A mix of activities

Yesterday Hilary had an appointment at the Fresno offices of Senators Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer as a representative of the packers who have been stopped from operating this summer in the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. She joined five others in supporting the case for letting the packers operate in compliance with the recent bill in the US House of Representatives which keeps the right to operate in effect for at least two years. The meeting went on for over two hours. One thing on our side is that Senator Boxer’s chief at the meeting said his wife had been a guest at the ranch and loved it. We’ll see if the Senate follows the House in their enthusiasm for keeping the status quo, following the example of the House’s speed in writing and unanimously passing their bill in only twelve hours.

Luke continued on up to the foothill ranch with a trailer load of horses. While Hilary attended the Senators’ meeting, Karla took Ben to the Fresno Chaffee Zoo in Roeding Park to see the newly-born baby giraffe. Ben apparently loved the trash containers and puddles in which he could splash. He liked the giraffes and elephants too, and got to reach out to touch the manta ray.

This morning, the following happened—

Heading up to the water tank site.

Ben likes the new tank site.

Even more, Ben likes the huge pile of dirt left over from making the tank site.

The obligatory family portrait.

This kid is too cute for words.

Thurman fills in the pipe trenches, all thousand plus feet of them!

Thurman backfilled all the trenches and the remaining part of the septic tank he had left revealed because he was unhappy with how the input pipe was fitting. Fussy Fussy. Gotta be perfect or he’s not happy. We will meet with him tomorrow about getting our house site cleared of weeds so the foundation can be laid out, and getting some ghastly parts of our road fixed so big trucks and trailers can haul in house parts. Maybe he can rough out the space for our garage. I have no idea what we’ve gotten into cost-wise. Oh well, it’s only money. You can’t take it with you but you can use it to maybe make a really nice house.

Gratuitous pictures of our grandson are included to answer my readers’ incessant requests.

Flat place and river rocks

Wow, what a difference a few hours makes! This afternoon around 3 or so, we went down to see what had happened since late morning. Thurman and Chad had gone (Chad had a dental appointment), so we drove up to the water tank site to see what they had done. It was the first time we were able to get the car that far up the hill, and there were a few obstacles to avoid, like deep holes where rocks used to live that hadn’t yet been filled. What a nice level place to park!

On the way up the hill, we couldn’t miss seeing a whole huge heap of gravel, nice round river rocks, waiting to be soaked in the overflow of the new septic tank. I had no idea it would be so much! It’s going to take a mighty long trench, mighty deep, to hold that much stuff. We will have a lot of dirt to deal with once the tank and leach lines go in. So what do we do with all that dirt? If we could afford it, that much good clean dirt would certainly be welcome on our road. Over the years, our road in and out of here has been washing away with each hard rain storm. Roads should always be higher than the ground they’re built on, but ours is slowly becoming more of a canal than a road.

Or we could use the dirt to make a miniature duplicate of the surrounding mountains. That way if it’s a foggy day, we can still see, close up, the familiar skyline we see on clear days. Or we could sell the dirt on eBay and use the money to get my head examined.