Rain, Snow And Cold Weather Comes To The Canyon

I'm glad you like the header picture. It's actually from December 2013, when we last had a substantial amount of snow on the ground. And I was into squeezing Samson's ears in my pictures. This year there's snow in the mountains and it's cold so it has stayed around longer than usual. 

These pictures are from yesterday. I love the big mountains to the east, the southern-most part of the Sierra Nevada. But I find I like the cold a whole lot less than I used to, just a few years ago. 

A while ago, I told the women in my crochet group that I had never owned a crockpot and never made a meal in one. When one of the ladies later spotted one at a yard sale, she bought it for me. And yesterday I made my first meal in a slow cooker. A vegetable soup that turned out really good. I made only one mistake, I didn't cut the potatoes small enough, but I learned, and got the idea of how you need to do it for the next time. I enjoyed the entire process. It was really fun and rewarding. 

Less fun is having to navigate this muddy, rather large, place in the road I have in common with my next-door neighbor. We really need to get together and do something, but he's going through a divorce, thinks I'm friends with his wife, and refuses to give me his phone number. I will call the county road department to get some advice. 

Mary and I recently went to the fire station in town and each got 25 empty sandbags. Then I found out that the firemen had sand and also filled bags at a park in town on Saturday. So I went, lots of pickup trucks, boy they have truly grown large these trucks, lots of guys, and, of course firemen to make my heart beat faster (just kidding, or as my friend Bernice said, "just to show you're not dead yet"). They had just ran out of empty bags, so I traded my 25 empties for 15 filled ones, just about all the Jeep could handle. I will keep them in there since I may have to travel in snow on Christmas Day. Then I will discuss with Glenn and have him help me decide where and how to place the bags to prevent the mud from damaging my driveway. 

Some of you asked about this tree and I verified that it is an oak tree. There are about five different kinds of oaks in our area, the Blue Oak is the most common. It only grows in California and does not look anything like the oaks in Sweden, or maybe a little if  you look closely at the leaves, which are of a blue/green color. I don't know if this is a blue oak or not. All I know is that it's a fabulous tree.

Then some of you asked if I have any close neighbors. Only the guy who is getting divorced and will not talk to me about stuff and a multitude of his relatives who live up there with him. I can't see his house from my house, his road goes next to my property and then up a hill a bit, so he's out of the way. But I have other friends not too far away. Mary and I check in on each other often, and a guy down the road a ways, said to call any time if something happens, middle of the night or not. And then there's my neighbor across the street, the woman, not quite my age, but not young, and about half as tall as I, who said, last year, "if you ever get scared, call me, I have a GUN!" With neighbors like that, I am not worried. Just a little about crashing blood sugars, scaring my dogs, and all that, but I try to not think about how dangerous insulin dependent diabetes really can be. And stay vigilant, there's always that, vigilance.

On that happy note, I will end this epistle and wish you all a Merry Christmas and Peace in this crazy world of ours.