Happy Thanksgiving Everyone

 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. 

Some years ago, when we still lived in Volcano, I remember on Thanksgiving morning, 44 turkeys in the yard. Brave souls one and all. 

So eat, drink, and watch football on Fox or CBS or if it so floats your boat, college basketball on those cable channels. 

Stay tuned.   

I Went, I Saw, I Came Home

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.   

Fishing

 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. 

 Anyway, the next post should be about fishing. 

Stay Tuned.

Another Garden In The Books

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. 

We managed to eat all the green onions. Ate most of the carrots and froze the rest. We have one of those Food Savers. Blanch the carrots, suck the air out and freeze them. Good for almost a year. 

Remember the onions I planted last fall? We ate all but one and it's still growing. Only thing left alive in the garden. Egg Plant, ate them until I started to look like an Egg Plant. Sent two batches (about 10 per batch) home with my son. You can only eat so much. 

Cucumbers, bombed. Don't think we got more than about a dozen from 4 plants. The beans bombed too. We planted 6 plants. They grew, had a few beans and fell over. Became too much of a problem to pick. Got rid of them early in the Summer. 

Peppers. We had Jalapeños (2500 to 8000 Scoville) which my wife pickled and canned with some carrots and onions. That was before the broken arm. Sent some home with my son, threw out a bunch. Then there was the Habanero's (100,000 to 350,000 Scoville). Got the plant in error. The tray at Lowes said Jalapeno and the plant was Habanero. Way, way, way too hot for us weenies. Same thing with the Spicy Jane (30,000 + Scoville). Lastly we have the mystery pepper. We purchased a Poblano, but what we got was not a Poblano. Poblano's are a long (about 6 to 8 inches), but these were small maybe 3 inches and curly. In pepper world, small is mighty. There was no way we were going to even try one of these.    

Last but not least were the tomatoes. In the top picture, front on the right side was one called Cherokee Purple. Got about a half dozen. I think the place it was planted was the problem. Not enough sun. Behind that was the Sun Sugar Cherry Tomato. That plant went berserk. I'm guessing a couple hundred tomatoes. Left side (same photo) front was the Summer Sandwich Tomato. Got a bunch off it (including the very last tomato from the garden). Great for a slice on a turkey or chicken sandwich. The last tomato was the Roma. Made Salsa and sent a bunch home with my son. He got carrots and onions too. He also got a jar of pickled Jalapeno's.  

These two photos were taken this morning. Planters empty until later this week when I start planting the onion sets for next year. I bought sweet yellow (25) of which I'll plant 15 and give the other 10 to my son. I also bought a mixture (yellow, white, and purple 40 total) of which I'll plant  20 and send the other 20 home with my son. I'll make a farmer out of him, yet. Get him away from eating those In-N-Out burgers. 

Covid is on the rise. Time to get shot. Covid, Flu, and if you're a Geezer like me, RSV.

Stay safe.  

Give them books, send them to school, and they still act like idiots.

 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:

This one might be photo shopped.

OK, you get the picture. Hey let's take a photo with the 2000 lb. wild animal with horns who thinks nothing of running your ass over or giving you an couple extra holes in your body. And yet, they continue. 

The first one is the stupidest. I counted no less than 10 photos of her. 

Here's something you might like. You can get this on Etsy.

  

Or you can get this one on EBay:

A while ago I was at the hospital getting an MRI on my hard German head and I mentioned to the Tech that I was allergic to nuts, idiots, and stupid people. He was about to give me some peanut butter crackers to hold me over between images. He panicked because all he heard was allergic to nuts. I cleared up the comment for him. 

So you'll be pleased to know that I'll never be posting a selfie with the fluffy cows. 

By the way, for all you that call this animal a Buffalo, it's actually an American Bison. The word buffalo is derived from the French “bœuf,” a name given to bison when French fur trappers working in the US in the early 1600s saw the animals. The word bœuf came from what the French knew as true buffalo, animals living in Africa and Asia.

Early Americans called them Tatanka, but if you saw the movie "Dances With Wolves" you already know that. iinniiwa in Blackfoot, tatanka is Lakota, ivanbito in Navajo, Kuts in Paiute. 

OK enough about idiots. 

Ya'll stay safe. Covid is on the rise. My Daughter-in-Law just got over it. 

Upper Lake a 5 Day Trip

 Arrived at the lake about 2:30 pm yesterday. Got checked in and went to our site. 

Our Site

Stopped for a second to take in the beauty of the lake. 

The kids didn't come. 

Went about setting up the trailer. Me being a gimp and all, my wife helps with the set up. She set up the lift blocks for leveling and the chocks so the trailer didn't roll back into the water. I unhooked the trailer. While I was hooking up the electric and water, my wife was putting down the levelers. We use a battery powered drill rather than the manual crank method. 

Apparently one was real tight and as she put power to it to roll it down, it backfired and smacked her on the lower arm. She waited an hour or so to see if it was going to stop hurting like a mother.... It didn't, so I convinced her to let me take her to the emergency room. Yes, ladies and gentlemen two hours later, it was broken. She was given a temporary cast and some pain meds. Due to having to return home to make arrangements for a permanent cast we packed up this morning and hit the road.

     

Didn't do any of this.

Didn't get the kayaks in the water, didn't do any magnet fishing, didn't do any metal detecting, barely got any sleep on top of 5 hours Saturday night. 

Didn't even get to see the sunset. That is just wrong.

A five day trip turned out to be one day. 

All in all, not a very good trip. 

YouTube Channels

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 Roasting Begins

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? 

Check this out. This is what I was saying above. 

7 Second rule for your doggo. 

The greatest places to be are the coast (70's in San Francisco) or the mountains (mid 80's).

Here in beautiful downtown Jackson we're expecting 97 today, 108 tomorrow, and 109 on Sunday. 

Just a short heatwave. It'll be back in the mid 90's by Tuesday, but it'll be back in the 100's by Saturday the 22nd. Just the typical Sacramento Valley in the Summer. 

Thinking about heat reminds me that as a kid, I rarely wore shoes in the Summer. Keep in mind that my Summer life (as a kid) was spent at the beach. The main thoroughfare was between the fishing pier and the hamburger stand across the street. Used to be able to walk across that span. Boy did I had some tough feet. 

Stay cool and hydrated. I should be drinking water as I write this, but the call of Sun Tea is strong Obi Won. 

Next camping trip is Upper Lake at the end of August. I missed it last year as I was in the hospital that week, but I will be there for fishing, kayaking, magnet fishing, and metal detecting this year come hell or high water. 

Stay tuned.

Cancelled Camping Trip

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.     

Camping Hendy Woods State Park

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.  

Two things I liked about this site was the concrete slab for your camping chair or if you're regulated to a wheelchair rather than sitting in the dirt. The other thing is the picnic table has a elongated end for those in wheel chairs to snug up to the table.  

The picture below shows the electric hookup. At other campgrounds that have electric, the plug is mostly within a couple feet of where your trailer or motorhome is parked. This was just a few inches short of our electric cord. And if you look beyond, you can see a concrete walkway that you can wheelchair over to the flush toilet bathrooms. I'm sure you've all experienced those lovely vault toilets in most camp grounds. 

Being here gave me a chance to breakout my new metal detector I showed you in the post dated March 5th. You can see it Here. It was raining then, then I was trying to get the garden ready for Spring planting and then it was raining again and raining some more. 

Then I had my chance. I had one of those epiphany's I have every once in so often. There is some open area behind our house that belongs to the city. Everybody uses it as a cut through from one street to another. There is a nice worn path. I thought I'd just run the metal detector over it and see if anyone lost anything. Nope not a peep. 

So at the camp site I started around the trailer and my first find with the new metal detector was an old, beat to crap, bottle cap (see picture below). After that I got a few hits, but since this detector tells you how deep it is, most seemed to be 3 to 6 feet down. No one is going to dig a hole that deep without dynamite or a Jack Hammer. The dirt is like concrete. 

Then I went to the site across the street (if you can call it that). Ran the detector around where their tent was and then back out toward the "street". I got a hit, found the quarter in the picture below, then another hit, one dime, and another hit and another dime.      

Then I crossed to the site next to us and covered the whole thing. Got a few of those 3 to 6 foot hits, but nothing else. It wasn't much but I was excited. 

There is a river by the campground (Navarro River), but the only fish are Salmon and Steelhead in the Fall & Winter. Besides it would be hard to fish as there were a bunch of people swimming and the climb just to get down there would be a killer for this lame Geezer. 

I also wanted to mention that for you that follow some of the YouTube channels out there like Lilith Dread and Donovan Dread, Hendy Woods didn't have any tales of Cryptids, Bigfoot, Dogman, or Mothman to share. Seems to be a safe place to camp so that you won't be scared, eaten, mauled, or abducted by any number of weird entities lurking in other parks.    

So that's it for Hendy Woods. Next month (if I can still walk) will be Hope Valley. Might get some fishing in there with the West Fork of the Carson River and Upper and Lower Blue Lakes. Maybe some kayaking too. 

Stay tuned.  

D-Day The 6th Of June

This morning when I logged in the wallpaper on this computer was a photo of Etretat, Normandy, France. 

Operation Overlord the code name for the Normandy invasion. 

133,000 men stormed the beaches of Normandy. This beach (Etretat, Normandy, France) was not one of the 5 designated UTAH, OMAHA, GOLD, JUNO, & SWORD although it was close. At the bottom of the picture above and around the corner was the beach designated SWORD. 

I'm not going to go into a lot about D-Day and the 10,300 men that died that day. 

I will say that D-Day is a big crossword puzzle answer though. 

Remember that the previous President of the United States called all those brave men "Losers and Suckers".  Vote for somebody else in 2024. 

Camping next week.

Stay tuned.

 

The Why Files

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. 

Memorial Day

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. 

Do You Believe?

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?    

Complete The Garden Before The Rain, Again

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:

It's planted from seeds that's why you don't see anything yet.

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.  

Every year we have a "trial" planting of some sort. This year it's the pepper plant below. It's called "Spicy Jane". 

Peppers are rated on the Scoville scale. 

Mild 100 - 2500

Medium hot 2500 - 30,000

Hot 30,000 to 100,000

Above 100,000 stay close to the toilet. 

The Spicy Jane above is rated 30,000+

Next on the list is the raised bed below. In the front Summer Sandwich tomato (large for sandwiches). Middle is a Habanero Pepper (100,000 to 300,000 Scoville) purchased by mistake. It was in a tray marked Jalapeno. Far end is a Roma tomato. We use this one for Salsa. 

In this bed are Cherokee Purple (large sandwich) and Sun Sugar (cherry) tomatoes.

In the triangle bed there are 5 bush bean plants (last year this was one of our trial plants) and in the back, cucumbers to climb up the rack. 

In this bed in the front left is Poblano Pepper (1000 - 2000 Scoville) and in the back Japanese Eggplant. 

Last, but not least is bed #4. On the right side are purple or red (how ever you call them) onions. Left side is a row are carrots (another trial from last year) and in the middle Green Onions (another trial from last year) not to be confused with the song by Booker T & the MG's. Sorry, might be a little before your time. 

  

Still have to get a Jalapeno Pepper for the space between the Poblano & Eggplant and hook up two more drip lines, but for the most part, garden is ready. Just need some more sunny days like we've had for the last week or so. 

I don't have any fishing to report. I guess I'm not recovering as fast as I thought I would. Still in a good deal of pain. Pain medication not helping with the Arthritis much. Talked to my doctor on the 18th of last month and she said she could change to a stronger pain med, but would be right back where I'm at now, in about 6 months. Didn't see the point of changing. 

To tell you the truth, my balance is so bad, I'm afraid to even go out to North Shore Camanche for fear of falling on the rocky shore.

Maybe I'll get better soon. Stay tuned.   

Garden Move Complete Almost

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.

These are the pavers for the walkway. Little darlings weigh about 25 lbs. each.

First ya gotta put down some sand for leveling. 

That's after you pile 73 pavers all over the place. Spread them out so you don't have to lug them very far to put them down. 

From the patio to the turn toward the gate. 2 1/2 pavers wide. Wide enough for the Gorilla Cart to pass thru and also the green recycle bin.  

The second section to the gate. Notice the pile of pavers in the middle box are gone. 

Small shortage at the gate aligning with the pavers from the street to the gate. Wasn't going to pay $60 or $70 bucks for a saw blade to cut 3 pavers to fit in the space. Filled it with gravel I took from the front yard when we put bark out there. 

Last one to move was the triangle. Now there is lots of space around it so there shouldn't be an tripping or falling as has occurred in the past. This planter usually gets the cucumbers. They can crawl up the fencing at the back of the triangle. Last year we had Lemon Cucumbers. One plant produced more than 50 cucumbers. This year probably a different type. 

All that left to do is plant and connect the sprinkler lines based on what is where. 

Since it seems to have stopped raining in Nor Cal, I might even get a day of fishing in. Wow, what a concept. 

Stay tuned.

Here We Go Again

We've had 3 days of sun. I've almost finished the installation of the walkway in the garden area of the back yard. 

From where the pathway ends almost to the top of this picture, it extends to the right out to the gate. I'll do a picture when it's finished hopefully a little later this morning. 

I'm trying to beat the next storm that's coming tomorrow. This is a somewhat unique storm as it's two low pressure systems converging into one and then slamming us. One from the North bringing cold air, one from the South bringing moisture. What does that mean? A whole lot of rain down country where we live and a whole lot of snow upcountry. Just when those around the Tahoe area are finally digging out, they're about to be buried again. 

So, have I been fishing, magnet fishing, or metal detecting? Nope. 

I've been trying to finish the pathway whenever we've had a clear day. Unfortunately I just don't have the energy to "get'r done" as Larry the cable guy would say. I can put in about 3 hours and then I'm shot for the day. Here's an example: Yesterday I went to Lowes and picked up 3 more bags of sand. I'm using playground sand for leveling the pavers. Each bag weighs 50 pounds dry, but I haven't seen a dry bag for weeks. When they're wet just from moisture in the air, they weigh about 80 pounds. Kind of hard to move around one handed. My other hand is on my cane. So after I got the 3 bags into the back yard via the Gorilla Cart (you should get one) I installed 4 more pavers. At that point, I was done for the day. 

Now I'm at the point where I only have a small area to cover. Since the pavers are 18x18, I have to "cut" them down to size. I'm not paying $60 or $70 dollars for a saw blade to cut two or three concrete pavers, so I'm using the old chisel method. Works great splitting them in half along the crease, but doesn't work at all cutting them down to a 7 inch x 18 piece. Subsequently I've demolished 3 as they split exactly where I don't want them to. 

So on to Plan B. I'll section them off with edging and fill in the small space with gravel. The Gorilla Cart will roll over it and so will the green recycle can. Then I can move the last planter and get the watering system on line. It's getting close to planting time. 

Maybe I can even sneak in a day of fishing soon. 

Stay tuned.      

Oh That Damn Rain

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. 

 

No matter how many times you tell them that cars do not run under water, they still try. I know this from personal experience. 

Oh, and let us not forget the mud slides that come with a bunch of rain. 

The picture above is in Plumas County. About a 3 hour drive North of Sacramento. 

See, an SUV submarine. 

Orange County (Southern California). they don't listen either. Ah hell, I can get through there. 

The one thing people don't realize is that the differentials on a car/truck/whatever have a breathing port. You get in deep enough and water seeps into your gear box and next thing you know, you're in the auto repair shop with a big repair bill.  

The California Government has finally had an epiphany. Maybe we should trap some of that water and replenish the depleted ground water. Duh!

OK, enough whining. The Shack Nasties have arrived. 

Stay Tuned. 

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

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. 

On the other hand, we at 1200 ft. got dusted as you can see in the 3 photo's below. 

Not to be outdone, the passes (Donner Summit on Highway 80, Echo Summit on Highway 50, and Carson Pass on Highway 88 got about 10 feet. But keep in mind as you read further, that the passes are at or around 7000 ft. The higher you go, the more snow you get. 

So then I get an email from my son showing me his truck on 3/1/2023 after he had cleared the driveway the previous day. Damn good thing he's a lot younger than me. I couldn't shovel that. 

But, we got our share. When we woke (that's not the political bullshit that the Republicans are throwing around) up on 3/1/2023 we had about 2 inches on the ground that fell overnight as the little bit from 2/27 was gone. 

The passes are currently sitting at about 15 or more feet of snow. Many are stranded and can't get out. One would think the snow plows would come by and clean the roads, but a lot of those people live on dirt roads way back in the nowhere and their roads have never seen a snow plow. Then again some of those at, say 7000 ft. are having trouble just finding their buried vehicles.

See what I men. That's somebody's house.

Which brings us to today. 7am this morning the sun (I think it was the sun as we've not seen the sun in 

about a millennium or seems like it) was shining only to be replaced by clouds and rain by about 2pm. this afternoon. 

According to the National Weather Service Guessers, we can expect some type of rain everyday through March 20th and who knows how far beyond. 

That type of forecast is putting a major crimp on my 3 hobbies (fishing, Metal Detecting and Magnet Fishing). I've purchased a metal detector to go along with my magnet fishing gear. If you've watched any of these guys or gals on YouTube you'll notice they also use a "pinpointer". It's a hand held metal detector about the size of a banana. I got one of them too. I'm ready and raring to go, if it will ever stop raining. 

The picture below is a Pancky model PK0075. Most say this is a good one for a rookie. That's me. It got 4.3 out of 5 rating by 3144 people. It has all the goodies for finding metal from a pop top to a gold nugget using the all metal mode. They also say it can find a quarter at the depth of 10 inches. Must be the reason they included a cool little shovel in a belt holster.       

Maybe I'll find something that qualifies as treasure. I've already found a bunch of "junk" magnet fishing including the top portion of a fishing rod and an active 410 shotgun shell. Who knows what's around the next corner.  

So stay tuned for the life and times of a gimping old guy.