the various cuts. And they had this gorgeous old chopping block.

We bought drinks and ice cream and I couldn't resist a shirt and then we continued on up the valley and back home through Prescott. A very nice drive of about three hours through some varied and beautiful country with good road all the way.

Oh, the name? It was acquired in the 1860's when the first white men entered the valley and found lots and lots of bones and skulls that were the remnants of a savage battle between the resident Pima Indians and some opportunistic Yavapai Indians who sought to rob the Pimas of their food stores during a drought.

In the morning, I had finished up with a project that had occupied us for the last several days. We hung a screen door on the back entrance of the house. My cousin had bought this screen door earlier and painted it but wasn't sure how to get it installed. I figured that with my woodworking and carpentry skills, this would be a way in which I could help out. I'm used to working with power tools and hand tools but this was a project with almost no tools. The first thing was that the existing doorway is about 1/2" out of square and plumb. So, the best approach seemed to be to apply the door to the outside of the existing casing. OK, no big deal. I went to the local Lowes and the young man I talked to had never heard of brick molding. But they had some none the less. I brought it back and proceeded to figure out how to cut the miters on the ends. All we had was a plastic miter box and saw that looked like it came from Dollar General. Fortunately, we also had an old Sears Craftsman contractors saw. First, I had to tune up the table saw so that it would cut and then true up the miter gauge so it would give me the correct angle, but I got the corners cut and the molding fitted.

That did it for the frame but I still needed a threshold. I tried a pre-made aluminum unit from the big box but had to take it back because there just wasn't room for it. That meant I had to make one. I searched all over Prescott and finally found the last piece of white oak in town, a really pretty piece of 1 x 5 with curly figure that was barely straight enough to use. A new blade for the table saw cut it off to length and then struggled to taper one edge, leaving some burn marks. The burn marks just laughed at a palm sander so I knew it was time for a scraper. So how do you scrape without a scraper? I ground a burr on the end of a farrier's rasp and away we went. With a coat of maple stain and some urethane it looked pretty good.

So we hung the door and installed some spring hinges and a closer and a diagonal rod to keep the door from sagging and a handle to open it with. Then we needed a catch. We had gotten one of those external catches that are hinged and have rollers on it and the door hits a roller and the thing then rotates around and holds the door shut. It looks like it was made in China from recycled beer cans it's so flimsy, but it gets the job done. But, it needed to be mortised into the brick mold to be in the right position to work. That means we needed a chisel. No problem, there are four chisels out in the shop. Boy, I have screwdrivers sharper than these chisels. I picked the best of the lot and worked on it with a grinder. This thing had 6" wheels, well rounded, no dresser and something that only vaguely resembled a rest. But with the grinder and some SC paper stuck to the table saw table, I managed to get a pretty good edge on it. Mortise done, catch installed and everything works like we knew what we were doing. We called it Cowboy Carpentry.