Our annual Christmas Tree "Hunt"!

A beautiful drive

Well, with Thanksgiving behind us, today was the day for our annual Christmas tree "hunt". I say hunt, because it usually takes quite a bit of time to find "the right tree" for Kim! We have developed a tradition of sorts over the last several years of making the outing together with our dear friends Dave and "Calamity" Jane Roberti, and their sweet little daughter Kristen.


This year was unique in a couple of ways. First, Momma Kim is on crutches and certainly cannot slog through the snow in search of the perfect tree. Second, we had a new cutting area this year. It was on the Tahoe National Forest, my old district. And third, we have had a ton of early snow this year. In fact, I figured our old cutting area was snowed out anyway, so it was good that we could try a new one.

Jason (Hey-sone), Lucy, and Luise

Last Thursday, on the way back from Dad and Don's house in Oakdale, we decided to check out the new spot above the little town of Sierraville to see if it was still drivable after all the snow. It turned out to be plowed. It is a trail-head for snowmobile riders! Driving along the road looking over the snow covered forest was wonderful. The trees were still covered with snow from the last few storms. We found a few promising spots, and turned around to head home. On the way out we saw a coyote busting through the snow full out to try to get away from us. It was neat watching him run, if we had been hunting he would have been dead meat the snow was so deep. Thinking back on it, I should have noticed how deep and difficult the snow was. Instead, we just kept cruising along enjoying the winter scenery. We saw a small bobcat a few miles further on. It was a very nice drive.

Well, come Sunday it was blue and beautiful in the valley. I managed to  get the driveway and the road plowed from the last 8 to 10 inches of new snow before we headed out for Sierraville to meet up with the Roberti's. It was Kim and I, Lucy, Jason (Hey-sone), and Luise our exchange student from Austria.  Oh yes, and of course the Pointer Sisters, Delta and Remmi!

When we were still dry!

Things went well at first, Beautiful weather, the road was plowed, we made our way up until we got to our spot. I drove about 300 feet above the spot that seemed likely to have some nice trees to cut and turned around. My plan, a good one, was to park up the road so I would not have to climb the steep 15 foot cut-bank where the cutting looked good. Instead, we could easily stroll along the contour and cut our trees as we found them.

Things soon fell apart however. The snow was crotch deep on me, so that was considerably deeper on everyone else (remember that coyote?) We began to slog....even the dogs were making labored progress. After about 100 feet or so I turned to Dave Roberti and said "My wife wanted me to be sure and take some time and make this an "event", looks like it may be more of an ordeal." And so it was! After another 150 feet or so Roberti thought the trees were looking pretty darn good. Kristen picked out a good ol' Charlie Brown tree, and Lucy, Hey-sone, Luise and I struggled on.

I was breaking trail, but seriously I didn't know how long I could keep it up. Lucy fell and filled her boot with snow. Delta and Remmi seemed pretty confused as they were essentially wriggling through the snow on their bellies! They both looked at me like I was supposed to help them, but they were on their own!!

Finally, I decided we needed to make it down to the road and re-group. The four of us tripped and stumbled down the slope to the road. Wow, the solid road felt good beneath my boots. We trudged back to the trucks and found Kim sitting there idling the engine of the truck and reading her book in the warm cozy cab. After a brief celebration of our salvation, I had Lucy start the truck, then hopped on the tailgate as she slowly moved down the road. Dave, Jane, and Kristen were coming down the hill with two trees. I helped Dave get the trees down to the road, and Jane cut up some bread and cheese. Bummer! We forgot the hot chocolate.

Heading down the hill!

Kim was feeling isolated in the cab of the truck, so Lucy pulled a sneak snowball attack and made her feel more involved (not)! I took off down the road to look for the promising spot I had seen earlier. About 300 feet down I spotted a few likely candidates that were probably 2 feet beyond the 100 foot "no cut" zone along the road. So, with my trusty ax I crawled through the snow up the hill to check them out first hand. They looked good, so I called for the kids to bring up the truck, and check out the trees. It was amazing! I could hear them talking and laughing, but even screaming at the top of my lungs, they could not hear me!! I tried the dog whistle to get their attention, but that just got the dogs to come to me. So, I called Dave Roberti on his cell phone and asked  them to move down and check out the trees. The wonders of modern technology!

At the road finally!!

Here they came, finally, and up the hill Lucy, Hey-sone, and Luise struggled. We picked one out of the two candidates, and started chopping. Lucy and Luise each took a turn chopping with the ax. Finally, the tree came down. I stuffed the ax into my belt, and Hey-sone and I dragged the tree down the hill. At the top of the cut slope, with the truck in sight, we decided to go for it straight down the hill. We made it, but plunged into the plow berm at the bottom!

The ax man!

So, we wrestled the tree into the truck, loaded up the dogs, and headed home. Yes, Kim played Christmas carols all the way home. It was great getting back into dry clothes and a warm house. Kim had whipped up some home made turkey soup and It really hit the spot! Little Kristen really hit it off with the Pointer Sisters. They had a great time together while we were cutting, and after we got home.

Overall it was another great outing. a great way to kick off the Christmas season. The only thing missing was Mango and Opie. I am sure if we had had the "Adorable One" and the "Smart One" with us things would have gone even better!

Merry Christmas to All!!

That's All

Owl City!

Head swiveled 180 degrees checking me out!

Not the rock band! Weird deal. Yesterday I started out the back door in the morning and was stopped in my tracks by a very large owl sitting on the deck hand rail, gazing at me curiously through the screen door. I froze so as not to scare it off, slowly backed up, and frantically searched for a camera. I shouldn't have panicked. The bird was very set on staying right where he was. Couldn't find the camera, then I remembered it was in the glove box of the truck. So, I ran and dragged Kim out of the bedroom to see the owl before it took off. It was patiently waiting for us when we returned. I sneaked out the other side of the house, got the camera, and snapped some pictures.

Took this from the driveway

According to our "Birds of North America" field guide, it was a mature big eared owl. They are often confused with Great Horned owls, but I am certain this was a big eared. You can see by the pictures it was a beauty. We have heard owls around the place before, and once a barn owl took up residence out in our barn but didn't stay long. I was hoping it would, to cut down on the bird population in there. Come to think of it, the little birdies were pretty scarce for a few days!

So, Kim is reading up on big eared owls, and it turns out that one of their favorite prey species is domesticated cats! I remember when we moved in to this house, the owner telling us he couldn't keep cats long because the "owls got 'em before they grew out of kitten-hood." I have a difficult time picturing an owl, even a big one, flying off with our cat Lumina. Although she would be a tempting target, as the owl would probably be able to make it through the winter on just the one kill! Cat sirloin.....Nahhh!

The owl finally flew away to a tree just outside our rail fence by the round pen and sat there the rest of the day. Pretty cool! So today I was out plowing the driveway in the driving snow, and I glanced over my shoulder at the truck (didn't want to back the tractor into it) and saw a pile of feathers in the snow with what looked like talons sticking out. I jumped off the tractor to investigate, and sure enough it was an owl. At first I thought it was the same one. Perhaps it had been sick, that would explain its unafraid behavior.

My highly trained barn owl!

However, when I examined it more closely, it was a barn owl! It was quite dead, so I picked it up and headed for the house. I perched it on my gloved hand so it looked like it was sitting there like a falconer's bird. I walked in the house holding it out, and moving like I didn't want to scare it. You should have seen Kim jump off those crutches! We decided to send it in to school, and give it to the biology teacher (Mr. Valle). There is a student who is really into learning taxidermy, and this owl is in perfect condition. Don't know what killed it.

So, we had Owl City around here this weekend. Perhaps it has something to do with the explosion of large rodents we have had this year. Delta killed a rabbit in the wood pile last week, and I have shot a couple of squirrels. We haven't seen these animals around here much, never any squirrels. Must be global warming!!

That's All!

Off to North Section Finals!

Well, volleyball is still with us! Last week the Tigers beat East Nicklaus at home (barely) in 5 games. They played down to their competition as has been their habit, but in fairness, they hadn't played in two weeks because they got a bye on the first round of playoffs. They lost the first game, won the second, lost the third, and had to win the last two in a row to avoid elimination. They won number four with some great contributions from some of the kids that have often not had many opportunities, it was a two point game. Lucy made a couple of great blocks and a hit to score a crucial few points that kept them in game four. In game five the tigers went down 8-4 (in a 15 point game that is often the end of it) when Suzanne Filippini got the serve. Suzie had been really struggling with her serves for most of the second half of the season, but she picked a great time to get it back! She served 10 straight (including at least 4 aces) to get the Tigers to game point!

Happy Tigers!

Really the girls showed a lot of character by coming back to win after being down by 2 to 1. The victory got them a slot against the Los Molinos Bulldogs at Los Molinos (about a 3 hour drive from Portola) last night (Thursday the 18th). Los Mo had whipped the girls twice, and the Tigers had prevailed once (to win the early season tournament) but after the struggle against East Nick it didn't look good for the Lady Tigers. They had made lots of errors (including 5 to 7 missed serves per game) and would definitely have to straighten that out if they were to beat Los Mo in their house.

There was a large home crowd, but it was balanced by a very vocal Tigers rooting section (that be us proud parents). The first game went back and forth point by point with two being the maximum lead until the Tigers edged up by three or so. Final score however was 25-23 PHS! The Bulldogs were shocked, and the Tigers smelled victory.

Buddies!

In game two, it was once again a see-saw contest with the point spread staying within one or two the entire game. The Tigers went up 23-22 and had a chance to get to game point but a miscue brought the Dogs even 23-23. Next play Los Mo pulled ahead to 24-23 and had a shot at the win. The Tigers staved of defeat, and got the serve back at 24-24, then scored two straight including an ace by Ashley Lopez to send the hounds back to their kennel 26-24.

In game 3, you could sense that the momentum was all Tigers as they steadily and inexorably widened the lead. Portola ended up on the long side of a 25-15 score crushing the Bulldogs and advancing to the North Section Championship.

All the girls played very well, and the scoring was more evenly spread than usual with key contributions from Emma Briggs, Anna Roach, Lucy, Suzanne, and Ashley. Lindsay Compton had an excellent game with probably her best kill percentage of the season. Likewise Ellie Kibble set and served extremely well, while adding some well timed kills.

It is a wonderful, but fleeting thing to win a championship game like this. We travel to Red Bluff tomorrow to face Hamilton City in the North Section Championship game. If the girls play with the focus and dedication that the showed last night, they will definitely be in the game. Regardless of that, they won last night, and it is a victory to be savored!!

That's All!

Multi-Tasking

Watching TV with projects all around!

I'm not very good at it...multi-tasking that is. In fact, it drives me crazy, but sometimes you just have to gut it out and do it. For me there is little that is more satisfying than working on a meaty project with single minded focus. My mind turns over the possibilities. "How can I do this job more quickly, with less effort, to a successful conclusion. Sometimes I can totally lose myself in just mowing the lawn. It is enjoyable and rewarding, and sometimes not possible.

Do not flush!

For example, Kim just had foot surgery, and is laid up for six weeks. So, I have to do several jobs at once. I am the nurse, gotta do the house work, take care of the animals, prepare most of the meals, AND still gotta do my projects. I started one of my big ones a day or two before Kim went under the knife. Tiling the bathrooms. I have never laid tile before, but I have been thinking this project through for several years. The old vinyl floors in the bathrooms were in terrible shape (have been since we moved in 14 years ago). Kim and Lucy picked out the tile and we took the truck to Home Depot and purchased all the supplies. I took out Lucy's toilet (stored it conveniently in Maggie's vacant room) and tore out the floor. Kim helped me cut the "Hardy Backer" sub floor reinforcement, and we layed it down. So far so good. Then surgery happened.

The layout

Kim has been very UN-demanding, but still I had to feed her and Lu in between laying out and cutting tile. Every time I got on a roll, I had to switch gears and run an errand, or do some cleaning, maybe feed the horses, walk the dogs (hmmm...Kim sure gets a lot of stuff done around here).

Cutting the Tile

Every new step in the tiling process I would obsess about and plan, read instructions, watch internet "do it yourself" videos (in between cooking, cleaning, and helping Kim "get something done"). Finally, when I couldn't procrastinate any longer, I would plunge in! Every time I found that the step was pretty easy and went reasonably well. After almost two weeks I finished it! Lucy was happy, I was happy (it looks terrific) and Kim was happy.

Oh, I mean I finished about half of it. Got the tiles and supplies to do the master bath too. You would think that I would have it sorta down by now but....  We're gonna put in a heated tile floor, and now I have another step to learn about and obsess over in between my other duties. Electrical is my weak point. Must have something to do with that experiment I did with a light bulb when I was a kid. Never told anybody, but got lots of compliments on my new hair style. Afros were in in those days.

Finished product!

So, I'm thinking about it....really. The big step is yanking the toilet out. Then you are committed. it's get it done or you have to go out in the laundry room. Well, I am too busy with my other tasks (including a bit of chukar hunting) to overcome the inertia of procrastination easily. Maybe next week!


That's all!