SACRAMENTO AND BACK IN 5 DAYS

What a week.

Last sunday I was supervising Carrie as she put together one of the kids beds.

She says there are lots of pictures of me holding a glass of wine while watching her work.' I'd like to see some proof of that. Haha.

So I was going to take Daisy but changed my mind at the last minute.

She's a great traveling companion and I'll miss her but this trip is going to be brutal.

Plus it's hovering around 100 degrees in that part if California these days.

Too hot for her.

We live in a beautiful part of the world.

Lakers , Mountains, Blue skies.

And in the middle of those mountains we have deserts. 

It's almost unbelievably when driving thru.

You don 't see signs like this every day.

Monday was the eclipse that crossed the United States.

The traffic leaving Portland in the afternoon was horrendous.

This line of traffic was about 40 miles long,bumper to bumper and crawling.

This picture was in the middle of no where.

I was happy not to be in it.

I arrived at Dave and Megan's about 7:30.

A little later than planned but still in time for dinner.

He always hangs a Canadian flag out for me whenever I show up.

Dave is a grill master as well as Master Angler.

Apparently I'm the only friend he doesn't serve fish to.

And I appreciate it.

His yard is like the Botanical Gardens in Victoria.

A nice place to hang out.

I left Portland around 9:00 Tuesday morning and was looking for a hotel 

just outside Sacramento around 7:00 that night.

As I was talking to Sharon about the same time she got on line and booked me this rustic

grocery store motel for me. It was cool.

The owner is obviously a hunter.

It looked like the dead zoo on the inside.

No problem sleeping here. The owner was on guard all night.

Gotta love America.

I got into Sacramento 10:00 Wednesday morning and met Michael. 

He's installing a player system into the piano for me.

He wasn't finished so I'll finish it over the next week or so. 

That was a little disappointing.

The movers showed up at 1:30 to load the piano onto my truck 

and I was on my way back to Canada by 2:00.

It was a long way to go for a 4 hour visit.

I spent the night in Phoenex , just north of the California boarder and then stopped

 in Corvallis for lunch with my cousin Barb. 

Her Husband Lynn also joined us in a Mexican Restaraunt for an hour or so. 

Definitely worth the stop . I sure like them.

They live in Tuscan but Lynn picks up a contract every summer at the university in Corvallis.

Their rental house has this unbelievable tree in the front yard.

Barb says it's only 45 years old. This is what too much rain can do. 

I thought it was a cool house but it needs a lot of work.

I should have taken more pictures of my truck and piano.

 It was pretty slick how I loaded and secured the piano into the truck bed.

Now this made me feel good.

I love living here.

I paid the taxes on the piano and whistled thru customs.

Nice to be home.

So we got the piano unloaded on Saturday and I started to get it set up.

This will take me a week or so but when it's done it will be a wonderful instrument.

I DID LOTS AND LEARNED LOTS THIS WEEK

Here is one important lesson I learned this week.

We have lots of Burdock plants on the property and they are full of thistles.

Daisy is always getting hung up in them and so I decided to cut them all down.

This is where the lesson happened.

Never stand downhill from a Burdock plant that is about 6 feet tall and full of thistles 

while cutting it down with big snips. Lesson learned.

I couldn't pull them out so I ended up cutting them out.

Not the worst haircut I've ever had but

 I am going to use Daisy's clippers on my head next week when she gets a hair cut.

We all had outdoor projects this week.

Carrie finished building the new doors for our entrance closet.

Here she is staining and varnishing the doors.

They turned out beautiful.

They also match the pantry doors in the kitchen she built last winter.

I finished the fence that runs down the south side of the house.

Ruth finished painting it.

I also finished building the fence that is along the driveway.

Ruth wanted another wheelbarrow gate put in by the raised beds so I completed that as well.

All that's left to do now is make an entrance gate for the house.

I have a wrought iron man who is going to do that .

We just need to finalize a design.

We dug some stairs into the hillside that I cut from some timbers we salvaged 

from the mobile home we destroyed last year.

This hillside is so steep Ruth use to slide down it whenever it rained.

This is a lot safer now for her.

 I'm planning a trip to Sacramento very soon to pick up our new piano.

I built a skid as well as customized the truck rack so that I can strap the piano to it during transport.

We took a bed out to the garage for storage

 and Ruth came up with the idea of putting it on the wheel barrow.

That was a lot easier than carrying .

Ruth went to visit Rob and Shelly on Sunday afternoon.

She came home with the biggest watermelon I've seen in a long time.

It was also one of the tastiest I've ever had.

Thanks Guys.

ANOTHER CRAZY BUSY WEEKEND

Friday evening started with a dinner cruise 

on Brad and Colleen's newly purchased classic motor yacht.

It's a beautiful Chris Craft Roamer from the 1960's.

Smokey in the Okanagan but still beautiful on the lake.

Ruth looked like she was at home on this vessel.

We owned the sister ship from 1982 until 1994 and loved every minute of it.

Brad is a captain extraordinaire.

He handled this boat exceptionally.

It was fun to watch.

I love being on the water.

It was a beautiful night.

The red sun is from the smoke caused by the B.C. forest fires.

Heading back at dusk was a little surreal.

I'm so glad they have this boat. 

It's a beauty. Now they just have to pick a name for it.

On Saturday afternoon Carrie and I are watching the 5:00 news when the anchor lady says

 there is a wild fire that just ignited on Lodge Road in Lake Country.

We look at each other sort of stunned and both jump out to look out the door.

Yikes. That's where we live.

It's right in front of the house.

Luckily we have  great fire fighters taking care of us here in Lake Country.

It was under control within 2 hours.

Today was busy for a Sunday.

I cut up some timbers that were in the back 40 which were left over

 from that old mobile home we destroyed after we bought the property.

They made great stairs into  Ruth's Food Forest property in the north pasture.

She use to slide down this hill into the garden when the ground was wet . 

It's quite a steep slope.The stairs will make a big difference.

We are talking about hooking up to sewer when we build our next house on the property
 and this ambrosia apple tree is going to be in the way of the sewer line.
Rats.

Ruth thought it would be better to move it now than later.

She grabbed the shovel and started to dig it out. 

She's not afraid of hard work.

She humped it up the hill and dug a fresh hole for it. 

Hopefully it will be happy in the new spot.

She had left one apple on it for me when she originally planted it in the spring 

but it fell off during the move.

I haven't just been sitting back watching the activities either.

I finished he gates and fences today.

This is the 130 feet of fence along the south side of the house.

I also put in a man gate and a removable section to drive an excavator thru if need be.

I'm having an aluminum shop build a special style gate for this 8 foot section still open.

I don't want the gate into the yard to be the same style as the fence. 

It should look nice when complete.

I just finished the gates along the 170 feet of fencing I built up the driveway.

It looks good. Ruth painted the frames to match the house.

This has been a big project.

I have a short 10 foot piece to finish tomorrow morning and then the yard will be coyote free.

Well , it will be when we get that entrance gate done.

So while we're busy doing all this yard work Carrie was busy building doors

 for an entrance closet and our bathroom linen closet.

She's so talented. She built them out of solid pine.

Here she is doing up the stain . Two tone. Gray with a black wash overtop.

It's looking good.

She just can't relax. 

After dinner she goes and puts 2 coats of varnish on the doors. 

Here they are leaning up on the fence drying. 

She'll likely have them all hung by tomorrow night.