I can't walk very well, but I can eat with the best of them.
And this is what I'll look like when it's all over.
I can't walk very well, but I can eat with the best of them.
And this is what I'll look like when it's all over.
They started stocking Lake Camanche on 11/1 with 1000 lbs. at the North Shore Ramp, another 1000 lbs. at the South Shore Ramp, and 1000 lbs. at the Trout Pond.
Unfortunately I've finally come to the realization that I can not negotiate river or lake shores.
The situation as it stands is that I can not take a chance of falling.
I fell in May and again in June. Those two times I was in my living room. In May, I was able to get up with a little help from my wife.
In June she went to the garage and got my double thick knee pad and a bucket. I was able to get up as far as being on my knees (on the knee pad) and then leaning on the bucket, stand up.
Out at the lake (or on a creek), should I fall, it would be on fairly large rocks or (God forbid) into the lake or creek itself. That just can not happen.
So, sadly as it is, I'm done. There is a possibility I might be able to throw in a line at Upper Lake next August. We'll see.
So I hope you'll continue to stop by. I'll try to post some interesting "stuff" by and by.
Thank you one and all.
Stay tuned.
Hah, thought that would get your attention.
As soon as Lake Camanche starts stocking again and it should be soon, I'm there. I'm going fishing this year come hell or high water.
Granted, I'm moving with a walker now. I can't use the cane very much as my balance is not very good. So if you're out at Camanche North Shore and you see an old Geezer moving around with a walker, that's probably me. But I am going fishing this year.
In the past I've talked about my genealogy research and the fact that my great grandfather was somewhat of a ghost, well I've got some information that just might fill in a few of the holes.
My great grandfather was Gottlieb Kautz. No body back then only had one name. That's all we've known since I started this 7 years ago. I created two family trees on Ancestry.com. One is a tree directly from me. One is a tree directly from my DNA. I've not been able to connect them.
I came across a family tree that listed one Gottlieb Martin Kautz (dob 1830) as having two wives. one was Wilhelmine Rother and the other was Louise Auguste Albrecht. Whoa!!! Louise was my great grandmother. Only a notation although. One other note I got was that Louise was listed as having one son by Gottlieb Martin. The son's name was Michal. Anybody want to guess who Michal was? My grandfather. Still no documentation though. If and only if I can find some documentation to verify the above, that will finally connect my two trees and list over 10,000 ancestors.
I've been contacted by a Peter Kautz from Germany who is the great grandson of Gottlieb Martin and I sent him a photo we had with our Gottlieb's picture. Haven't heard back whether it's a match or not. Gotta admit I'm pretty excited.
We believe the old guy to the left of the woman is Gottlieb as we know for sure that the man in the back middle is my great-uncle Christoph.
Stay Tuned.
I usually wait until the first freeze to do away with the garden, but this year I'm a little early. Not because we've had a freeze, but with my wife's broken arm we can't do anything with the vegetables like freezing or canning as we usually do.
As you can see in the photo's below, the garden was very healthy.
Since I still have a lot of trouble walking with this arthritis, I spend a lot of time on the computer. I can't say I don't walk at all since I was up on the hill behind the house yesterday putting hooks in the fence. The hooks are for the climbing setup I got for trimming the bushes come Fall. I got a harness and a length of rope with a carabiner on the end to clip to the harness. Keeps an old geezer such as myself from falling down the hill and rolling over the decorator rocks on the bottom.
Back to the title of this post.
In wandering around the web, I continue to see (even thought I posted on July 29th) people taking selfies with the fluffy cows. Makes one wonder what is in the space between their ears?
Here, have a look:
Arrived at the lake about 2:30 pm yesterday. Got checked in and went to our site.
When I have spare time, I watch several channels on YouTube. There are a bunch out there and many of them are scary stories.
I'll mention several in this story.
The one I watch the most is Lighthouse Horror. I know they are all made up stories, but this channel has a good narrator and most of the stories are 20 to 30 minutes long so they don't take up a lot of time.
Another one I like is Bedtime Stories. Again a good narrator and short stories.
Then we have a couple of channels with the persons name as the channel. Specifically Donovan Dread and Lillith Dread. Don't know, but it'd be my guess a married couple.
Lillith Dread posts stories about the Wolfman. Seems a lot of them occur in Yosemite National Park. In fact, most of them occur there. I know they are just stories because there can not be that many sightings in Yosemite and nobody has heard about them. I know because I live about 110 miles from the park. You would have heard something.
Well let me tell you, I found the Wolfman. Yes I believe he's real, in fact I even have a photo of him. You can't contest the photo below. But I didn't find him in Yosemite, I found him at a basketball game. Go figure.
So here's the photo in all his furry glory.
Just as a side note, I also came across some merchandise from Yellowstone National Park.
"Do not take selfies with the Fluffy Cows". They have all kinds of cool stuff on this site:
https://yellowstonetshirt.com/products/dont-take-selfies-with-the-fluffy-cows-mug
They also have merchandise saying: "Do not take selfies with the Teddy Bears" (Grizzlies).
OK, one last thing, I also found several audio books by such authors like Stephen King and Clive Cussler a couple of my favorite authors. So if you're into audio books, here's some that you don't have to pay Audible for.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=free+audiobooks+full+length+stephen+king
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=free+audiobooks+full+length+clive+cussler
Ya'll stay safe out there.
The California State Fair started today.
The norm for the fair is hot and deep fried. You can get just about anything deep fried there.
The temperatures estimated by the weather guessers is 100+ for all three days.
Keep in mind that the fair at Cal Expo is on pavement. All that black tar is wonderful for making the temperature even hotter.
So what are the expected temperatures? Today 101 degrees. Tomorrow (Saturday) 108 to 110 and Sunday 105 to 108. Just think how toasty it's going to be on that asphalt?
Ready for breakfast?
We scheduled a trip to Hope Valley Camp Ground the week of July 18th.
My neighbor Rocky works for Pacific Gas & Electric and has the pleasure of flying up to that area every week in a helicopter. Bet that's fun.
He keeps me informed as to the situation in the valley regarding snow, ice, etc. Last update was a small patch of water on Upper Blue Lake and larger patch of water on Lower Blue Lake. In my past experiences that would mean snow on the ground up to possibly 3 feet or so and impassable roads.
OK, granted that means no kayaking. No fishing as you can't even get to the lakes. Snow on the road up to the lakes as the elevation of 8140 ft. and since we've had a s... load of snow this year it hasn't had a chance to melt yet.
That brings me to Hope Valley Campground. Elevation 7300 ft. Not a whole lot lower than the lake and still patches of snow here and there. South Lake Tahoe is at the elevation of 6240 ft. and nightly temperatures in the low 40's. Hope Valley at 7300 would probably be high 30's.
Our trailer is a winterized trailer. We have heating, A/C, and all the other goodies, but with the cold problem we experienced last Winter when I was sick, I just don't handle the cold very well. Besides why go up there and sit in the trailer?
So we cancelled this trip and will be going up to Upper Lake at the end of August.
Stay tuned.
The first time I went to Hendy Woods State Park was on August 8, 2014. That was my birthday by the way. I turned 67 that year and was still mobile. You can take a look at the place they call Big Hendy Woods here. It's a bit of a hike and some really BIG trees.
We got to out camp site at 3:15 pm on Sunday. Being a gimp and having one of those cool blue cards you hang on your rear view mirror, puts me in an ADA (American Disability Act) category and gives us a camping spot with an electric hookup. All the other sites are dry camping. The electricity is for people with a CPAP or a BPAP (one of those gizmo's you put over your nose when you sleep so you can breath correctly) or folks that just need electricity.
This morning when I logged in the wallpaper on this computer was a photo of Etretat, Normandy, France.
Camping next week.
Stay tuned.
If you're not a subscriber, check it out.
What is it, you ask?
It's a YouTube Channel.
I'm a great fan of Ancient Aliens on the History Channel. Kind of goes along with my previous post "Do You Believe". They did an episode called "The Reptilian Conspiracy".
How does this fit in with the Why Files? The Why Files have Hecklefish. He's a kind of Gold Fish with a heckling attitude, thus Hecklefish. He's big on Lizzid Peeple.
On the Ancient Aliens episode, I just made an off hand comment about, well this is what I said:
"We have Sasquatch, Loch Ness Monster, and Champ why not Lizzard People. Hecklefish will be ecstatic."
Actually according to Hecklefish that should be Lizzid Peeple.
For those 4 words (Hecklefish will be ecstatic.) I've gotten, so far, 169 very nice replies. I'm astounded. On the other hand, the Why Files have 2.18 million subscribers. As they say on the Ginsu Knife commercials: "Wait there's more". Maybe I'll get more replies.
If you aren't a subscriber, you're missing out on some really good story presentations. New episodes come every Thursday and there are a bunch for you to catch up on.
So visit AJ & Hecklefish. You won't be disappointed. Here's the latest episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2BQyZorSQc
Stay tuned.
Monday is Memorial Day.
Monday is for remembering those that gave all for this country.
On September 3, 2020 the President of these United States prior to Joe Biden called those that gave all, losers and suckers. He also asked those that were wounded, but survived, be kept out of military parades.
The very next day (September 4, 2020) he said "I never called … John McCain a loser and swear on whatever, or whoever, I was asked to swear on, that I never called our great fallen soldiers anything other than Heroes." What a liar, but then he lies about most everything.
What a wonderful Commander in Chief of our military.
I'll admit, I never served in the military, but it's not because of them not trying to draft me. Five times in 1965 did I report to the Draft Induction Center to go through their tests to find out if I was draftable. Five times was I sent home and finally rated 4F (Undraftable). Had I been drafted, I would have gone and done my duty. I also believe I would have come home in a box. Then in the eyes of our 45th president, I too would have been a loser or a sucker.
So, on this Memorial Day Weekend, remember this information and when the primaries come, vote for someone else.
Most of all, remember those who gave all for our country. If you have time, go to YouTube and take a look at the changing of the guard at Arlington Cemetery. I still get goose bumps every time I watch that.
And by all means, stay out of the rivers. If you're on the water, in a lake, please wear a PDF. Especially wear one if you're a Geezer like me, we just don't float as well as we used to.
Stay safe and stay tuned.
Back in 1968 and 1969 I belonged to a club called "The California Varmint Callers Association". The objective of the club was to eliminate varmints (coyotes, bobcats, foxes, etc.) that preyed on the young sheep, in conjunction with the California Wool Growers Association.
We hunted on weekends as we all worked real jobs during the week. We would leave from a "check in" place onFriday night and hunt in the high desert between San Bernardino, California and the Nevada State line. The hunting took place at night using spotlights and high powered rifles. This was before spotlighting was outlawed around 2006.
How it worked was one person with a spotlight would stand in the back of a pickup truck lighting the area just above the ground and when a set of "eyes" were seen, the other person would take a shot. The third (there were always 3 to a team) person would be the driver.
One night while I was lighting by my self (the other two lazy bums were in the warm cab) I noticed, in the distance, 3 red lights in a triangle. They would spin around, then stop, then spin again, and stop. This went on for about 5 minutes. We were near Edwards Air Force Base and I didn't make much of it. Kind of forgot about it.
That is until I came across a YouTube Channel story about UFO's and Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert of California. Then my brain started to wonder. What did I see all those years ago?
Today I'm listening to a YouTube Channel called Wartime Stories. They are talking about 3 people who saw 3 red lights in a triangle in the night sky. The first one was near Fort Knox, Kentucky. The second one near central part of the state of Maine. The third one was near Edmond, Alberta, Canada.
Boy, that made me sit up and take notice. Of course, I went out on the net and searched 3 red lights in a triangle and sure enough there are a bunch of stories. BUT, those 3 red lights are not what I saw. Mine were close together and spun around. The ones on the net were not so close together, and just bopped around in the sky.
Of course I'll never know, but I am a believer in UFO's. After all how can there be hundreds of billions of planets out there and we're the only planet with intelligent life? I think not.
Are you a believer?
Once again we're expecting rain for about the next four days. Not the atmospheric rivers like before, but probably enough to make everything wet.
So I raced to get the garden planted and finish hooking up the drip irrigation system.
We also make use of the pots scattered around the back yard. In the first picture, the pot on the left will have Cilantro or as some call it Coriander.
Looks like this:
The pot on the right is Parsley. When you're as good a cook as my wife is, you have spices all over the place. We have a pot of Sage too.
Here's the new garden look:
Moved 3 of the planters from the hill. One on the left has red onions in it already. Bought them last Summer and had to get them in the ground asap. One on the right is destined for 2 tomato plants. Middle one with have......something.
We've had 3 days of sun. I've almost finished the installation of the walkway in the garden area of the back yard.
OK, I'm sick of rain. If you follow National News, California has washed into the ocean.
Once again the Atmospheric River is bearing down on us. Here in beautiful downtown (and wet) Jackson, it's due to start raining, again, about 2pm. It's really sad when you're elated about being able to run to the supermarket without getting soaked, like I did this morning. And yes, I was elated.
Woman who checked me out said they haven't had electricity for about 3 weeks and they were down to the last 2 gallons of gas for their generator. They were finally able to dig out and get to town this morning.
We're fortunate that our house is above the flood plain. We used to live upcountry. Glad I live in town now.
Remember I mentioned the apartments around the corner that flooded a while back. I noticed all the cars are parked on the street and not in the parking lot this morning.
You've got to feel for those that are in the flood plain. Here's a couple photo's I picked up off the net.
Oh, and let us not forget the mud slides that come with a bunch of rain.
OK, we've been hit hard with the rain and snow.
Jackson's elevation is 1200 ft. above sea level.
In California you measure the amount of snow you'll get by the elevation you're standing at.
My son Ken lives at 3200 ft. He got about a foot, as you can see in the photo below on 2/27/2023.