Bye July

The other day  I was feeling blue; at the time I thought it was for no good reason.  I'm not one to remember the people who have died over my lifetime on any certain date.  I don't look at the calendar and think, this was my Mom's birthday this month.  Even as time passes and it is the anniversary of that date, unless I happen to glance at a calendar the significance may or may not register with me.

Larry talked to his Mom this past weekend and she sent me her love because she was thinking of me as this was my Mom's birthday month.  I was surprised because I hadn't given it any thought.

 I had a mini melt down a couple of days ago, feeling edgy and blue, crying for no good reason.  When I asked myself why, I figured it was because I wasn't doing something I have been procrastinating over.  I felt like I had the answer and could move on.  I am working through that issue but still wasn't feeling I had figured "it" out.

During a conversation this week with my sister Lori, she said she was having a hard time this week/month because of Mom's passing.  I said, I hadn't given it much thought.  The point I'm working towards here, is that even though you think you may be over something or it isn't registering on your conscious radar, "IT is there" causing a disturbance.

1962

Why this year so much?  I'm guessing that it might be because today I am still 53 years old.  Yesterday was the 23rd anniversary of my Mom's 53rd birthday and today is the 23rd anniversary of the day she died from cancer.  Explanation for my edginess solved.  I cried a lot putting these photos together, I guess I'm just like everyone else and human after all.

I love you Mom and though I know you are with us always, I still miss you!

1962 and behind us still

March 1963, our backyard in Chatsworth

March 1963

March 1963

Summer of '64, Clearlake, CA

1964

1957

Country Living

We are having a cooling trend here.  Odd summer for weather.  I love it.  We can leave the house open all day, which I love, so we can hear the birds and whatever else nature is getting up to outside.  When we close it up in the morning to keep it cool so we don't have to use the air conditioner until we absolutely have to, we are so insulated and even more so with the a/c running.  As little as we have run our a/c it still caused our PG&E to triple, amazing.

Thursday we spent the day with our friends.  Friday my pilates instructor ramped us up on our weights and challenged us with more advanced moves.  I loved it because after a year and a half of going to these classes I am doing stuff I didn't believe I would ever do.  Now I am just going to have to work on the mental more than ever so I don't limit myself, remembering that I am no longer that painful, limited of movement body.  I just can't believe how long it has taken!  This was after the long hike on Wednesday and my heat exhaustion, so I am excited about my bodies healing.

My tools

Saturday we had a birthday party to go to at a neighbor's place, we have never been there before.  I made zucchini bread so we could take a loaf, picked and put together a bouquet of flowers and unearthed my giant knitting needles to whip up a scarf for a gift.  It only takes a couple of hours to do.

The flash washed out
how pretty the colors were.

We get over there and someone else was arriving and she mentioned Steve's birthday...the rat had told Larry in jest that it was his wife having the 60th birthday.  I wonder if he'll wear the scarf when he goes deer hunting this fall...hahahaha.  They've lived over there 15 years and have done wonderful landscaping.  They have a pool that has a spa and a man made stream flowing into it and it looks like rock inside and out.  Different levels of decks and grassy areas and another man made stream into a small pond.  This is besides the large pond we can see from the road, the man apparently likes water.  For dinner he had been smoking pork for pulled pork sandwiches, smoked 20 hours, it was the best ever!!!  We had a nice time, stayed about four hours and missed the cake and gifts, oh well, but it was long enough.












Sunday we were up before six a.m. so I could make that hike up the big hill again.  Gracie stayed in her bed until we left.  That dog does not like getting up earlier than she is accustomed to.  The hike was so much easier.  The cooler temps made a huge difference and I actually went farther, 4.75 miles.  We were home by 8:30.  I don't remember what time I hit the trail.  Larry left first, he likes to go further, and I meet him at the trail head, but I kept up a good pace.  We made a blackberry snack stop at one place that still had a lot of berries easy to get to and I rested a couple of times going up the big hill, but a fraction of the stopping and resting I had done on Wednesday.

Flowers on the trail

I still had no pain in my hips.  I feel like being melodramatic and shouting, it's a miracle, but I have worked hard since Jan. of last year, so it is and it isn't a miracle.  I plan on continuing as I have because I still have many goals for my body.  My abs still aren't where I can do roll up and roll downs without grabbing hold of my legs (basically a slow controlled sit up).  And though I can now do a plank I still can not go down to the floor in a controlled manner, I get to a certain point and then plunk to the floor.  There are more but I won't bore you with all that.

Yummy blackberries

Last evening, Sunday, Gracie was barking and doing her low woofing.  When it was time for her last potty break, I opened the door and instead of her usual following me out to the garden gate, she shot out of the door and bounced out of the lighted yard, out of sight and into the darkness of the meadow.  She does not listen or come when she is on a mission, very bad!  Only way to stop that is with an expensive shock collar, but I digress.

 I took off after her with the big flashlight.  I shined the light across the meadow and to the right where the garbage cans were on the street for the morning pickup and there was a very big bear having a snack!  No Gracie.  Shit, was my first thought.  Big Bear!  They are so damn silent, it just moved away and up the hill.  Still couldn't see Gracie, so I swept the light back the other way and there she came trotting from the neighbors yard to my left.  I was really afraid she would see the bear and take off again, but she, taking her sweet time, finally got herself up to where I could grab her and throw her inside the garden.  Who knows what she took off after, if it was a baby bear I would think the BIG Bear would have taken after them.  It could have even been a deer.  Larry snooped around a bit but we didn't see any more of the bear.  Gracie was on edge all night, doing her low woofs every time she heard something with her huge bat ears or her nose caught the scent of something through the windows.

Larry picking blackberries, Gracie even had a few.
She even tried to pick her own.

This morning Larry is looking out the kitchen window and saw what he first thought might have been a chicken in the bushes, but he realized he was seeing the red head of a vulture.  There were a few in there eating something.  Larry eventually went down to see what they were having for breakfast and it was part of a baby deer.  Just the head and front legs.  Now, no telling what got it, could have been a coyote or a bobcat.  It's not likely the bear killed it, but it could have come across the kill and eaten some of it after dragging it off.  The bear may have not had anything to do with any of it.  The coyotes are through here most every night, so are fox.

In talking to our neighbor across the street a week or so ago one of the two twin sets Mama disappeared and the other twins Mama was nursing all four.  One might have been sickly, weak or just was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Maybe one doe can't defend four babes, just nature.  Not a good year for deer around here.

Larry walked the property and didn't find the rest of the carcass or bear scat or anything else interesting.

An exciting weekend of living in the country.

Larry got a picture of me on Sunday's hike.
I look kind of weird, that is my cap in my left hand
and I have two bottles of water in the pockets of my
cargo shorts.  I had my phone, a nut bar and tissues too.
I was doing a weird pose...so yup, weird looking.

The Sun Got Me with pictures

This morning I decided to go with Larry and Gracie on their hike and do one of his longer ones, I decided on the five mile loop.  Larry said if he had known I was going to go for a long one he would of gotten me up earlier so we could have gone when it was cooler.  We left just before 8 a.m.

Wow is the nasty star thistle everywhere.  It was stabbing my shins where the trail goes through the weeds.  Fortunately it was only for a small part of the walk.  The last few times Larry's been out he hasn't seen a soul, today we ran into a pack of loud talkers and a couple of solo hikers.  We saw a jack rabbit and a couple of cotton tails.

Going up

I had decided to tackle the BIG hill.  It isn't as steep as the "training hill" trail that comes up from the river but is still a long steep climb.  It was wide and had lots of shade, but I still got hot and my cardio fitness apparently isn't what it should be so I kept having to rest.  We don't tend to walk slowly either.  The last time I rested I thought at this rate it would be lunch time before we got home so rather than rest I just went.   very.  slow.  one.  step.  at.  a.  time, so that I was at least making SOME progress.  Then it was down hill and up another one, but I was hot, the sun was getting warmer and by the time we hit the asphalt I was resting in the shade of the available trees every chance I needed.  But when I started seeing stars and resting didn't help much and knowing that the last mile or so had very little shade I did what I've only threatened in the past.  I had Larry go on home to get the car and come back for me.  Whoeee.  I stood in the shade for awhile and then walked on to the horse staging area where there was a water hose and I doused my head and stood in the shade of a tree and let the timely breeze cool me off.  Ticked me off because I was wearing my hat and brought water and it was before ten and the heat still took me down.  It was only in the 80's somewhere.

Now the good thing was that I haven't hiked that far in a good long time and my hips did not give me one lick of trouble or pain.  My muscles, joints and all that were good, just not good enough lung power and too much sun.  I'm determined to do it again, hopefully Sunday morning, but I plan on leaving a couple hours earlier and bringing more water.

Still going up!

The rest of the day I kept working on keeping my muscles from tightening up and I stayed inside with the a/c and out of the sun.

I took pictures with the phone, but of course it is not doing what it is supposed to, trouble with the sd card and another thingy that is supposed to transfer the pics to the laptop.  Damn "smart" phones.

Update:  After over a half hour of dinking with phone and computer...tada!  Pictures.

I turned and looked back where we had
been coming up from.

Three Years

Today is the three year anniversary of taking ownership of our "Cool Haven".  It has gone by quickly, we've accomplished much and we are enjoying the heck out of it.

One activity that has been taking up some of my time lately is I have recognized that I am a writer and that I am going to work at getting something published.  I have had people tell me I should write a book about various things I have talked about and I've always pushed it into my I could never do that box.  Well, good grief!  What the heck has this been?!  I have been writing this blog now for seven years!  Wow.  I started it in South Dakota, June of '06.  One thousand, three hundred and forty five posts up until today.  Some have been short and just the facts jack and others were informative and blah, blah, blah...the point is I have been writing.  This added onto the notebooks of stuff I've written all over the place.  So I've been researching the writing/publishing field, educating myself and writing.  I've been giving thought to starting another blog for that purpose, but we'll see.

This morning I had another magical moment with a hummingbird.  I was watering the deck pots when a hummer landed on top of the wire fence below the deck.  She looked up at me with a look of expectation ( don't laugh, I just knew ) and I slowly moved the spray over to her.  She didn't fly off so I let it sprinkle her and she lifted her beak into it and started ruffling her feathers.  Well, she had the most joyful shower.  She fluffed and shook around in the water.  After about a minute I started thinking about all the water I was using to shower one teeny tiny bird (always practical, even in the magical moments) and I shut off the water.  She shook off, ran her beak through her feathers, preened and then flew off.  A great way to start my day.

The full moon was beautiful last night and as we were heading into bed the clouds were giving us a light show, lightning was going off all over the place and we could hear a rumble or two way off in the distance.

Life is great!

We've come a LONG WAY baby!  :

Where, Where?!

My roasting pan succulent garden

This is cuttings and plants collected from friends.

 Where is the time going, I can not seem to get everything done.  I think I need to make myself a schedule and then stick to it.  I am always taking pictures, then having to download the pics off the cards and then having to edit them, name them, resize them.  Then I want to share them on facebook and on here with you guys, so then I have to think of something to write.  Woe is me.  

Then there is stuff like picking crazed zucchini and deadheading flowers, pulling weeds and taking pictures.  Then getting sidetracked by all the pretty pictures and words on facebook. Then there is crazy stuff like taking care of myself, my home, my sweetie and my dog.  Now, I do give thanks several times a day for having the privilege of being able to do all this, but I still don't seem to get everything done.  Like blogging.  I don't get to it and then forget the stories I meant to tell.

I forgot to tell you a couple of weeks ago about Larry and Gracie on their walk on the trails, the birds were rustling in the bushes and Larry and Gracie weren't paying them any attention.  When all of a sudden a bear takes off out of the shrubs just as Larry and Gracie get to them.  It was running away from them and they didn't see it for long, but what a surprise.  It had been sleeping there and Larry said if it hadn't have run, they never would have known it was there.

Japanese eggplant 

I haven't been able to get good pictures or video of it, but the baby deer are big enough now that the does have graduated them to preschool.  All five fawn get together and romp up a storm, it is funny to watch.  There are two sets of twins and a single, the wrong baby gets on the wrong mama and they get a hoof upside the head.  There were 5 turkeys hanging out next to the trees and the babies just cavorted right on through them like they weren't there.  They'll race around.  Then one will just spin and kick and contort its body in the air.

I am going to have to grate zucchini faster to make more bread and muffins.  I picked 5 last night and left the little guys for a couple days ...well, they were all big tonight and I have 6 more and one is big enough that I don't know how it missed getting picked last night.  So it begins...hahaha.

The two bush cherry tomatoes are doing really good producing, my heirloom isn't nearing ripe yet and what I thought were two early girls are not.  One is a grape tomato and one is a bush tomato and now I won't know what it is to get it again next year, because it set its fruit early, they are good sized, meaty and tasty.  The japanese eggplant is doing really great and the lemon cucumber isn't going as crazy as I thought.  Lots of blooms but not a lot of cukes yet.  We may have to tweak the water.  The grape tomatoes blooms are turning brown, so no tomatoes on those branches.

We got over 100 a couple of days but today was overcast and cooler, though still too hot.  We are getting monsoonal moisture from down south for the next few days.

Yesterday my cousin Kim and husband Brian came for a visit and spent the day.  We had good food and fun catching up.  They only live about a half hour away, are super busy, but we hope to be better about getting together.  Uncle Harley died almost two years ago now and Aunt Connie is now in an Alzheimers facility.  She is healthy otherwise, so unfortunate for a crazy, zany lady. Kim has had an overflowing mess on her plate, though she handles everything with grace!  Love her!

The flower garden is in a lull.  The glads have peaked and are mostly done, the roses are in a setting the buds for the next flowering session, so many don't have flowers right now.  There is plenty of color all over the place still and my brain is working on how I want to rework all the beds for next year.  Gardening is just another form of art to me.  I've figured out which plants aren't working for me and thinking about what I want to replace them with and how to make them all support each other instead of one taking over the whole bed or getting humongous.  I may start looking for everything dwarf, because in these raised beds with regular water, it all seems to get bigger then it is supposed to.

There have been lots of hummingbirds moving in and through as they travel and this week a pair of Orioles have discovered the feeder.  This would be okay except they cause drops of the sugar water to fly all over the place when they feed and leap off of the feeder and it is making a mess of the deck.  The hummers aren't going to like it but I may have to keep the feeder inside until the pair move on.

Shoot.  I just realized that my last post I still had the phone not texting.  On that Friday Larry talked to a tech that knew his stuff, had Larry do a couple of things and the tech said, that phone is broke.  So we toddled off to Placerville for a new phone.  Which meant more phone calls to tech support because things weren't activated, getting all the stuff put back on....good grief, days with that silly thing.  But, I can now text and all is good with it.  Two weeks it took......ack!

Now Larry is on the phone for hours every week or so with our internet provider for the house...good old AT&T.  Three hours today...that is one messed up system.  I won't bore you with the details, and it isn't over yet.  Larry has been in "modern" technical hell.  If it isn't one thing it has been another.

I'm sure I've forgotten something, but I'm sure you won't lose any sleep over missing it.

Oh, I went to the show Sunday before yesterday with a friend and we saw The Heat.  FUNNY!  Loved it.  Me.  Two shows in ONE week.  That was an entire years worth of movie going for me.

Hugs and kisses to my almost better-than-a-Mom, Mom, Miss Vickie!  She had a little pedicure today...hahaha. Sorry.  Really, sorry.  We'll see you soon!  Feel better.

The light colored ones had fallen off the bush.

Update you on the garden views.  The birds are getting all the fruit at the top of the asian pear, we hope to get at least a half dozen from the branches hanging near the ground.  Gracie works hard at keeping the squirrels away from it.  We thwarted them this year by cutting the oak branch that they used to leap into the pear tree.  They look a bit puzzled when they're up there in the oak and realize they have to go down to the ground and over.  They can't steal them as quickly or easily now.

Catching up in Pictures

Here are a BUNCH of random pictures, 

so I can get caught up!

A purple harvest!  Japanese eggplant.

My beautiful new mug
from a gallery in Oregon.  I've decided
to stick with art that is functional instead
of art I must dust all the time.

The asian pear tree is LOADED this year, with
so many we should get a couple!

Japanese eggplant

Gracie and I took a walk out onto
the trail a few days after Rattlesnake class
and we almost ran into this guy.
A nice shiny gopher snake, she didn't even seem to
notice it. It's by that rock.

Andrea and Larry.

Taken with my Galaxy s4 phone's camera.

Orchids are still going strong..

Lemon Cucumber

cucumber vine climbing into the tomatoes

turkey roost

Turkey's heading to the tree

cool panorama taken with the camera