03 march 25

coffee in the a - frame & home renovations

Spring sprung, just as expected in western Montana. Days of sunshine and temps above 60 are intermixed with days hovering near 30, filled with snow and sleet. The only real snow remaining is up high and unpredictable conditions make planning adventures in the backcountry a little more meticulous and time consuming. Time being the main constraint here. Ajax and I are hitting our house-reno hard. The goal is to get this thing rentable by May 1st; it’s the final push. We’ve been spending most nights after work and the majority of our weekends at the house; trimming it out, painting, getting up gutters, fooling around with electrical and cleaning what’s been a construction site for nearly a year. Fingers crossed by the end of this week, it’ll be time to rip up the old ram board and expose the floors I haven’t seen in what feels like forever. They also need fixing, but the aforementioned constraint of time and (mostly) money has us waiting on that. We’re doing what we can with the time and funds we have, but the place needs a lot of work, even after we’re “done.” Even so, I look around at the arched doorways Ajax so carefully drywalled and the exposed brick walls I worked so hard to scrape, scrub and seal up and wish we were the ones moving in in May.

I sat down this morning to write this realizing I haven’t really thought about writing at all this month. In fact this is the first time I’ve sat down to write. I’ve also formed this habit of leaving the house without my camera and have very little film to share because of it.

I wrote about it in a post a year ago, (check it out here) but spring always feels more like the start of a new year than January does and with the green and the birds and extension in daylight, I’m hoping there will be more time for hitting the road and writing and taking pictures.

Here’s March’s fuel

Coffee

A couple Saturday’s ago, Ajax and I woke up early - crack of dawn kind of early - and skinned up to an old a-frame at the top of our local mountain. We made it up before the lifts started spinning to dry out, start a fire, make an Aeropress and plan the couple of runs we had time for that day.

We enjoyed a Washed Peru - Cajamarca - the first coffee I profiled entirely on my own. Washed coffees are general bright and crisp in flavor and this one follows suit. It exudes flavors of subtle citrus and cooked pome. It’ll be part of a 50/50 blend with a light roasted- washed Guatemala, at the shop I roast for, but I like it just by itself.

For the past 2 months I’ve been production roasting, which in simplest terms, is following someone else’s recipe. The “recipes” (or profiles) are saved in our roasting software and have all stages, gas adjustments and end temps for the coffees available to you each roast. Once a roaster creates the perfect profile, they can set that as the reference each time they roast that particular coffee. I’ve been chasing the bean curve that the previous roaster left for me - until this Peru and I’m stoked on it.

Location

I got out to ski a fair(ish) amount this month. Ajax and I made a couple backcountry trips up Lolo Pass and I skied St. Mary’s Peak down the bitterroot with a some friends for my birthday. We hit Snowbowl nearly every weekend, even if it was only for a run or two, but we haven’t gone much anywhere else than that. This isn’t quite “on brand” with this Substack of mine, but my favorite spot this month is our little house on the Northside. I fucking love that house. I love it’s neighborhood, often referred to as the cool ghetto - it’s on the up and up. I love our neighbor who just so happens to be the bartender at our favorite spot downtown. I love the rail yard and the sound of trains out front. I love all the work we’ve put into it to make it our own. The house we’re living in for our caretaking gig is big and beautiful and came fully furnished - which is great, but it’s not ours. If I say it’s hard for me to live in someone else’s house that they so carefully curated I come across as ungrateful, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. I am grateful. This opportunity is one of a kind and after we get some sweet folks to rent out the house (that I’m in love with) on the Northside and become mortgage free again, I surely can’t complain, but it is the place I want to call home someday.

Read

Anytime I sit down to read lately I fall right to sleep, but I did manage to listen to an audiobook - Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life. Wabi sabi is a Japanese philosophy that embraces imperfection and simplicity. A philosophy we all ought to live by, yet one so very challenging for a perfectionist such as me. Renovating a 100 year old home made me come to terms with the fact that most shit ain’t perfect. In fact, some things couldn’t be farther from it. It’s taught me to let go of some, quite frankly, unrealistic ideas and be happy with those that take their place. Wabi sabi is a term used in design too, offering an imperfect and natural aesthetic. Making do with the cracked, skewed, worn and warped materials that are already there, amplifying simplicity, minimalism, and asymmetry. Words to live by, or maybe just words to help me feel better about our old fucked up floors.

Record

Not a record I own, but would if I could; Susto Stringband (Volume 1). I’ve been a Susto fan since college, but this string album is something else. It’s been the background to every drive and late night work session as of late and will continue to be until we burn ourselves out.

Photo

From a ski up Lolo Pass

Shot on Olympus OM 10 | Rollei RPX 400Misc

Misc

I love the contrast of brown (soon to be green) against the snow up high in the mountains. This shoulder season occurrence eases into transition and makes for damn good photographs too.