A Good Friday and a wish for all of you.

May all your days be blue skies and wild grasses in Spring.

Something Wicked This Way Comes.... but there was Joy in the Morning.

I took a long walk yesterday afternoon up into the hills. This is what it looked like at about 4:00 p.m.

The wind was blowing through the trees, moving the clouds across the sky. Everything was so lovely.... as if Nature was at peace with the world. I even stopped up there, closed my eyes and just stood there for a few minutes, feeling the warmth of the sun, listening to the sound of the wind, the birds, the distant traffic noises from across the canyon and the strange little squeaking sound that kept coming from one of the oak trees... a bird possibly.
Then I heard a clicking kind of buzzing ... looked down I saw a grasshopper land on the grass in front of me. It was black and medium sized. I tried to lean quietly over and take a picture. This is what I photographed.

Because it flew so close I didn't have to move and I was able to catch it with the camera. It could be a House Lubber Grasshopper. The description says that it is shiny black, about 11/2 to 2", with yellow veins on its wings. I didn't see it fly in, so I'm not sure about the yellow color.
I had my eyes closed.
I was communing .
But it did fly in and I heard its characteristic sound. It says, as I read my field guide, that this "music making" serves as a form of warning, a way to establish territory, or a move in courtship. I like to think he spotted me and decided to be friendly on this beautiful day. After all I was standing still and this little guy flew to me. Their Habitat are grasslands and woods with Live Oaks. That's us.... lots of grass and oaks. It's hard to say exactly what kind of grasshopper it was because in North America alone there are over 1000 species.
I took four photos before it flew away to something more interesting and I continued on down the trail toward the house.
********************
The wind was picking up and the sun disappeared. When I passed the goats they seemed restless and were heading for the goat house.
I went in and fixed dinner. The Prospector said something about the weather on TV. There was a "cell" moving over Amador county. They were spot on. We had finished dinner and watched Jeopardy. I let the dogs outside and they ran around peeing on everything and chasing each other.  The sky got darker and more ominous and then we heard rumbles from across the river canyon. The sun was trying hard to leave a last impression on us.

The clouds to the east didn't look that bad but the sun was losing the battle.

To the south the sky got a strange look that seems more frequent in the last few years. Clouds that carry the sunset  with them but lay like high fog over the foothills. They have a different look to them.

Standing out there, looking to the west behind the house, there was a darkness moving over the hills that said..." Time to take the dogs into the house and stop standing out here like a fool taking pictures.".
I called the boys in and taking one last photo from the porch...

... we retreated.
We watch this storm hit. First the wind, then the thunder and lightening, and then the hail. Huge pieces of hail that fell, plummeling my flower garden, battering the roof and scaring the dog boys under our bed. Cutter would bark at the thunder every time it hit. I just stood there watching my Iris, hoping for a miracle.
The storm knocked out the TV and the computer. We ended up reading for about an hour until the storm blew itself out and move east where it became snow for all the worn out folks up country and into the Sierras. It was a slow moving storm that planted itself at about the 3000 ft. level for quite a while. We watched it leave and saw the ragged bottoms of the clouds that has just gone over us. We had been told that "ragged bottoms" are the strange rough underside of a very large cloud that produces Tornadoes. It definitely looked like what a blogging friend in the Midwest calls a "bad cloud". We don't get Tornadoes up here but we have had a few in the Valley recently.
I watched that cloud for a long time. I think I kind of understand what it must feel like to know that something  horrible would come down out of the clouds and do great damage to a town or community. Tornadoes are monsters, dark and sinister wind, exposing life to fearful disaster and pain. I can't imagine what it must be like to see one come out of a dark cloud. I'm sure that it's one of nature's most frightening events.
This cloud moved on... and by evening it was dark and quiet.
I heard rain late in the night. As I lay there, save and protected. I felt thankful for this sanctuary that I call home and the protection it effort us here in the California foothills. I said a thank you prayer before I fell back to sleep.
I won't always be so safe. Something wicked eventually comes, but we live each day with hope that there will be Joy in the Morning.

This post was for Karen Deborah and all of those that suffer from chronic pain and depression. We all suffer "storms" in our life. For some it's more difficult than others. This is a kind of a prayer for those who weather each day with fortitude and grace.

(My Iris survived the hailstorm. They are a bit ragged but they are fine. )

Wordless Wednesday: They're Everywhere!

Spring Reigns

"Everything is blooming most recklessly;

 if it were voices instead of colors,

there would be an unbelievable shrieking

into the heart of the night. " ~Rainer Maria Rilke

"It's spring fever. 
  That is what the name of it is, 

And when you've got it, you want... 

- oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want,

but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!"  ~Mark Twain

"An Old Man Loved.. is Winter with Flowers" Part II

As I walked to the top of the property this morning I thought about the way life changes constantly and how we, sometimes, fear this obvious truth.

How these huge old trees at the top of the rise were standing upright and living when we first moved here. Now they lay in the spring grass, mulching into the earth and becoming a part of the soil that nurtured them.

This was a little house that we found when we first bought the property some fifteen years ago. It stood erect and almost livable then. Now, slowly,  it's being engulfed by the Poison Oak and every year becomes more a part of the  natural environment that seems to be pulling it's wooden skeleton back into the earth.
It's a passage. It's the way of all things.
*****************
  My uncle's birthday was a wonderful celebration: This was a party for my Uncle's FIRST (as someone said) ninety years . A celebration in a town that knew him well and respected him enormously. A celebration of someone who had reached a milestone in his life.

He was movie star handsome. He was born in Berkeley, California but grew up in the Napa Valley on a ranch with my mother and a sister and lots of relatives. His father died when he was only 2 years old so his mother brought her family, from Berkeley, back to the family ranch in Napa where he developed his love of fishing, hunting and got into all kinds of mischief with his cousins. He joined the Navy and then, after the war, he married and had three daughters.
When he was offered a job in Susanville, CA. he took it and the rest is history. Other than a very miserable short job near San Jose and getting a Master's degree in Eugene, Oregon, he has always lived in Susanville.
He was a track coach at the high school and then worked at Lassen Junior College.

On Saturday night we realized the impact he had on so many people's lives. He was visibly touch by the warm tribute in his honor.
There were all the coaches and teachers there that he had worked with over the years.

Some former students  told stories about this man who was tough but fair, who pushed them on to a achieve more than they thought they ever could and the respect they had for him.
 And of course his family was there. His two daughters got up and talked about their dad.... Memories of being young and having a "coach" for a dad.
 It was a wonderful evening with good wishes, lots of stories and really great homemade food. I'm still drooling over a cheesecake pie that Sis, my cousin and I snuck out of the hall, ( there were only two pieces left) brought back to the B&B that night to eat again, with our innkeepers, to see if we could figure out what was in it. OMG! It was so good. We're still working on this. My cousin and I are researching it on the Internet. I will let you know if we come up with anything. We couldn't fine the person who made it. I would guess that they left early or figured that there wouldn't be any left to take back home with them. THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN RIGHT. We know it had cut up cranberries (dried) IN the cheesecake and lots of orange zest on top of it. IT was creamy and delightful. Excuse me..... my mouth is watering again.
Everyone left the Senior Center full of good food and good wishes for our Uncle. It was a wonderful evening.
******************
The next day we drove over to my Uncle's house. ( please notice that the snow is completely gone.)

and had another little party of our own with lots of the leftover food and lots of conversation. We don't get to see our cousins very often so this was a nice time to talk about being young.. and vacations that we spent together.. and grandma's house in Napa.. the Ranch and all the childhood memories of  places we shared. We talked about our mothers and looked at old photos of them when they were very young. We talked about missing our cousin, Uncle Jimmy's oldest daughter and how she would have enjoyed this weekend. She died of cancer a few years back. She was only in her 50's. It was very sad. Maybe she was watching all of this, somewhere,  with Mom and Grandma. I hope she was. We miss her so.

This is my uncle's garden. He loves his garden. The Winter weather stayed late this year so he hasn't planted much yet but he knows where he will plant everything and what the names of all the fruit trees are and the varieties. He tells us how he grafted them many years ago and which ones are doing well... which ones are not.

Gardening, walking and friendships are the mainstay of his life now. He seems to be happy with his life. This says a lot for staying in one place.... putting down roots.... being satisfied with your choices. He seems to be a peace filled man. 
Saturday night when he was asked to say a few words, he thanked everyone and then he talked about those times when you have a dilemma or a decision to make. He said that you should always come from a place of love. You should always try to make the decision based on LOVE. What a wonderful philosophy.
It's not a simple thing.. this growing old, but we can learn from a 90 year old who knows that life is short and still treats the world with kindness.
Happy Birthday Uncle Jimmy. We love you.

The Buzz Word is Busy.

This has been two very full days. Yesterday I cleaned the house because we hosted the goat meeting here today. Now this may sound like a simple statement: "I cleaned the house.", but as I get older it has become a big deal. Cleaning this  little house has become an act of effort and love.  Kind of like getting ready for a holiday dinner only a bit easier because I didn't have to make the whole meal.  This morning  I made a chicken, broccoli, lemon casserole and  bought some good french bread. We set out some wine and lots of cold drinks. The rest came  from all my goat club friends. Lots of great salads. One with (what else) goat cheese and Brownies for dessert.
It was really a good meeting and some of them stayed for quite a while afterward just to talk. The weather was wonderful. The Corgi boys were perfect little gentleman.  Everyone followed the directions we sent out and found our house without any problems. No one got out of their cars shaking and scared to death. It has happen before. We live where most people have not gone before but these are goat people after all. They're resilient and resourceful. I wrote on the directions to "Think like a goat" when coming up to our house. They did. I'm so proud of them all.
  We don't get much company. I'm kind of people deprived out here. The Prospector is even less of a social butterfly than I am, so we really fussed about all kinds of things before the meeting.... like parking,  having enough chairs, where to put the dog faced boys and how to cover the small area of the wall to wall carpet that the pups decided to eat for lunch a while back. After all of our anxious concern, no one noticed the chewed rug or anything we had worried about. They loved our home and were happy to be here. Sometimes we worry so much about appearances that we forget about the enjoyment of having people visit. It was a really good day.
I haven't tried to access my photos for a blog post for two days. As you know, I had a moment on Thursday when I got upset with Picasa, my photo storage program. I'm going to post one photo of my name tag that I made at our gourd meeting on Thursday and see if it will find my blog post. If it does, tomorrow I will continue the story of my Uncle's birthday.
Here goes....

YES! It's working. TA DA! The gods of the WWWeb are shinning down on me this evening. (Now you know Farmlady's really name.)  But, alas, I'm finding myself a bit fatigued from all the festivities of the day.... so the rest of the Susanville story will have to wait until tomorrow.

Life interrupts the telling of the tale.

I guess that I will have to try again tomorrow. Picasa 3 is just staring back at me when I click the photo link. I can't get it to bring any of my photo files up to my post sooooo.... Phooey!  It's almost 7:00 p.m. and "I give"
I went to my gourd club today and we had a guest artist who show us all kinds of interesting gourd techniques. We made named tags out of broken pieces of gourd. It was really fun. If I can get Picasa to quit holding MY photos hostage, I will show you the results of my gourd pin class tomorrow.
AND...... if the photos are available to me, tomorrow, I will continue the story of our trip to Susanville.
Does this Blogging, Computer, Internet, thing make you as crazy as it makes me? Do you think anyone out there really cares if we post or not? Is this because I didn't  join Twitter? Are the Gods of the World Wide Web sitting somewhere making decisions on the basis of how many friends I have on Facebook.
DO YOU THINK IT MIGHT BE THAT I MADE CUPCAKES FOR THE MEETING AND DIDN'T SEND SOME TO BLOGGER?
Holy crumbs! I feel like a contestant on a Quid Pro Quo Queen for a Day.... that lost. It's time to shut this thing off.
See you tomorrow....

"An Old Man Loved is Winter with Flowers" Part 1.

This was a trip to Susanville, Calif.  for my Uncle's 90th birthday party and it was worth every moment. We were heading to our Uncle's territory, in the high desert of the northern Sierra Nevada Mountains, to a well deserved party in his honor.
My sister and my cousin Suzi met us on the highway. The Prospector drove me down to Lodi and we loaded my things into my sister's car. I drove north on Highway 5 to Chico and Sis drove into the mountains to Chester. The forecast was for light snow. We brought chains but never needed them.

We played a little....

 We worried about the snow, which never got too heavy and made the trip from Chico to Chester a Winter Wonderland of a drive...

This is Deer Creek on highway 32. It was stunningly beautiful. It was also very cold.

We finally reached Chester and Lake Almanor which was covered with ice and snow around its edges. What a beautiful photo shoot this was.
About an hour later we drove over Fredonyer Pass and into Susanville, CA. (elevation 4200 ft.) on the east side of  Lassen National Forest.  about 85 miles north west of Reno, Nevada.
We had reached our destination.
*************
The Roseberry House Bed & Breakfast was waiting for our arrival. 

The innkeepers, Richard & Charmy Sorem, greeted us with such warm hospitality that we felt like we were members of their own family.
Then we went upstairs to our room.....

 Sis and I had the queen bed and Suzi had a charming single in the "alcove".
No one else was staying in the house so we had the whole upstairs to ourselves. My sister and I spent one miserable night sleeping together in the beautiful antique bed and the next night Sis chose to take another room across the hall. It was a joint decision. The rest of our stay was much more comfortable.
I had no idea that my sister talks in her sleep and hogs all the blankets. Tellin' on you sis!! I love ya but we can't sleep together, can we?
*******************
The next morning we woke up to snow falling softly all over town and  came downstairs to one of the most amazing breakfasts ever, cooked by Richard, and served in the wonderful old dining room.

This was a luxury I'm unaccustomed to. It was a most elegant and filling breakfast.  My cousin, Suzi, having just returned from Ireland, was very impressed with the variety of food. She had seen a lot of meals prepared and served in the last few weeks and this one rivaled them all.
After breakfast Sis and Suzi went for a long walk. I stayed in and read my book. Took a nap. The oldster was tired. I wasn't about to go for a walk in the snow.
I got a call from my cousins, in Ashland, Oregon, wondering about the weather and asking which pass we took through the mountains.... checking to see if we had arrived. They were raised in this town. They had no fear and seemed to take all the late snow rather matter of fact. 
Sis and Suzi came back from their walk in the snow with stories of what Susanville calls ".... just down the road." and decided to take the car next time if they needed something on the other end of town. It was their turn to take a nap.
Tomorrow I will continue... with a little history of  Susanville, a walk downtown and getting ready for the Birthday party.

Getting Rid of the Lawn and a lot of Corgi Attitude

The old lawn area redo is coming along. The Prospector is working so hard on this. He is a perfectionist and always does everything with great effort and precision. This job has been more of a supervisory position for me, this time. I'm giving credit where credit is due and that would be to the man that I live with.
He's amazing. At 66 yrs of age the only thing that slows him down is his left knee. He has had one replacement on the right knee and will need another one soon... but so far he is doing well with one of those miracle injections that keep the old knee joint moving with less pain.
He took the day off today because he has a meeting tonight. The top soil is in the planters and waiting for some planting mix and compost. After that the old lawn will be scraped off and then, after laying some weed cloth, we will cover the area with pea gravel. Then I get to do the gardening in the flower beds and do some wine barrel planting.

Everything that goes into these planting beds will be drought tolerant and on a drip system so the water use should be lessened considerably.  Any ideas??

I'm not sure what the Corgi pups are going to think about not having a lawn any more. They have loved the lawn. They play on it, sit on it and .... shoot, I'm going to miss the lawn. Who am I kidding. But, I won't miss worrying about the water and the gophers and the roots from the trees that have plagued the lawn from the first year that we planted it.

Carl seems to have decided that this new dirt area is his new domain and he's already playing KING OF THE HILL with Cutter.
"Just try to get in here, Cutter. I dare you.", he says.
Then there is a stand off with lots of eye contact and then.... Cutter starts circling the planter, faster and faster, until he takes a flying leap into the dirt on top of Carl.

This went on all day yesterday. I may need a fence here. I can see the paw prints on the wall.

Look at Carl. He thinks he owns the place already. I've got news for him.

You are going to move your little Corgi butt, Carl. This is not your garden, you sly dog. It's Farmlady's  and the larger person will win out.
 ********************

I'm leaving for a long weekend with my sister and cousin. We are going to Susanville tomorrow for my uncle's 90th Birthday party this weekend.
See you on Tuesday. Have a nice weekend.

Gourds and Garden Work

Yesterday I spent most of the day at Amador High School in Sutter Creek. The Art's Council put on a really fun group of classes called "Taste of the Arts". and our gourd group gave one of the classes.

We told them about our group and invited people to come join us.  One of our members, Christie, was the "ring leader" for the day and talked about the history of gourds, how they are grown and some of the techniques that we use on the gourds.
We let people pick out a gourd that was already cleaned, stained and ready for artwork.

We showed them some of the gourd art from our club.

Gave them some ideas and a table full of paints, feathers, and all kinds of embellishments. Then we let them have fun. We answered questions and helped when needed.
These folks just had a great time. They didn't hesitate to create some "gourd art" of their very own. Here are some of the results.

If you are interested in this just  Google "gourd art" and take a look at what is out there. Make a birdhouse for some lucky bird this summer. Gourds have been used for utensils, bowls, water carriers, birdhouses, baby rattles, instruments and many other useful items long before people bought these things at the local goods store. The American Indians used gourds for everything.They are easy to grow if you have HOT summers and the plants are beautiful.
It was a full day but we had a good time and gave some folks "A Taste of the Arts." Maybe we will see some of them at our next gourd meeting.
*****************

Today, The Prospector and I spent the day outside. We are getting rid of our lawn. It's the right thing to do. As much as we enjoyed the lawn, it took too much water from our well every summer and the gophers thought that it was  a really fun place to build there condos. By the end of last summer it looked like a bombed out war zone and it was time to have a cease fire, so..... NO MORE LAWN.

Just pea gravel and a small garden area that will be as "zero scape" as possible. I really will miss the lawn but not the water that is required to maintain it. I will post a photo of the finished area in a few weeks.

The tulips are blooming.

And the goats are happy. The sun is shinning and "...all's right with the world." The goat boys are getting along.
Brownie doesn't play with them when they rough house and butt each other. He keeps his distance. He seems to have lost weight  and is still very subdued. He is eating both the grass and their hay so I'm not too worried.
Today they were in the south pasture and all laying together under the big oak tree. I think that things are going to be OK now. The beautiful weather has brought peace to the farm. Brownie is healing and the goats are accepting him back into their fold. I can't tell you how worried I was that this wouldn't happen. But it seems that things will be all right.