Sunday, September 6

Some catching up

Boy, you’d think nothing was going on around here. At least Tom isn’t blogging about it anyway. He’s busy doing lots of little stuff, like raking gravel on a couple of hundred feet (60 meters) of our driveway. Since there is a slight sideways tilt to the drive, every time a car goes up the gravel shifts slightly downhill. After awhile, like a year, the road has moved several feet and needs to be brought back. Nice work if you can get it (ha ha).

New doors went on the pantry. I sawed off a woodpecker-holes-filled fence post that I’ll make into a coat rack in the entry. I’ve put up marker posts near the septic tank lids and the leach line valves so people won’t drive cross-country and hit them. At least they’ll know where to aim to cause mighty damage. Since a bear broke into our grain barrels we moved the horse feed into the garage. Ground squirrels can smell the grain and they chew at the rubber gaskets on the roll-up doors. The kitchen was invaded by nasty little red ants, the kind whose sting is very painful. For awhile I was getting them to gather around some tasty bait then sucking them up with a hand-held vacuum cleaner. I think I finally got them, since there are almost none left. And those are welcome to the bait traps I have set out.

Every once in awhile we get the smoke from the Rough fire south and east of us. It is now the biggest wildfire in California and has been roaring along for over a month. It is nowhere near either of our ranches, and is on both Park and Forest land. It is only twenty-five percent contained as has been the case for most of its history. Hilary tells me that she has heard that the Forest Service is planning to put up protection for the buildings that could be threatened, then let the fire run its course into the winter. I applaud that idea; let nature be natural instead of trying to "save" the overgrown forest.

Karla finished a week of cooking at the high ranch. It brought back memories of the old days—getting up at an ungodly hour, slaving away in the hot kitchen most of the day, getting to bed late, then re-starting the whole routine the next day. She met some really intriguing people during her stay, though, and they will be coming down to the foothill ranch to play their original music on our Steinway grand. Today I emailed our piano tuner to get it in fine shape for them. Karla is really excited to get back into her first love, music. She performed a few of her songs for them and they loved them. This could be the start of something big, or at least wonderful.

I hope to keep up the blog a little better, but when I’m on a tear, I forget things.

6 comments:

Susan Hurley-Luke said...

Thanks for the update. Good to know you are all alive and kickin'.

OL_TREKKER said...

Yo Tomm.. glad to see all in under control ..that Karla had a "good" week and music is now in her fore front..serenade those little critters...Patttt

Pete S. said...

Apparently the heat hasn't slowed you down! Maybe you did all that stuff during the few days of cooler weather (that are now gone). We're back to being plenty hot down here.

Tom Hurley said...

Hey there, OL_TREKKER, good to hear from you! Karla reminded me that you were one of the riders on the recent helicopter ride from the high ranch. Starting to become a habit, I reckon.

Tom Hurley said...

Pete S.—Speaking of hot, we're going to get a bunch of it this week. Just in time for Karla's return from the heavenly weather at the high ranch. Oh well, dreams end when you waken, huh? This is REALITY after all.

Avis said...

When I think back to our Ahwahnee gravel driveway, left behind some 20-plus years ago, I cannot imagine how you two have the energy to do even a small part of what you do. Guess the doing keeps you going!