Sunday Visitor

It was a typical Sunday morning around here.

We were relaxing... on our second cup of coffee.
The dogs were getting a little bit more shut eye.

The Prospector called me from the kitchen.
"Hey, the owl is back."
He told me, a few days ago, that a small owl landed on the wicker rocking chair on the porch. I was shopping and missed the encounter. It didn't last long and the owl flew away.
The Prospector was so excited to see one up close. We have a barn owl in the shed at our entrance which we have seen for years but recently it has been gone. We hear owls at night. I love listening to them. But, to have one land on our porch in the middle of the day was extraordinary.
This morning it happen again.
"Bring the camera!", called my husband from the living room.
When I got to the window I saw the owl. It had perched itself up under the eave of the porch overhang.
There it was...

It looked like it was tired... and a little cranky.

and it started to settle in...

But something caught its eye. An arrant hummingbird was wondering why this BIG bird was on the hummingbird's porch. These bossy little hummer's don't like other birds near there feeder. It flew quite close to the owl and darted in and out, hoping (I guess.) that the owl would fly away. Well, this little owl stood its ground and appeared more annoyed than anything else.

The hummer flew at the owl a few times and then backed off. He came back a few times, then left the owl alone. They must have come to some agreement. I know that the owl gave the hummer the "stink eye", so maybe that was all that was needed.

The little owl has tucked itself into its feathers and gone to sleep. I hope it's OK. I hope it stays for a while.
It is such a treat to have a wild thing visit us. Like all the other close encounters that we have here, I feel that we have been given a special moment... a gift.
This little guy is like an early Christmas present... already unwrapped.

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.

Bambino Blog

Our youngest grandson, Little Bean, is FIVE years old today.
He just grew up when we weren't looking.
From the little guy who taste tested the dirt in our garden...

And held his own with his older brother...

To being the life of the party.

He is the sweetest most loving little boy.

Love you bambino.
Noni and Papa wish you the best Birthday ever.

'Tis the Season... I think.

 Yes, 'tis the season...Just not sure WHAT season it is.

Mother Nature is still doing her lovely Autumn thing and it's nine days until the first day of winter.

Fall is trying to cover up the sweet Alyssum of summer without much success.

The Mexican Sage is blooming its purple flowers off.

And the white roses look better than they did all summer.

I think the Christmas decorations feel a little out of place. My "snow" effect doesn't even give me that hot chocolate and marshmallow feeling. Maybe I should take it off the blog.
The sun is shinning. It's beautiful and warm during the day.
I know this is California, but I think it needs to start acting like Winter... and soon.

So I discussed this with the tired cone flowers,

the struggling Sunflower,

and the bedraggled Boston fern.
We've decided to postpone Christmas until January 25.
There is never anything to do in January. We sit around and worry about "resolutions" and  loosing weight. We get depressed. It's a tough month.
I'm not ready for Christmas anyway. The weather is confused and so is my garden.
Who says that Christmas has to be on the 25th of December?
Let's give ourselves another month. Then we will ALL really be ready.
Are you with me on this?

Weekend with a Purpose

I'm feeling a bit of a crunch because of this freight train called Christmas. So the weekend has been packed with doing things to avoid a train wreck and feel more at one with it all.
I have been:
1. Writing Christmas cards.
2. Making extra food for our neighbor who lives by himself and just had an operation on Thursday.
3. Re-purposeing a wool sweater. (More about this later.)
4. Sewing. Yes, I'm actually sewing like I know what I'm doing.
5. Finishing a couple of knitted/felted scarves for Christmas.
6. Taking pictures of the flock of turkey in our neighbor's yard.

Couldn't pass this up. They were everywhere. I think they are planning some kind of take over. They only seems to congregate when my unsuspecting neighbor is at work. Hope they know he has a rifle and loves turkey dinners.
7. Contemplating what it would be like to spend Christmas in Cabo San Lucas or Hawaii.
8. Dusting and vaccuming.
9. Trying to write short intertaining blog posts.
10. Realizing that Christmas is only 14 days away.
11. Having strange dreams about being lost in a Casino that looks like a department store and sells babies. Yea... very disturbing.
12. Baking Snickerdoodles.
The beginnings...

The old reliable recipe...I add a teaspoon of vanilla and preheat to 360 degrees, not 400. This takes a little longer but I like the results.

The beautiful and delicious yellow cookie dough... I LOVE cookie dough. The recipe says it makes 5 dozen but a couple of cookies less is more accurate because someone keeps eating bites of the dough.

And the finished product.

Help yourself.

Tomorrow I will tell you about Brownie and why he is taking a walk with the Prospector.

Taking a Breath

This is for my grandsons.... and all the folks out there who still have a little child inside of them.

 

Listen and believe in what your heart is saying.

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.

The Best Season of My Life

 

 Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,

A cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.

If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things, 

This is the best season of your life.

~Wu-Men~

Thank you for the beautiful cards and lovely gifts.

For a hand made card from a friend with photos of her visit to my house this summer.

For my friend, "C', who came up Friday and gave me beautiful yarn for my obsession. 

For phone calls from my sons and grandsons, 

Sister-in laws and friends.

For my sister, who arrived to help me celebrate. 

 Who wore the coolest boots...

And hiked with me to "the place where the ferns grow".

We shared the beauty of this place for a long weekend and I, again, understood how important it is to have this relationship with her. She and I are seven years apart and were not really close when we were young because of the distance in age. Now, we are best friends and I'm so thankful for this.

She gave the goats some lovin'.

The Prospector showed her how to retrieve gold from a sluice box.

She got to sleep in... and then be attacked by two small dogs when she opened her bedroom door.

She couldn't go anywhere without Carl and Cutter following her.

Yesterday we cut Manzanita for Christmas decorations.

(Can you find her in the photo to the left? She really got in to her quest for the perfect branch.) 

 We lined up and compared each branch for size and perfection of twig. She piled the best ones into her car.

Then she packed up and drove back across the valley to her family in the Bay Area.

Thanks Sis, You made my birthday very special.

Thank you family and friends. 

This really is "the best season of [my] life."

Cutter is a bit unhappy. He wants to know where his "auntie" went.

Friends for Lunch and a New Scarf.

Yes! Flowers and a tablecloth. Company was coming.

On Monday and Tuesday I pulled out some stored Boxes of Christmas and did some decorating. A little here and a little there...

...to make our little house feel warm and holiday-ish.
Two friends arrived bearing good will and homemade apple butter.

One friend is in my gourd group and the other is in the goat club... and they have known each other for years... way before I knew either of them.
Both live in the valley and have farms. Sylvia has a garden (both vegetable and flower) that makes me want to move to the flat land of the central valley and dive into the wonderful soil down there. She grows gourds that are absolutely wonderful... all kinds and thick skinned. Her Dahlias are to die for and she saved us from an over population of GOPHERS a few years ago when she gave me some gopher purge. It worked.
Jane has goats,.. Alpines...lovely and sweet. I have posted about Dick and Jane's farm before, here. I wish you could stand in the middle of these goats in the field and watch them. They are really beautiful animals and some will be having BABIES next year. I hope I can go down and take pictures of the kids. Jane thinks I need some does. Wouldn't that be lovely. Goat milk to make cheese and ice cream with, and some babies... sweet little newborns. Oh yes, that sounds delightful.
So they braved the fog in the valley and our scary road, to come up for lunch.
Having them here was so nice. I made vegetable soup and salad with Pumpkin pie for dessert.
The Prospector disappeared to find paydirt in the hills and leave the afternoon to the women.
After lunch I showed them my newest felted scarf. I had tried to take some photos of it on a gourd Tuesday. No one has a neck like this but I just wanted to see how it wrapped.
Fluffy butt Carl didn't want to model it for me. He wanted to chew on it, so I tried the gourd.

 It was OK, but I got a real person to model it yesterday and it made such a big difference. Thank you Jane.

I could see how it wrapped and tied on someone.
This was a felting experiment that worked out rather well. I love using separate pieces of knitting and adding crochet for trim. I love to detail a scarf with old buttons and eye cords.
this will be a Christmas gift for someone.
We had such a good time yesterday. I love having friends up here.
*******************************
I'm having a quiet day today. There are a few things to do. Got to go to town this afternoon.
Tomorrow my sister is coming up for the weekend to help me celebrate another year of life. Oh lord. I guess I should be thankful... and I am... really, but I didn't think I was going to get THIS old. Guess you just have to go with it. It's better than the alternative.
My friend "C", from Sacramento, is coming up for the day too. I'm looking forward to her visit. She is the same age as I am. She understands. We can commiserate together. We knew each other when we were 16 years old. Where did the years go?
My birthday isn't until Sunday but, since I found myself alive when I woke up this morning, I might as well milk it for all it's worth (Life, not goats.) and stretch it out for as many days as possible.
Don't ya think?