The Prospector gettin' gold fever and a dog named Shorty

We woke up to this.

Rain clouds and a bit of blue sky... but no smoke. I wish I could, somehow, let you breath the difference in the air.

Talk about silver linings. It was an unexpected front coming from the Pacific. Wonderful, cool and blessed moisture for the fire weary mountains to the east.
I took my coffee outside onto the deck... hot coffee with foamy milk. My favorite way to start the day.

I watched the sky and breathed in the air. It seemed like the beginning of a whole new season. A tinge of Fall was in the air.
After breakfast the Prospector left, on his ATV to help a neighbor and another friend, dig out a new spot on the creek where they suspect nuggets are hiding next to a vein of quartz. He left with some panning equipment and high hopes.
I opened up the house and let everything air out. Even our bathroom towels have a slight aroma of smoke in them. A week of smoky mornings had left a residual smoky smell inside the house.

I just couldn't sit still any longer. I had to see what the guys were doing over there, so I put the dogs in the backyard and drove over to our neighbor's place.
I was greeted by one of my favorite dogs. His name is Shorty. He's a Corgi mix.

This is one of the smartest dogs I know. He is also well trained and he loves people.
He greeted me when I got out of the car and decided that I was going to be his project while I was there. Maybe he was just ready for some female company. Every time I turned around, Shorty was there with me.
My neighbor took me over to see the glory hole and showed me how they were following a quartz vein through a crack in the bedrock. It looked like a great spot to be digging.

 Don't get too excited about this. It's a dirty business, looking for gold is. I just can't glamorize it. When I was a kid I loved to tromp through the creeks near my house. To the dismay of my mother, I was always going down to Grayson Creek with my friends, or by myself, and playing ... as if I was the only person in the whole world that lived there and I was on my own. My friends and I started a Nature Club and we would take hikes to the creek. It was part of my early prospecting training and I didn't even know it. Gold panning takes me there again. It's an old memory that still calls the little girl inside of me. Being outside, near a creek... panning... digging in a hole looking for "good dirt" makes me feel strong and young again. It's dirt, some water and a lot of hard work.
 But today I just looked and took pictures.and because I was balancing on some river rocks and trying to take some strategic photos of the "hole", I didn't get any clear pictures. Sorry.
I was having more fun taking photos of Shorty, who was just being way too cooperative and keep drawing my attention with his handsome little dog face.

 This is the area that the guys were working. There's an old cistern that always has water in it from a spring.

This area was a big mining/prospecting area in the late 1800's and early 1900's. The old rock walls,
foundations and cisterns built by prospectors that lived in the area are still evident everywhere. This was part of the great Mother Lode of California. You can feel the ghosts of its famous past.

Wild blackberries co-exist with the poison oak and there is always a feeling of history here.
I walked back to see if any of the guys were getting rich. They showed me there little vials of gold and seemed happy with the morning of work. There are three men in this photo. Shorty's owner is completely hidden behind the Prospector (with the hat on). Shorty is resting. I love the spread out style of his back legs and the smile. He's a happy, gold lovin' dog.

 This is the place where they panned the dirt and rock using a bucket of water (ONE bucket of water) to pan in. Don't let the folks that complain about recreational prospecting and mining tell you that we destroy the land. We are probably more aware of the beauty and ecology of this area than any "environmentalist".
Why would we want to destroy this beautiful area that we live in... and yet, the state had put a five year moratorium on any kind of dredging... even with small 2'' dredges. So they work the little creeks by hand with very little water, picks and shovels.
Mining is a right, protected by the General Mining Act of 1872.
OK, This is not a political blog so I will stop now before I get started.
I took a few photos of the beauty of the place.

And that's when I heard something moving around in the creek below me.
There was Shorty...

  cooling his heals (and half of his body) in the somewhat stagnant water of a creek pond, looking at me as if to say, " Well, I'm hot and this looks like a good place to be while I keep an eye on you."

He watched a leaf and stuck his tongue in the water. He was enjoying his new found swimming hole.

Then he got up, turned around and left. He went back to the guys. He was tired of being my guardian and following me all over the place.
The day was warming up. The sun was coming out and I decided to leave. The guys were being nice but a woman always requires polite behavior and cleaning up of the language. These are nice guys with respect for women. I didn't want to kill the fun of their male bonding get-together so I said "See you later." and left.
As I drove out I had to stop and take a shot of this old mining cave. I've never gone into it.

It always looks kind of scary. I expect a bear to come charging out, but so far... it has never happen. It might make a great wine cellar.
I drove up through my neighbor's gate and onto the main road.

 

Carl and Cutter would be waiting for me and not happy about the "other" dog smell. They know Shorty. He has come to visit a few times. They all get along really well. But I will get the "where have you been and what have you been doing." wet nose once over from both of them  It's routine. 

Congraulations to Diane Nyad. She's the 64 year old who finally swam the 110 miles from Cuba to Florida  today. Here's to determined older woman who never quit.

The Rim Fire is 40% contained tonight.

Gold is at $1.392.00 today and on the decline. But as the old poem by Robert Service goes... 

"There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting;

   It’s luring me on as of old;

Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting

   So much as just finding the gold.

It’s the great, big, broad land ’way up yonder,

   It’s the forests where silence has lease;

It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder,

   It’s the stillness that fills me with peace."

Ode to Summer

This summer weather just doesn't want to end... and the weatherman says it's going to get hotter this weekend. So I'm going to try a positive post about Summer. My heart is not in it (because of the heat), but here goes.

We will have good memories of the summer reunion in Manteca and our friends that came up to see us the day before the "party". We have known these two for a very long time. Al was the Prospector's best friend in high school and his best man at our wedding. That's was fifty years ago.
Ginny had never been up here since we built a house on this mountain. I'm so glad that they bothered to drive up here. They flew from Seattle and landed in Sacramento. They went out of their way to come up and see our place, even though we were going to see them the next day in Manteca. Now, that's what I call friendship.
It is the same with my friend "C" who lives in Sacramento. Remember her little dog Max?

 The other day she drove up here with Max and her ninety six year old mother, just for the day. Just to give her Mom a special ride in the Foothills and lunch at her friend's house. Now I know why friendship is so important... in so many different ways. It's a process. It's keeping in touch anyway you can, which is so easy these days. Email makes excuses lame.
 My mother was only able to see this farm of ours one time.  Having "C"s mom here was a reminder of how fast life goes by and how much you miss those who are gone. This visit meant a lot. "C" gave me a gift without even knowing what it meant to me. She brought her mother up here on a beautiful summer day and brought me memories of my mother too. It's hard to explain.

I'm going to frame our grandchildren's summer art creations and hang them on our walls. I love these gifts of beauty and talent from "the Beans". The years are moving by so fast and they will grow into other activities. Hopefully, these artful expressions will continue, but they will never be as innocent as they are now. These are the master works of the unfettered minds of their childhood.
Like the bird that my oldest grandson made for me, when I was down there a few weeks ago... A giant lavender bird with drawings of the wind on its wings.

...designed with creativity, craft paper and cloths pins.... with a smile on its face.

 A winged creature made from my Bean's imagination... and with love, just for his Noni. Yea... I get to be the recipient of his generous little soul.

So, this has been a good summer. As much as I complain about the hot weather, I love this summer for lots of reasons.
The way the earth smells at night and early in the morning.
The lizards...

 snakes and frogs that wander into, or live in, our garden.
The constellations that I watch every night from my bed. The open window over my head.
I'm thankful that...
Fire didn't find us this year.
The Rattlesnakes were few.
We only lost one old chicken.
And... our pump didn't go dry.

Our new chicks are reaching maturity and one left us a gift last week.

One perfect brown egg. The "roadie" won the race. She was a bit older that the other newbies... so she had an advantage. This summer was slim on egg production. The oldsters weren't laying anymore. We had to BUY EGGS for a while. It was awful!
The tomatoes are coming all at once. So I boil water...

 Drop the tomatoes in for 30 seconds.

 Then into ice water for a minute.

And the skins slide right off. It's amazing. Then I make spaghetti sauce and freeze it.
It's got to be done. I've given away all I can. Folks aren't saying "Thank you!" anymore. There's a limit to the generosity of tomato giving.
And still they come...

This is the morning's harvest. I've dried the little Tomaccio sweet tomato raisins but we don't like them. I had to use the oven, for lack of a food dehydrator and I think they got too "dried". Live and learn.
The basilico is beautiful this year. The heat makes it grow like a weed. I've made lots of freezer Pesto. I dried the basil too. I also dried some sage. Sure smells good around here. Sure is cheaper than buying dried herbs.

So that's my tribute to SUMMER.
Now it can leave, heat and all, with a promise to return next year... but, it needs to leave.
I'm ready for wind, rain, baking, knitting, wearing sweaters, chilly hikes and maybe... if I please the gods and don't kill anymore rattlesnakes... some SNOW.... glorious SNOW.

Felting my Friendships

I chose to spend the afternoon with a friend, yesterday. It was a wonderful visit. She lives in town and her home is one of those beautiful old Victorians that line the hills, up behind Main St., in Jackson.
She slipped on some ice during the holidays and did some major damage to her ankle. She has been in a cast ever since. Now, she is in a black boot and will go back into a cast again next week for another month. The ankle is not healing well and another cast is required.
I tell you this because my very active, giving friend who does for so much for others and never stops moving, has handled this accident with her usual optimistic self. I'm in awe of someone who can weather a fall like this, pick herself up  and continue to be the positive, glass half full person that she always is.
Even with the complications that have arisen, she is still thinking ahead to trips she wants to take next year and getting a walking cast on, next week, so she doesn't have to sleep downstairs with the cats and maneuver the narrow passageways of her charming home in a wheel chair anymore. She needs to get back to buying groceries for a house bound friend of hers and volunteering at one of the local thrift stores.
I'm sure she has had a few "Oh, @#*&!" moments but she is a trooper and I'm so proud of her.
So, I took cake... and magazines... and small gifts, etc. hoping to lighten her spirits, There was really no need. She greeted me, in her wheel chair, like she had just come in from working in the garden. We had deli sandwiches ... and we talked, talked, talked... laughed and talked some more... until it was time for me to head back to the highway, pick up the mail and drive home. The visit did us both good. It always does.
I left her in good hands. She has a  husband that takes good care of her and treats her like a queen.
So I'm telling you this because...?
Life is long (or short, depending on how you perceive it) and "@#*&!" happens. None of us is going to get out this alive, so we need to make the best of it.  We can play games, whine about our bad luck, carry grudges and complain about life, but... have you talked to other folks lately?
Everyone is having problems. They all have "thorns" in their sides...Some even have large knife wounds.
 My friend could have been bitter, angry and blameful about all this, but she wasn't. I'm sure she wishes that she hadn't gone out on that icy old balcony. I'm sure that she wishes the ankle would heal faster. But, she isn't being "why me?" about it. She's waiting and hoping and making plans for the future. All that positive energy has got to accelerate the healing process.
I'm convinced that life is, in large part, about attitude and expectations and.... looking at the good things in life, so you have this deep well of good thoughts and ideas to carry you through the times of drought and fire.

"The world is full of cactus, but we don't have to sit on it.  ~Will Foley
My friend never sits in her "cacti". Well... she is sitting a lot at the moment, but she's looking ahead of all this. She is an example to me of how to weather a storm. She's an example to us all.

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So today is "finish a felted scarf" day. Here are some choices. What do you think?

 This is the scarf. A combination of gray wool and a taupe, mystery yarn. I had no idea how it would turn out. I have a huge amount of it that I got at one of the thrift stores and ... wait. I do have some with a wrapper on it.  It's SPINNERIN 100% wool yarn called Suzanne. That's why it worked so well. I used it continuously with the gray wool yarn but in two places I dropped the gray wool and used only the "Suzanne" yarn. After I felted it the taupe yarn tighten up and looked much better. The gray combination felted really well. I'm very please with the results.
So, now I'm ready to embellish.

 Buttons? (with dog hair underneath... how embarrassing.)

A shell from the Pacific Ocean?

A different button? There's that dog hair again. I think I felted the hair right into the scarf. Maybe I could make it my trademark... Corgiwool, scarves from the dogfarm.

Some antique lace?

Old lace... and a button?

Or the ruffled edge of the "cute" shirt I bought at the thrift store. Remember the shirt made out of gray jersey with ruffles? What do you think? It's hard to get the colors true, here on the post, but you can get an idea. There are so many possibilities. Maybe lace is too lightweight for this scarf. I'm not sure. Maybe it needs to be a heavier lace... or none.
I would really like your input.
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Today I'm on to brighter possibilities...

When my sister was here we went to Amador City, my favorite little gold rush town. I bought this yarn at Sandy's Country Home store. She dyes and spins this yarn herself. It's so beautiful. It's a bit harder to knit with because it goes from thick to thin and felts up very thick... but I can't wait to use it.

Oh, yum!
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On my afternoon walk a few days ago, I thought that I would love to find some yarn that looked like the oak trees with their bright moss, tiny ferns and lichen growing on them.... Looking like they were going to a party, with the help of the rain and some northern exposure, and getting all dolled up for the occasion.

 I would love some yarn that looks like this...

or this...

Or possibly a softer green like the new grass that is coming up on the trail.
Think I can find some yarn that looks like this? Think I can wear a California Winter around my neck?

A New Love In Her Life

Wednesday I drove down to Sacramento to have lunch with my friend "C". She is the friend that lives on a lake.

It's pretty isn't it? The water is a man made lake that continues into the Sacramento River and beyond, This beautiful Apartment complex is quiet and peaceful. It's a small oasis on the outskirts of a really large city.
She had a balcony with shells from the ocean.

She has such a beautiful gift for simplicity and most everything in her apartment is white, but the exceptions are lovely...

We went downtown to eat at my first Buddhist, vegetarian restaurant called Andy Nguyen.
Their business card says, " Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet." ~Albert Einstein

I had no idea what the dishes on the menu were. Not being a vegetarian, I struggled to find something that sounded good and that I would enjoy eating. I chose "Peaceful Curry". Yes, that was its name (lower right in the photo above) and it was wonderful. If someone fixed me food like this everyday, I would eat it and, I'm sure be much healthier for it. The food was delicious, filling, beautiful... and "peaceful". 
Then we went to a yarn shop in another part of town. Oh yes...

And, of course, I didn't get out of there without buying some wool yarn and roving. Don't you love the name?
RUMPELSTILTSKIN. What a great name for a yarn and fiber store. It was a charming place and I will definitely come and spend more time here.
We bought a Christmas tree on the way home. "C"s daughter is coming to visit her for the Christmas holiday and so a decorated tree was in order.

 OK.... This is the real reason that I went to visit my friend.

It wasn't about the nice lunch, or even the yarn store.
It was really about a dog named Max.
I came down to see her new pup.
He is a four year old Havanese.
They are just getting to know each other. It's only been a few days. I don't think I have ever seen my friend so smitten with any man before.
They are sleeping together as of last night and I'm not sure that her daughter knows about this yet.

He is adorable...and apartment sized.

He is alert and will be the catalyst for many walks during the day.

They have already bonded and I could tell that this was love at first sight.

Max only has eyes for her. 

It's a match made in heaven. 

It's true love.

Did you notice the snow?

LOOK! I have beautiful, glorious SNOW on my blog page. Wait... you'll see it.
It's coming. Look at the pictures. There. Do you see it?
It's very easy to do. ( Google "snow effects for blogs")
A few years back I was crying about not having snow in this part of California and whining about it on my blog post. A friend named Jo who lives were it snows all winter, decided to give me a gift of snow and showed me how to make it appear on my blog . I was so thankful I could have kissed her. I got a Christmas card from her yesterday and it reminded me of the simple gifts that we can give one another. Thanks for the card Jo. Hope you and JD have a wonderful holiday.Thanks too for the gift of snow that you so kindly gave this California girl. I will never forget the delight of it.
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So, night before last the Prospector and I heard someone coming up our road. Now, we don't have people driving up our steep, dirt road after dark. They take their life in their hands. It's just not a smart thing to do. But, we have learned that the UPS folks keep very odd hours and that's who arrived.
He said that he was having a long,exhausting day and had been from one end of the county to the other. We talked for a few minutes and I was going to offer something warm to drink but he left as abruptly as he came... on Dasher, on Prancer, on Comet and Vixen... to another place, to another house in the middle of nowhere.
What he brought was a birthday present... for me. I told you I was going to extend this one out as long as I could and everything seems to be working in my favor.
Yes, it was a gift from my friend in Michigan. She told me something was coming. She loves suspense.
But... this was not just "something". This was TORRONE.

The flood of memories that this box brings are overwhelming and I will tell you why.
When I was a little girl we lived in Pleasant Hill, California. We lived in one of the first suburbs built in the 50's. It was a wonderful place to grow up.
My mother and father grew up in Napa, CA. and still had lots of relatives living there. The trip to Napa was long but we went often. I spent many summers up there and was very attached to my Mom's side of the family. It was a big family and Italian.
My great grandmother and grandfather had come from Italy and they bought a prune ranch in the late 1800's on Silverado Trail. It was a beautiful ranch and my favorite place to be in all the world besides my own home.
After my Mom and Dad moved to Pleasant Hill, Mom's family didn't come down to see us very much. It was hard to leave the ranch.  So once, sometimes twice a year they would call and say they were coming. They would arrive and spend the afternoon. Usually, my  great Uncle Jim (who was like a grandfather to me because my grandfather died before I was born) and my Grandmother (his sister) and my great Aunt Bina would come down together. I would run home from school knowing that they would be there. I can still feel the excitement.
If it was a summer visit, they would bring fresh vegetables and eggs. But if it was just before Christmas, they would arrive with dried fruit, nuts and a big box of La Florentine Torrone. Oh, how I loved the Torrone.

Inside the big flat box are lots of little boxes.

And inside the little boxes you find the wrapped candy.

When you open the little foil wrapper (I think it was a paper wrapper then) you find the Almond Nougat candy inside.

 

I remember Vanilla and Chocolate. Now there are three flavors: Lemone (lemon), Vaniglia (vanilla) and Arancio (orange). Six pieces of each flavor. Eighteen times to bite into a wonderful nougat candy with almonds in it and a paper thin edible wafer on each side. No preservatives or artificial coloring.

The edible wafer is the unusual thing that I remember when I was little. I thought that it was paper. It looked like paper but it tasted sweet and made biting into the nougat easier because your teeth didn't stick to the candy. The wafer also melted in your mouth. It was, to borrow a cereal ad phrase, "a mouth full of joy".

So, when I unwrapped this present from my friend, I squealed with delight. And as I ate that first piece of candy all those memories came flooding back. The anticipation of my grandmother's visit and her family being there at our house when I got home from school. The idea that they were coming down to see us. The hugs, kisses and the love that ensued....   It was always a day of joy and a time when I felt the circle of family was complete.

We would spend the afternoon talking, laughing, drinking coffee (Milk for me.) and  they would tell me about the latest adventure on the farm  or how Frosty ("my" horse) found the little lawn next to the house and started eating the grass.... how the fox got into the chicken house...  about the rattlesnake that ate rats in the basement. Stories that, too this day, make me understand the shape of my life now.

Mom would have baked something delicious to go with the coffee or sometimes Grandma would bring one of her pies. Oh, it was a wonderful day.  We would all sit there and share the company of each other. It always made me feel very grown up.

Dawn sent this candy because I had talked to her about it and all the memories it invoked.

I think she remembered the candy too. She has an amazing memory. 

Somewhere in our high school years she moved and we lost touch. We never connected with each other again, until the day I got an email from a friend that said someone had read a comment  from my sister on her blog. This person was asking if this commenter (my sister) had a sister named ........ and had they lived in Gregory Gardens in Pleasant Hill? Amazing! It was my childhood friend Dawn. She had found me.

. She had been living in Oakland, CA. while I was raising children not forty miles away. Amazing!,

Now, my son lives in Oakland. In those early years my husband worked in Oakland. I could have passed her on the street. We looked for a house there. The Prospector played softball there.

She found a comment on someone's blog and followed up on it.  Seems simple enough. She says our mothers had a hand in all of this. It could very well be true.

We were just on a different branch of the same tree... "Six Degrees of Separation." ?   I'm not sure, but I know that it's weird how life can be so amazingly coincidental sometimes.

I do believe that the connections one makes in life are always there, waiting for awareness and understanding. That each person you have a relationship with (of any kind)  makes a new little part of you. Each relationship changes you in many ways.

Dawn and I were children. We played with dolls and took ballet together. We walked to school each day together. Well...the truth is we rode the bus except for the last few years of school... but you understand what I'm saying . Even as children we had a history... the beginnings of a Story... together. 

She remembered those little Torrone boxes in a bowl at my childhood house and the memory was inside of her. The real gift is that she remembered, and that I, now, have become the recipient of that shared memory.

What a beautiful thing it is. 

To eat a piece of that memory and taste the love of that distant time.

The thought is as sweet as the candy itself.