My New Toy

Some of you guys probably remember Jack Smith, who was our Home Teacher when we lived in Sutter. He was always faithful about coming, and you kids always enjoyed listening to him tell stories. He was a rare man who really had been everywhere and done everything. He served on submarines in WWI and was in the Air Force in WWII. He taught elementary school, and college courses in history. He was a farmer, rancher, and in recent years, a kick-ball enthusiast. (He kept coming to me with plans for getting a stake kick-ball league started.)

Pam and Kim will likely remember (not so fondly) the horse riding experience at his ranch north of Sutter. I've always enjoyed riding horses, and thought the girls would have a blast on one of his ponies. I got Pam seated bare-back on the pony, then just as I was putting Kim on behind her - the pony bolted! Kim just slid off its haunches and landed on her feet on the ground in front of me. But Pam was hanging on to the pony's mane for dear life as it raced around the circumference of the field and into the barn - where it puled up next to the hay trough and calmly started to feed. Pam just as calmly slid off the side of the pony and walked into the front yard, saying she would never get on another horse again. I don't think she has. And I don't blame her.

Anyway, Jack and his wife are no longer able to care for the home, and as their family was cleaning things out and clearing off the property, they called and offered to give me Jack's 16' Hobie Catamaran. Mostly, they knew I had room to store it next to my garage, and that I have some small interest and experience (okay, very small experience, but more than anyone else they knew had), so it was an easy way for them to dispose of it.

The price was right. So I took the plunge. I had to buy a couple of new tires for the trailer, but I got it home alright and it awaits some minor reconnecting of lines and stays, plus a little cosmetic fix up, and I'll take it out for a trial run probably next summer.

Rich was kind enough to help me dig it out from it's resting place on the ranch in Sutter.

Note how good he is at supervising. Actually, he was a great deal of help, and provided much needed moral support.

Here it is in it's "berth" at home.

 

I guess what I really need to do is to coax Trevor into coming down and helping me get it in sailing shape. I think he knows about things like this, and would probably enjoy sailing it.

Blast from the Past

Pam and the rest of you with school-aged children are not the only ones who have cute notes written by your offspring that you will always cherish. A phone call from David a little while ago made me remember one of the proudest moments of my life, revolving around our oldest son, Chris. When he was 12 our ward Scouts made and sold strawberry pies to earn money for camp. The day the sale started, during sacrament meeting (okay, not real proud of that, but not too upset either), Chris whipped out this hand drawn flier, then had copies made to distribute. I'm still impressed.

Note the not-so-subtle attempt to have you buy the pie from Chris, and the ant (some quasi-reference to a picnic I believe) which is in every scene, but is only fat after having eaten the pie.

And he went on to be the director of marketing at BYU-I Radio. . .

What I Do on Saturdays

There's not much in my life that's very exciting to hear about (at least for other people), but the days are always full. Saturdays in particular are filled with plenty of errands and chores, which mostly center around fixing things that broke during the previous week. There's always plenty of variety with this - because pretty much everything I have was broken down when I got it.

A good example of this is the popcorn machine that I bought used nearly 20 years ago, and which we use to earn extra money for the band programs at school. Popcorn and root beer after school every Friday nets us $1200-$1500 a year. Not bad, but it takes some maintenance. Today I had to repair the heat lamp switch and a short in the wiring that shut the machine down early yesterday.

Of course, most of my "fix it" time is spent repairing musical instruments. I repair the instruments at my schools for free, but everyone else pays. Not  much, but enough to make it worth while - without breaking their budgets. Sometimes it gets real busy (like at the start of a school year), but other times it's not too bad.

Then there's the ever present household repairs. (The reason they are ever present is because I'm too lazy to take care of them when I should.) This toilet has been leaking for weeks. I went to the close-out sale at OSH today and got most of the materials need to fix it, but probably won't get to it. Just too, well, you know.

Then there are the Yard Sales

Last weekend our good neighbors across the street had a big sale with lots of great stuff. I think they got rid of most of it. I picked up an almost new airless paint sprayer for a friend of mine who paints houses as a side line to make extra money. I also had my eye on this length of rope which I talked him into giving to me after the sale was over and it hadn't sold. 300' of braided nylon with heavy-duty eyelets and hooks at each end. A manly piece of rope. I plan on letting the Scouts use it for a project at an upcoming celebration of the 100 year anniversary of BSA/LDS Relations.

I don't know if it's a blessing or not, but we did get quite a bit of rain, and even some thunder & lightning this morning. It really came down hard for a while, which is very unusual for Yuba City this time of year. In the video above you can see and hear it and also get a good shot of the completed patio with sod laid in between the block. That was last Saturday's project.

Just for Fun

And finally, we had a beautiful full moon this past week. I snapped this shot of it as I was heading to work about 6:45 am. The view is looking west on Butte House Rd. just past the stake center.

 Cool.

Arizona in the Summer Time

The scenes below are from our trip to Arizona to see Pam & Rob and the kids, Kim & Nate and - at least for me - enjoy some nice warm weather. The first evening there, after being fed some wonder pizza by the Hoffman's, we saw this great rainbow (a double rainbow really), and later some cool lightening.

Two of my favorite eating experiences from our trip (it's always about the eating). Lucy and Molly with my chef's hat on, still saying: "bacon is mt favorite color." And, also concerning bacon, Rob made these GREAT cheeseburgers. Two grilled cheese sandwiches for the bun, all beef patty with cheese and bacon on top, plus all of the necessary accoutrement's. David is enjoying his below. Being a cheeseburger lover, I was impressed.

After Grant's baptism Pam had arranged a great little buffet of treats. Someone made Grant a "candy lei" which was the envy of every kid there. Below he and Molly sip chocolate milk (I indulged in several cup-fulls myself). There were yummy cookies (including Kim's Snicker Doodles) and Rice Krispy Treats.

The brain trust, and keepers of the chocolate milk.

The day night of baptism we had an adult evening out together. We went to a place called Nielsen's for ice cream. It was pretty fun. They messed up when they made our orders, and doubled a few of them so we got some extra goodies. We had things like hot brownies topped with ice cream and hot fudge; hot peach cobbler topped with ice cream and caramel; and vanilla ice cream with strawberries and graham crackers all mixed up in it. We just had a blast.

Penner Lake

One of my favorite hiking destinations is the area just north of Grouse Ridge that includes Carr and Feeley Lakes, Island Lake, Milk Lake, Round Lake, and Penner Lake. I've been to Island Lake within the past 5 years, but it's been a decade since I hiked in to Penner.

Chris and Pam might remember the time when they were about 10 and 8 respectively, and we took our family to camp at Carr Lake in the big camper we had. I left Mom with the three younger kids and I took Chris and Pam up to Penner Lake, then down to Shotgun Lake, and up to pick up the Grouse Ridge Trail leading back to our campsite. It was only about 4.5 miles total, but when we started to climb up from Shotgun, there was so much snow still on the ground that it completely covered the trail for miles. I was plenty familiar with the area, and knew how to find our way back, so no problem there. But Chris and Pam must have thought I was a crazy man for making them walk over all that snow with no apparent trail to follow.

Penner Lake is a beautiful spot, with great fishing, clear, relatively warm water, and nice 10-15 foot cliff to dive off. One of the YM leaders in our stake (Joe Harrison) invited me along with his boys and we hiked to Penner this last Saturday, about 6 miles round trip, going from 6,000 to 7,000 feet elevation. It was great day! I really haven't gotten to do much hiking the past few years, and it was like being let out of a cage. Even though there were tons of other hikers (okay, maybe 50 total), I had a great time. Below are some photos.

 On the way in.

It was quite smoky/hazy because of some wild fires down in the Oroville area.

 Cliff diving

In panoramic view, this shot is just to the right of the one above.

The two shots above are actually only about 1/4 of the lake. Around the corner to the left is the rest.

On the way out

Why We Live In Yuba City

There are a lot of reasons why we stay in YC, not the least of which are shown below. I rode my bike about 4.5 miles west of home a couple of mornings ago, looking for blackberries. This is what I saw:

Rice ripening. Acres and acres, all over the surrounding counties. Beautiful.

Prunes ripening on the trees in the background with a full irrigation ditch.

Where else can you be and see this much water daily - in mid-August?

And, of course, blackberries. We used to pick them over the levee when I was

growing up. Now I find them along ditches and canals throughout the county.

I find all the scenes very beautiful. And I like the growing things all over the place. I returned to the blackberries yesterday morning and got a couple of quarts worth. There were plenty of red berries that will be ready for picking in the next couple of weeks. I hope to get enough for lots and lots of jam. To put on homemade bread. 

The Last Fling

This past Tuesday -Thursday Mom and I went to Bodega Bay for our last out of town fun before getting back to school. (Work days start next week, and students return Aug. 15.) Bodega Dunes is our campground of choice, because as you all know, the showers are free today!

Below is our campsite. I didn't care much for all the sand, but it wasn't too bad, and Mom wanted to be close to the showers/bathrooms, so it worked out well. We had a blast cooking hot dogs and biscuits and pop-tarts and anything else we could think of over the open fire. We used the new camp stove for heating water for oatmeal and hot chocolate. And for something different, I bought some bacon jerky at Sam's Club. It's really just bacon that's been cooked, then dried. It's not a good as regular jerky, but it's a terrific way to take bacon on hikes and camping. You don't have to refrigerate it, and all you have to do is heat it up in a frying pan (or over the fire) and it's just like fresh cooked bacon. Fabulous. 

Anyone up for a rap? Because Ice is back with a brand new invention. . .

Some of you remember even before this walk-way was put in several years ago, and most of you remember not even being able to see the cement pad at the bottom because it was under the sand. Well, the shifting sea has moved the sand around so that now the cement pad is exposed and stands a good 7' above the beach on the low side, 4' on the high side. We just hopped over the rail at the top and walked down the sand, like everyone else.

On the left, me standing on a drifted tree trunk (we saw another tree that had washed up and measured it to be 75' tall - of course, it was laying down). On the right, Mom in the act of telling me not to take her picture.

Since we didn't have any real plans, and have always wanted to see more of the town, we walked into town and visited shops, grocery stores, walked along the residential streets, and looked out over the bay. There were a couple of varieties of local flora that we didn't recognize, but thought were pretty. You see them below, if you know what they are, let us know.

I've always liked this boat sitting outside a local fish restaurant on the main road.

Early the first morning there I got up and walked to the beach before breakfast, as I am wont to do. It's just over a mile if you take the straightest path through the trees and brush. Our first day there was cold and wet, too cold to go boogie boarding, and it looked like it might be that way the second day, as you see in the photos below.

But it started to burn off before noon, and got very windy. I spent a couple of hours taking the waves in from way far out on long, fast rides. Very nice.

We packed up and stopped at the Spud Point Crab Shack for a shrimp sandwich (very nice with a little spice), and a big cup of their fabulous clam chowder to eat on the way home. It was perfect. That evening at home we even capped off the delightful trip by watching Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" which, as everyone knows, was filmed in Bodega Bay in the 1960's. A lot of the town has changed so much that you can't recognize it, but there are some things that are still there. And there's a new cafe' in town called "The Birds" that's run by a local gal. We've got to try it next time we're there.

And finally, I wonder if it's time to start seriously thinking about a family reunion at Bodega Dunes for a joint camping trip - maybe 3 days, 2 nights. I'm not opposed to considering other sites, but NorCal is the most centrally located. Those who would travel the farthest would at least be traveling relatively equal distances. And I know that camping is not at the top of the list for of fun things to do for parents with young children, but with showers and bathrooms so conveniently located, maybe it's not so bad. What do you think?