Christmas Eve ~ Dec 24, 2013

For a majority of the 32 years Rod and I have been together we've spent Christmas on the road: visiting my parents in Arizona or his family in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. We are orphans now, having lost the last of our parents when Rod's sweet pop passed away earlier this year.

We decided to stay home this year and all it did was get us in trouble.  Well, not really trouble, let's say we have a new understanding of an alternate description of adventure.

• Dec 9 ~ through Dec 21 the bathroom remodel runs amok.
• Dec 21 ~ remodel is completed on our wedding anniversary: oh boy we can shower and flush, the best gift ever before we head out for a great dinner at Underwood Bistro in Graton.
• Dec 22 ~ the new plumbing backs up.
• Dec 23 ~ septic tank pumped in case that was the problem (should do it every 5 years and it had been 7) ~ not the problem
• Dec 23 ~ Rod on his belly in the ice plant with a hose and plumber's snake trying to shake loose whatever is keeping the main line to the septic tank from draining.
• Dec 23 ~ an hour later success ~ splat something unmentionable drops into the empty tank ~ Houston we've fixed the problem, all systems go.
• Dec 23 ~ well as long as we're in here we might as well dump the black water tank on our Outhouse on Wheels. This puppy saved us during this little adventure in plumbing.

• Dec 23 ~ get the hall and living room carpets, couch and easy chairs cleaned by Coit due to dust bomb grit aftermath of removing a portion of two of the interior bathroom walls which turn out to be inch thick exterior stucco.

• Dec 23 ~ go to movies to escape the chaos on the kitchen counter and having most of the furniture parked in the kitchen or out on porch while the carpets dry.
• Dec 23 ~ get home from the movies in time to see the last heart pounding 5 minutes of the Forty-Niner game. A fitting end to the season and Candlestick Park.
• Dec 24 ~ I started deep cleaning of one of the bedrooms: as in everything from baseboards to ceiling. Why you ask? Three days ago the afternoon sun was shining in Rod's window when he took a shirt out of his closet and shook it. A cloud of dust rose up and danced about him like campfire smoke. Yikes, cosmic hint, Thor's hammer, Gibb's slap to the back of the head ~ got it.
• Dec 24 ~ Rod finishes installing wainscoting and trim.

After 8 hours of hard labor we took a break at 2:30 and headed out for a walk around the vineyard next door. Sunny and 66 degrees, hard to believe it's winter. Tomorrow we'll tackle Rod's bedroom, the kitchen floor and do windows before heading next door for dinner.  Pizza sounds good tonight!

Hope you're enjoying the holidays with friends and family. The kindness, humor, love and generosity of our neighbors got us through this little adventure, and I use the term adventure loosely.

Think we'll hit the road next Christmas ~ The cosmos and, by then, my new liver willing!

Shakedown Cruise ~ April 16, 2013

When was the last time you removed everything from your vehicle to see what was there? Our cars have always had a small road box with tools, an emergency kit, and changes of clothes for the primary driver. Sounds simple, but add to that the vast array of stuff accumulated over the years, deemed necessary at one time or another, and you have controlled chaos.

We had to unpack the Jeep (which is for sale) and outfit the Explorer so it seemed reasonable to unload the Honda too. Yesterday morning our entire living room floor was covered with the STUFF out of the two cars. One look and we took it as a sign we needed to THIN IT OUT.

About noon we took a break and did a lap around the vineyard next door, a nice 1.5 mile walk, then came back to fix lunch. We looked at the wasteland we ironically call the "living room" and decided it was time to run away for the afternoon. The perfect time for a shakedown cruise in the Explorer.

North of Bodega Bay, South of Jenner

We headed out to Bodega Bay and up the coast to Gualala for coffee and treats Trink's Café. A springtime weekday is the perfect time to explore the coast on Hwy 1. There were very few cars on the road and wildflowers are everywhere: poppies, lupine, paintbrush, and ceanothus to name a few.

On the return trip we decided to take a road even less traveled: a gravel road that takes off from Hwy. 1 and winds up through forests and the Kruse Rhododendron Gardens. Though it's the right time of year there were few in bloom ~ perhaps it's been too dry a winter.  

Kruse Road

Next spot we come to was at one time the town of Plantation. In the 19th century, the Plantation House, a thirteen room hotel, was built and operated on the current Plantation premises. At the turn of the 20th century, the town  boasted a post office, meeting hall, and a stop on the Wells Fargo Express route. Sadly, the hotel burned down in the 1920’s. In 1952 Abe and Eve Crittenden envisioned another way to share this magical place and transformed it into a farm summer camp for children. The link is www.plantationfarm.com.  

It's the first time we'd been on the Plantation Road in over 30 years. We met at the Ft. Ross Volunteer Fire Department Picnic in Cazadero in May 1981.

A couple of summers later we took off from Rod's place on the Navarro Ranch and headed out for an adventure. Reversing the course we were on today we got to Seaview Road and asked the age old question "shall we turn right or left?". We chose right and ended up in Mendocino for a couple of days. As you can see our travelling style dates back to when we first met. 

One of the reasons I wanted to retrace our steps coming back from Gualala to Cazadero was a sign we saw along the Kruse Road on that trip. At the time the phone lines were buried along the banked roadside.  At various places along the way there were angled wooden bulwarks to hold soil back and protect equipment. Neatly carved into one of them, in official looking lettering, were the words "ET Phone Home". We had just seen the movie laughed ourselves silly. It was no longer there, but what I would have given for a camera at the time! No iPhones in 19 ought 83.

One Thin Dime ~ Jan 19, 2013

For years two delightful dogs shared our home and travels. We lost them both in 1989. Their names were Diamond Jim and Jessica P Out of the Mud Grows the Lotus. He was a Heinz 57 variety tricolor hound with a white diamond on his neck and she was a black Lab-Golden Retriever mix who couldn't resist a tennis ball or any body of water.

We used to purchase their canned food by the case. One day I picked up one of the cans and it felt unusually light. When I opened it up there was a promotional coupon and a little round plastic case with a $5 gold coin the size of a dime, sitting in blue velvet. We tucked the coin in the safe and never thought about again.

With Spring on the horizon this time of year becomes nesting season for me and I start cleaning out drawers and cupboards. Another impetus is that we're trying to lighten our material load. Like a lot of folks our age, we have simply accumulated too much stuff.

Last week I was looking for something in safe and we decided it might be interesting to find out the value of some of the contents: an old pocket watch, the gold coin, gold teeth, old rings and various coins. We took everything but the coins into Olde Towne Jewelers in Santa Rosa. None of it had sentimental value so we figured what the heck. Well, we came home with a check for $1,600. Rod took the coins into a coin shop the next day and came home with $575 in cash. The value on all of it was the melt weight not the items.

What about the $5 gold piece from the dog food can? It sold for $168. Who knew?

I guess the lesson here is to start looking through all the old coins, broken jewelry, and stuff you have tucked away. Our little bonanza is seed money for one of the items on our bucket list: perhaps a narrow gauge rail trip across the Southwest, some time in Maritime Provinces of Canada, or a month in New Zealand. Two things are for sure: life is short and the possibilities are endless.

Lookin' Through Old Books

The title is borrowed from the poem "Lookin Through Old Books" from one of my favorite cowboy poets, the late Vince Pedroia. It begins:  

Lookin' through old books

You never know what you'll find

Maybe an old pressed Douglas iris

Your mother's favorite kind

Besides getting the garden in and planning summer adventures, one of my favorite spring activities is to LTL or Lighten the Load: clean out drawers, closets and storage areas and rearrange spaces. Move a few pieces of furniture and find more open space and comfortable seating. Change what's hanging on the walls create a new awareness. We found many things we no longer used and donated to local charities. Win-Win.

I moved a stored bookcase into the living room and decided to pull out a few of my books and move them out there. I looked through each one and found some interesting things: Old newspaper articles by my great grandfather was once the editor), a handwritten recipe for Tabouli I had been looking for for years) and a picture of me and my two bodacious friends. We had gotten together for lunch in 2007 when Laurie (on the left) was down in our neck of the woods from Washington, Jean is on the right.

We are all now certifiable, card-carrying senior citizens. We've known each other since Kindergarten, over 60 years. Holy Senior Discount Card, I'd say that's some perspective on life! I think we'd all agree that laughter and a good attitude is the key to longevity. When was the last time you spoke to one of your best buds? Take a note ~ Make the call!

Rainy Day Projects ~ March 15th

Play yesterday ~ pay today. It's raining so we decide to tackle two projects: map out the garden bed plantings for spring and reorganize and clean up the garage.

Southeast Corner of Garden  - last Spring

Garden planning was a piece of cake. I made up a spreadsheet map of the garden beds and barrels and all we had to do was write in what goes where. Done in under an hour.

The garage be a whole different story. It's a 14' X 20' man cave that houses Rod's large and small woodworking tools, fishing gear and the inflatable fishing tube/deck chair unit, wall to wall cupboards, copious numbers of man tools and other important stuff.

"Before"

He tends to leave things where he uses them, which is okay for a little while but then the work bench and all other flat surfaces disappear under a protective blanket of clutter (important no doubt, but clutter none the less). He likes to have things handy, but is at times unclear on the concept that if everything is handy, nothing is handy.

So, once a year I volunteer to help. I'm an organizer at heart so I enjoy the challenge. It also buys me a little leverage to help him decide to relinquish a few of the "useful" things he's kept for ages and never used. Let me be perfectly clear, "rid of" means recycle or selling at the flea market, the words "dispose of" are not in his vocabulary.

We put in a 7 hour workday, time for a shower and some down time. It was a good day, I liked the sound of the rain on the skylights as we worked. A few more hours and we should be done, maybe tomorrow...