What a weekend... Life is Good.

On Friday I had a birthday. I turned 71. When my grandmother was in her 70's I thought that was REALLY OLD. I suppose it still looks old to some... but now that I'm here, and the reality of it is apparent, I don't feel this old.  I don't feel like I did a few years ago when the BIG 70 was looming like a huge slow motion title wave. I have a year of this under my belt now and I think I'm going to be OK...if...
I can find my glasses, car keys and the really comfortable pair of shoes that I put somewhere so Carl, our Corgi, wouldn't find them and chew on them. The ones I still can't find.
And then... there's my left knee. It seems that nothing heals on its own after 70. You hurt yourself without doing anything that you can remember ...and there lies the rub. You can't remember how you hurt yourself so you can't tell the doctor what happen... so they have to probe, test, examine and stab at a guess about what might have caused this injury. Then you start with ice packs and Tylenol, and hope for weeks, that this will be the answer... but it's not. Then an xray finds the beginnings of DEGERERATIVE ARTHRITIS and BONE DEBRIS and they tell you that you may have to try some cortisone shots and possibly have a knee replacement... "...down the road". I call it my "road" of discontent. The ragged road of being older than dirt. It's an ongoing saga. I'm trying to be positive about this but pain sucks.

So... enough of this... I had a great weekend. My sister was here. It's kind of a tradition that she be here and, in January, I will drive down to celebrate her birthday. We do this because we love each other and because we need to support each other during these trying years and cheer each other on. I have good friends and they are wonderful... but there's nothing like a sister for whining and crying. We have history. We understand each other.
So... We spent four days doing fun stuff.  On Friday, my birthday, I strapped on my knee brace and we went to an antique store, in Jackson, just for fun. The Prospector took us to dinner that night.

 Sis brought me a homemade carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and a hand packed box of See's candy. 

 Yeah... it was a good day.

 We went shopping in Sutter Creek for the Christmas Open House on Saturday. I kind of over did it with the walking, but we sure had fun.

Also, on Saturday, we cut some Manzanita Branches for decorations. We do this every year before Christmas. I use one as a Christmas tree. Sis uses hers over her kitchen window. Then we decorate them with homemade items and favorite ornaments.
This is my "tree" on the buffet.

We also made paper wreaths out of old song book pages.
This is the progression of rolling and gluing the pages onto a backing and the final results of my sister's wreath. She used small twigs, brown packing grass, some gold paint and a sparkly silver ornament.

It's so beautiful.

Mine was done a little differently. I used smaller pages from an old Christian songbook.

 Instead of making cones, I rolled the pages and shredded one end of each rolled page before hot gluing them to a round cardboard backing.

Finally a few pieces of mossy twigs, and three star ornaments.  I'm quite pleased with the wreath.

I want to try more of these. The possibilities are endless.
After dinner we started Christmas boxes. It's the technique that I used on the Halloween boxes that I've made before.
 You start with any old box or book and hot glue plastic toys and fake flowers and, in this case, plastic words like JOY and MERRY CHRISTMAS on the top of the box. Then you separate two ply paper towels, wet them and lay them over the top of everything that you have attached to the box and use Mod Podge glue to attach the paper towels and tuck, fold and push the towels into all the nooks and crannies of the figures on the box. We did this last night so it would be dry this morning.
I should have taken more photos because the transition is really amazing.
I went from a plain box like this...

To a colorful, painted box with Joy written all over it... and a dragonfly... and a little frog. In the right top, the word, the frog and the dragonfly didn't seem to stand out, so I added some black paint with a dry brush and more gold. I also added a bit of gold sparkle glue too, which isn't that noticeable in the photo, but added some real bling bling to the whole box. The darker color brought out the letters and accents more. Compare the upper right photo with the lower left. You can see the difference in the two of them. This whole process gets easier with practice.
My sister nailed it on her first try. She used and old soap box that hinged. She had a dollar store "Merry Christmas" ornament that took forever to tuck and wrap with the paper towel, but she did it and it turned out so festive and gorgeous.

I love this technique. It can be a bit labor intensive on a late Sunday night, when we did the wet paper towel/ Mod Podge part, but the results are always worth it. Here's a link to Pinterest and the original site were I got the idea. Just click here.
Sis went home this morning and I miss her all ready. As a distraction, I went to the dentist. Two hours in a dentist chair with Novocaine was not my idea of the way to end this wonderful weekend, but it did give me something else to do for a few hours. At one point, I was looking out of the window. I noticed an incident across the road. The dentist, his assistant and I watched as two woman have a knock down, dragged out, kicking and screaming fight in front of the library across the street. Someone called the police. One of the women got arrested. Real drama in downtown Jackson. That doesn't happen very often in our small town... in broad daylight. It was kind of comic relief for all of us.


I miss you Sis. Thanks for everything... you are a dear person, even if you were a pain in the arse when you were little. You grew up to be my very special friend. I love you. See you at Christmas.

Rainbows and Gardenitis

Last night before dinner we experienced this beautiful gift of nature.

Can you see it?

A Rainbow landed right in our canyon. It was still raining when I took the picture but the sun was shinning too. That's all you need... some sun and rain together and the magic begins. We had rain, wind and some hail all day long so I took this rainbow as a sign that this was the end of the rain.. for a while. That's quite a biblical  supposition for me, but I like to throw those ideas into the mix occasionally. Keeps my readers wondering where I'm really coming from.
The Prospector said that he thought he might  go down to our neighbor's creek to see if there really was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. He should be so lucky. Nothing is ever that easy..... and then, of course, the rainbow vanished.
The clouds were breaking up. The rain stopped.
Across the Mokelumne River the rain continued and one more vague rainbow appeared.

Then all the clouds move east to the Blue Mountains and into the Sierras.

What a beautiful evening it was.

**************************

This morning I awoke to sunshine and the clearest, most beautiful day you can imagine. One of those "take your coffee outside and never come back in until dinner"  kind of days.

First we had to get a "poop" sample from Brownie. That's technical farm talk. This is a whole lot easier than it sounds. They do pellets. It's not messy, just logistically difficult.  We succeeded and the Prospector left for the valley to drop off the sample at the vet, go to an appointment to see the "back, leg and knee" doctor and a few more touch and go landings that we save up for our trips down there. 

The dogs and I went out into the garden. My mistake was picking up the loping shears and putting my gloves on.... thinking I was going to just trim a few areas back and pull a few weeds. HA!

I went down to the vegetable garden to dump the scraps in the composter and I have decided that the weeds are in love with all this rain. They were everywhere.... and huge.

I really could start a NETTLES processing plant. I have nettles everywhere. A friend on Vancouver Island, BC. told me how to cook Nettles and you can make tea with it too. But, again, I let it get beyond its prime and all this rain kind of makes it look like it is already cooked. The really nice big plants are wilted and brown. But, never fear... there are baby nettles everywhere. 

So I went to work..... weeding, pulling down the dead vines on the trellis and feeling like I was a Master Gardener on steroids.

This mess, above, became this clean garden bed below.

This only took about 45 mins. The soil was wet and soft. The weeds came up without much effort. Gloves and a long sleeve shirt are absolute necessities when working with Nettles. They aren't called Stinging Nettles for nothin'. If your skin comes in contact with the leaves, you won't believe how it hurts. You can read why HERE.

When I came back up to the front yard I saw the Vinca. I decided to go in and have some breakfast first. Good thing... because once I went outside again I didn't come in for quite a while. This is weed pulling weather. It's not hot. The ground is wet and soft. The mosquitoes are so confused that they don't know whether to bite you or run for cover. This rain is also keeping the Rattlers at bay.... for a while.  That's a good thing.

So I started cutting back the Vinca. This is a landscaping nightmare. Please don't ever plant Vinca Major. It's an invasive, noxious weed that never goes away. We have controlled it by surrounding it with rock and concrete blocks but still it spreads everywhere.

This stuff would survive Armageddon.

It's beautiful but it's so invasive. It creeps everywhere and I truly wish I had never planted it. 

Look at this...

It grew right through this rock. Lava rock is an igneous rock that is volcanic in origin. It's very porous. The Vinca found an opening and has grown all the way through. I know this happens. I've seen ivy grow through concrete. But still, I find this amazing.

So I made a big mess everywhere. Not even neat piles of cuttings. I just tore through the Vinca.

I even had lots of help...

Then I noticed that the Yarrow was almost on the ground after all the wind and rain so I cut some of it back and made another pile of these beautiful yellow flowers to hang and dry. I will use them for an arrangement later on in the Fall.

Oh, and the hillside had some huge weeds growing as though they belonged there, so I sat down on the hillside and picked as many as I could. And then... I cleaned up the Chrysanthemum bed. More Nettles!
When I realized that I couldn't stand up straight without severe discomfort and that I couldn't feel my toes anymore, I knew it was time to stop.
I have six or seven piles to clean up this afternoon. Don't you just hate it when you work this hard and  have to CLEAN UP afterwards?.. Darn.

Rockrose Collage

A Good Tired

My grandson was visiting one day when he asked, "Gramma, do you know how you and God are alike?"  I mentally polished my halo while I asked, "No, how are we alike?"  "You're both old," he replied.  ~Author Unknown 


I had to laugh when I read this. It's so like a child. It's so like the Bean..  the ability to make you feel like the most important person in his life and then honesty that takes you to your knees.
We had such a good time this weekend. There were moments of "This is how it's going to be, young man." or " We don't touch the computer and we don't throw the dog's bone across the living room and into the kitchen." but most of the time it was wonderful. The Bean is 5. He's learning how to be a human being. We had to give him a little slack. 
He and the Prospector had an ongoing conversation about Cheerios. Papa told him that he thought Cheerios would be a great present for the Bean's birthday in March. The Bean  said "NO PAPA." and Papa replied, " But you love Cheerios. It's a great gift."  The Bean looked Papa in the eye and said...." PAPA, you don't give Cheerios for presents. ONLY TOYS." So Papa, of course, had to keep bringing it up and every time he said something like "How about some Cheerios with your eggs?" or "Would you like some Cheerios with that piece of chicken?", the Bean would start laughing and it got pretty silly around here.
I made this collage to show you the speed with which we moved for 4 days.....

We have forgotten how children are going, going, going.... from the moment they wake up until they finally fall asleep at night.
Yesterday before we left to meet Daddy and little Bean in Stockton, he had one last run with the dogs....

He ran around the yard with the dogs and then he told me that he didn't want to go home. He got really quiet and stood looking out across the hills. He said, " But I have to go because my brother will be sad if I don't come home." I walked over, gave him a hug and said, "That's OK Bean. You can come back anytime you want to, but I agree that little bean will be sad if you don't go home." He gave this some real consideration  and then said quietly, "Yea, I gotta go home." 
So we went to say goodbye to the goats. 

Bart and the Bean had a moment together with lots of eye contact. Brownie grabbed the hay right out of Bean's hand. Murphy and Freckles seems very thankful that they were getting an extra late morning snack. Then we said goodbye to the goats and walked up to the chicken coop.

The Bean found one egg in a small box but there were three hens in the big nesting box so we closed it back up and let them lay their eggs without any of the ladies getting upset. He carried the egg back to the garage and carefully put it in the outside refrigerator. He's getting so good at this.

Then, one more farewell to all.
 We packed up all of Beans toys, special drawings, artwork, clothes, cookies we made and the apples he bought at the store for his family. He said goodbye to Papa and off we went. We drove down to the truck stop on Highway 5 in Lodi to meet Daddy and little bean at the Taco Bell. We had arranged to meet "half way" so the trip would be only 2 hours, back and forth, instead of 4. 
About 15 minutes into the drive, the Bean fell asleep.

I didn't take a nap! I wanted to sleep too. Oh, how I wanted to sleep.... but I didn't.
Bean woke up to his brother crawling across him saying. "Hey, wake up. Do you got any candy?" He didn't, but he had found a rock that looked like a number "1" on our walk Friday that he had saved to give to his brother. It was amazing that the flat shale rock was shaped this way but little Bean was not too impressed. He like a red sucker better.
We transferred everything from one car to the other and said our goodbyes. My son gave me a hug and said "Thank you, Mom." That made the tiredness go away.
I gave the boys a kiss, waved goodbye and got into the car and headed straight for Starbucks.

My plan was to drive on into Stockton and see my Mother-in-law. She fell and broke her shoulder and hip a few weeks back and has been recuperating in a convalescent hospital for over a month. Last Wednesday she was able to come home. She has family there 24/7 right now. 
She is doing really well and looks good. She is a "trooper". It has been a very hard recovery for her and she is not happy about all of this but she is trying to be patient. She's 89 years old. She has always been so active and in good heath.  She has always had more energy than all of us put together.... no, wait.  Who I'm I talking about? The Bean has that energy too. His great grandmother must have pass all that energy on to him. He must have inherited the Energizer Bunny Gene. The Prospector has it too. It looks like a small animal attached to the DNA with a leash to keep it in place. It's a wild thing. I've seen it. I know it's habits.... intense, active and a mind of it's own. Can be combative and hostile sometimes when it gets loose and runs amuck
I left Stockton and drove home, up into the lovely mountains. I ate dinner and was in bed by 9:00 p.m. I slept for 10 hours straight. UNHEARD OF!! I'm usually a "night owl". The Starbucks latte, the black tea at dinner and the chocolate for dessert didn't even touch the depth of tiredness I felt. 
Today I just took it easy. The dogs keep looking for the Bean and in between they take naps. I'm still tired..... but it's a good tired.

Wishful Thinking and a Few Highlights

There is an old expression that goes..."Hope springs eternal." Well, that's my mantra these days. When the gray hair arrives, even in places besides your head, and your skin starts to look like you remember your grandmas looking like. When your eyelids start sagging into you eyes and making you look like you partied too much the night before and you didn't. When , no matter what you do to "take 10 years off your over all appearance" nothing works... then it's time for desperate measures.
I don't have the money for face lifts and tummy tucks, but if I did I think I'm at that level of desperation that I might do it if I had a few thousand dollars of disposable income floating around. But I don't. So, what's left? .... La Petite Frost.
I don't think it's too much to ask that if you buy this product, the results should come somewhere close to the picture on the front of the box. I know I'm probably 40 years older than this model. I KNOW that I probably weight more. Ha! I haven't had my lips puffed up and my bangs aren't long and straight like hers, but..., gee wiz! I just want to maintain a little fantasy of my former self.
So I bought the box with the beautiful girl on it and yesterday morning while the Prospector was gone (I NEVER do this when he's around. It's just too invasive for an audience), I slipped on the plastic cap; pulled my hair through the holes in the cap with a miniature crochet hook, until my aching fingers where crying for me to stop; prepared the bleaching solution and spread it all over my head, being very careful not to drip any on my age spots. Then I waited 45 minutes. I wanted the maximum effect.
Well, I guess my hair looks lighter and more "summery". I'm thankful for small improvements at this stage of my life. I still think that L'Oreal should use OLDER models so we don't have so far to fall when we make comparisons. But, like the gold ring on the carousel. We always have to reach.... keep trying.
Then, to add insult to injury, I was in the bathroom slopping on the solution, when Carl walked in on me....

His ears went up and his eyes got bigger. You'd thing he had seen a monster (or a strange dog) inside the doorway. I said some reassuring words to him and he GROWLED at me. Then he ran into our bedroom and hid under the bed.
After I removed the cap and washed the "H75 Chardonnay" solution out of my hair Carl cautiously returned. Farmlady was in the bathroom again and the monster was gone. He wagged his tail and left. Dogs!

I like the highlights. I feel better.., lighter. Maybe with a new style of eyeglasses I could pass for , Oh, 57 maybe 56.., late 50's.., 60? Now I need a haircut because I got some of the "solution" on the hair that I forgot to tuck under the cap and it looks like I fell asleep in the sun with a swim cap on. I'm thinking I should use some of that nasty concoction on my age spots. Couldn't hurt!
Getting older is very high on the Suckometer. I try to not care. I keep telling myself that wisdom is better than beauty. But there she is..., that model on the box.... looking eternally beautiful.
There's no justice in this world...

Give Me one More Day

"I'm not old, I just need re-potting." I have this sign over my front door. Sometimes I don't feel any older than I did 20 or 30 years ago, until I hike too far up the hill or wrestle with a goat who needs to have his hoofs trimmed. Then I realize that my body is not as agile as my thinking is anymore.., that this body is wearing out. And then I think to myself that it would be so nice if I could "re-pot" myself like some of the root bound plants in my garden. That's the problem. I'm root-bound. I need more room and better soil so I can keep growing, but here I am in my 60's, in a worn out old container that has been through some rough years of weathering the storms of life and there is very little that I can do accept lose weight and accept what is. Sometimes trying to be positive get really old. Sometimes being "happy"about everything gets tiresome.....

Just about the time I start feeling sorry for myself I take a look at what's around me. The mild Spring weather is edging up to 70 degrees. The linnets are frantically putting a nest together in the dog angel birdhouse and all the pansies have survived the cold nights and the wind...., and on my first Iris, about to bud, is a very small white spider.

The goats are happily eating the new grass in the pasture and smiling for the camera. We have planted some lettuce and tomatoes (the beginnings of a great summer garden) and a new, very yellow-orange bird has arrived to drink the hummingbirds sugar water but can't figure out how to get it's beak into the tiny opening. I'm sure the hummers are laughing over this. I am.

Spring has come to the Foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the hills are covered in carpets of small white flowers and yellow Buttercups. Each day I find a new wildflower and take a picture of it. Then I go back home and look it up to see what it's called. Each day I put one foot in front of the other and step forth, looking for something new, something beautiful. Today the old container allows me one more place, small though it may be, to hold and keep this fleeting life of mine, one more day, one more hour, one more breath....