I was looking for some July pictures and came upon this one. Definitely a treasure from the archives. Good thing I took it because the mailboxes are gone now, replaced with the latest modern, locked boxes.
Yes, there was a 6.4 earthquake in Ridgecrest, a town out in the Mojave desert about 55 miles, straight, from here (longer if you drive). I was in the kitchen and all that happened to me was a rattling sound in my kitchen cabinets. I didn't feel the earth move or anything, so I thought it was a small quake somewhere.
Then my phone lit up like a Christmas tree of text messages, everyone worried. It was a large quake and I appreciate my friends being concerned. Of course, I feel bad for the people affected by this quake, I have been in a couple that really affected me, particularly the 6.7 Northridge quake back in 1994. Still, it became a good day for me, connecting with so many friends. I should really make the effort to call or text more. I prefer emails to all of that, but not everyone does these days.
Then, and worse for me, I had a large brown spider in the bathroom. Not the first one this summer. I just looked at Google images, trying to identify it and it most closely resembled the Brown Recluse spider, which we don't have in California. This set me off on a Google image search that gave no answers and now that my head is full of spider images, I hope I won't dream about them.
I used to be so scared of spiders, but I have overcome that to a certain extent. Just don't come in my bedroom. When I first tried to catch the spider, it went in a tiny crack in my bathroom cabinet. When it appeared again the next day, I took my time, looked around my kitchen for a good box to put it in. The Tollhouse cookie tin was ideal, because it has a thin edge. A thick or slightly bent edge makes it more difficult to make a catch. The spider was on the wall, I lined up the tin, touched its legs and it fell right into it. I covered the tin and took the spider outside and left it by my rock collection, figuring it would have many places to hide there.
And I now have a good spider removal tool.
This summer, we have another pest that's worse than ever. Flies!! I can't do anything about the additional horses that now live close by, but I need to start rinsing off the dog yard every day. This was always part of my morning chores, but the winter was so wet and there were no flies, so I cut back. Now, I'm starting again and hope it will eliminate some of the problem. Drowning fly babies used to help a lot.
I feel much better and am now a bit embarrassed that I made a fuss on my blog. But last year, my friend Tom came to visit and, while here, came down with a cold. I got it, then I got bronchitis, and was ill for a good six weeks. This time, it was just a summer sniffle, combined with being tired. So I rested, read, watched TV, and napped.
As far as TV goes, I don't watch much, but I was still dismayed when Nexstar and AT&T blacked out our local NBC station due to a money dispute, blaming each other. I only get local TV and HBO. I know I can watch on the internet, but I only watch some of the morning shows, which I record to watch while I eat lunch, so a bit difficult to do on my computer. Did this happen where you live also? It happened to a lot of markets around the country.
Today is a beautiful day in the canyon. The summer heat has not yet arrived and life is good.
