Goals

I posted last night that we had decided to get up earlier each morning to tend to our garden. And here is Day #1, cold and early, we planted carrots, radishes, lettuce, onions, and for some reason, beets. Additional planting tomorrow. It was a good way to start a day, after a cup of hot coffee of course.

Yesterday, Coffee Bean issued a challenge on her blog, righteousbuzz. I decided to play along since it has come at a time I needed a push. My belongings were in storage for a year. Once we moved into the Log House, we emptied storage and piled my boxes in our spaceous garage. The majority of my 'stuff' is unpacked and put away. But a large mess remains. Boxes of items not needed daily. Seasonal things, photos and albums, decorating stuff, and just stuff. There is plenty that needs to be done outdoors and I have just slacked off on the indoor settling in.

I went out this morning and took pictures. Humiliating.....

...an embarrassing mess

But I have taken the challenge and my goal is to have this stuff unpacked and in proper places by the end of May. *gulp* I will keep you posted on my progress.

Not that anyone really cares, but it may motivate me.

Dang, why not plan to drop 50# by the end of the year while I'm on a roll here.

OK, that's enough, three goals in one post is all I can handle. Anyone else care to play along?

Monday

Another weekend gone.

Daughter and grandson made it home safely very late Saturday night. They had a few delays and were glad to finally reach home. Tristan went back to school today. If you are wondering, he does very well in school and his teacher had no problem granting him permission to miss classes last week. He enjoys learning and is one of those who researches topics that interest him.

I realized after speaking to another family member yesterday, that my daughter did not send out graduation announcements. She graduated from college last week, with high honors, as an educator in Art. I am very proud of her, so is her son. She will make a superb teacher!

Congratulations Amy!

After work Saturday, I got home and went right to work with Jerry, building our lower pasture fence. Lots of good heavy labor.

Sunday I stayed in bed almost the entire day. It was a migraine day. I hate them, most people who don't suffer them, do not understand how a headache can be so disabling. Jerry happens to be one of those..... I am thankful that I get only about three yearly now.

Yesterday we somehow ended up with two extra horses here for a week or so visit. (we hope) Jerry got a call from a friend, who has a friend, who needed a place quick to keep her two horses due to a family 'situation'. Re: bad divorce. So we have two very, very fat, worried horses in stalls.

This evening we worked on the lower pasture fence again. It's coming along and should be done before the weekend. Fencing is hard work. I love hard work. Building fence is dirty work. I love getting dirty.

We also started planting our garden tonight. We planted tomato plants and green pepper plants. Next we have about 10 packets of seeds to sow. I seem to recall that tonight we kind of made an agreement to get up half an hour earlier every morning to work in our garden. I think we may be nuts. But it was good to be kneeling and digging in the soft, rich, tilled earth.

The gophers are winning: the cowboy hasn't shot any and the hound hasn't been able to catch any with all of his crazed diggings. Tonight we set gopher traps. Round plastic 'boxes', placed in their tunnels, they enter, hit a trigger and are decapitated..... hhmmmmm. Seems like drastic measures to eliminate a few little rodents. I guess they don't make the list of desirable wildlife.

Neither do skunks, Cort got 'skunked' sometime early this morning. Just a little stink.

Cort also treed a big raccoon yesterday in the yard. I missed that excitement.

The evenings have been warm enough to sleep with the back door open. The crickets are loud tonight. One of my favorite spring/summer night sounds. Sweet dreams......

Last Day in California

My Grandson wants to author this blog on his last day in California. He chose these pictures to share.



I'm at the American River on a granite rock island. I walked on a small rock bridge that was overflowing with water. The island is full of duck and goose poop.

I was trying to catch a baby lizard, it went under the rocks, and then I saw something......

Two ducks, a male and a female, kept coming up to us like they wanted us to feed them.

I found a small cave that was under a small bush that was hanging out the side of the river bank and there were rocks inside that were lined up like a chair and I carved rocks in there, um designs on rocks, no wait, um wait...never mind.

On our drives we see lots of deer. Oh dear

This is a lizard I found crawling in the rocks at my Nana's house. My Nana said I couldn't catch one, I kept trying and then I caught him. She was wrong. (OK so 1 time I was wrong, says Nana)

I looked it up and he is a Western Fence Lizard. He has beautiful blue patches on his belly. I had to let him go tonight because I am leaving tomorrow.

At home I have a Brown Anole in a terrarium, she is fast. She laid 2 eggs and had 2 babies. It was sad when they died.

I had fun here at California. But I'll be moving here sometime in the summer. If my Mom doesn't get a job, maybe I can be a cowboy. The 'Lone Ranger', again.

Havin' Fun

Our visitors made it here safely. My Grandson and I are going to write this blog together. He picked the pictures that we are sharing with you tonight. I think he may be having a fun time in California. He says, "WHAT! I'm having a GREAT time!" I think he misses school. He says,"I hate school." (he's fibbing)




Jerry is teaching me how to drive a tractor.

Grandson likes to climb, run, play, run, climb, work, and keeps me busy.

I didn't know my picture was taken like that! What am I doing with my finger?

Boy hugs horse.

I am finally able to ride a horse on my own. 'The Lone Ranger'

If you ride em', you clean up after 'em..... and he did so willingly. He can stay here as long as he wants.

I'm falling down Roller Coaster Road. Yeah it's really named that.

Super-boy and his buddy Super-dog.

Practicing for the California dog tossing championship.

Choose your favorite caption.

A. Dog stole boy's dinner. Boy cries.

B. Ah, crap he took my arm!

C. Super-boy takes a nap.

Scott Creek Trails Photos

The trail ride Saturday was held at this exquisite estate. This is the barn! One of our riding club members is the care taker and gets yearly permission to host a ride and b-b-q. The owners don't live here, just visit occasionally. It is beautiful country and the trails are kept well groomed.

This is one of several ponds on the property.

Those are Rock's ears. Everything is green and flowering, but in a short couple of months all will be golden and dry. (brown and dead) It doesn't rain here in the summer and we actually may have had our last rain already.

We had several little creek crossings.



The trail meandered through several pastures and meadows, along very old trails and cattle fence. No cattle are currently run on this land.

It was quite dusty later in the day. Seems much too early in the year for dusty trails. I believe the Midwest and east coast has gotten all of our rain.

Jerry and I were riding "drag", that is we were the last riders and our job was to watch ahead and make sure all was OK . We carried 'walkie-talkies' to communicate with the "trail boss", let him know if any rider/horse was having difficulty, if he needed to stop or slow down a bit. This was toward the end of the ride and old Remington is ears forward, chomping at the bit, eager to keep going, not liking the stop for a Kodak Moment.

Scott Creek Trails

Thirty horses and riders showed up for the trail ride. The weather was on the cool side which makes for a pleasant ride. We rode for two hours, stopped for lunch, rode further, made it back to the meadow we all had parked in and had a catered b-b-q dinner. It was a long but enjoyable day. Jerry loves the big crowds and socializing with everyone. I like very, very small groups much better. I have some nice pictures to share. We rode through pines, big oaks, across streams, over hills, and through meadows. The skies were clear and deep blue. Now you have to use your imagination because I am not successfully posting pictures tonight. And I am too tired to stay up longer and go out to Jerry's office to hook up to his internet booster. Sorry....

Some exciting news; today additonal seats were made available at discounted fares, on youngest daughter's flights, so.... yeehaw, the grandson gets to come visit while his mom is interviewing. Yay! They'll be here late tomorrow night.

Jerry has been suffering with a yucky cold for 3 days, I woke up with it this morning and felt crummy. I insisted we miss Church because it is a small church with many elderly members and I choose not to spread my viruses around if I can help it. The plan was to rest today and recover. Our rest today consisted of clearing out our front fence line of wild overgrown blackberry brambles and scraggly awful Oleander. The Oleander is deadly when eaten. I am glad to be rid of it, not that I would eat it, but the critters might. That's not the end of our rest though, we also pounded fence posts around the lower pasture. And cleared brush with the tractor. Oh, and I can't forget to mention that I was directed to raise Jerry in the bucket of the tractor high up in the trees so he could chainsaw dead limbs. It seemed very dangerous to me. So, now we're done resting and I'm going to bed. I sure hope that I can sleep after all of that rest.

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Sometimes my days and nights get entirely filled up and I can't get to the computer to write and read. Other times the internet connection doesn't cooperate. Jerry's office is out in back and late at night I just don't feel like tripping out there to connect to his nifty little antenna gadget.
I was able to do a little blog catch up reading today at work. Some of you really are excellent bloggers. Bringing much laughter to your readers or some serious thought.
Tonight will be a quick write. We have been busy tonight trying to help youngest daughter of mine to get a last minute flight out to California. Yeehaw, (did I just type yeehaw???) mission accomplished. She was notified 2 nights ago that she has been selected for an interview for a teaching position that opened up in a middle school in a neighboring town here in California. An excellent position. The interview was scheduled in a week, no optional dates, she is in a state far across the USA, she had two finals scheduled the day before and a son in school. But she got everything arranged, we helped arrange the flight and she will be interviewing next week. I do worry about the reliability (or lack of) with flying these days.
I am excited for her. Well and maybe for me too.... Grandson won't be able to make the trip, he'll have to stay there in school this trip. I miss my grands bunches! I hope youngest daughter is the best match for the job, and the job is her dream position.
I should get to bed. We have plans for a big trail ride followed by a catered dinner tomorrow. We need to have the horses loaded and ready to be on the road by 7 am. It should be a fun filled day. I'll try to get some pictures. Good night and a sunny weekend to all.