Hump Day! Yeah!

Posted on Wednesday, April 18, 2018 by Paul

Another day without walking… Paul worked on the Blueberry cage instead and went to the “wine store” to get another delivery of alcohol free wine!

While at the wine store, Paul visited Lowe’s and picked up some tools needed around the house!

Returning home we had brunch and then back to work.  The cage is now 97% done… Just need two more odd coupling to finish the work!

Did You Know? Did you know…..that early American colonists made grey paint by boiling blueberries in milk. The blue paint used to paint woodwork in Shaker houses was made from sage blossoms, indigo and blueberry skins, mixed in milk.

In the afternoon we departed for Old Ranch as our cleaning service was due in.  Before we departed, Adrianna showed up with her crew and gave us the bad news…she is leaving the business and going to live with Laurie Reidinger in Salt Lake City!  We are really going to miss her.  She is turning the business over to Angel, who we already know.  She will be a loss as she was sooooo very reliable!  All good things must come to an end!

Speaking about ends, after getting home form Old Ranch around 5:00 PM we watched “Lost In Space 2018”.  It started slow but seems to be doing OK now.  We can only find ten episodes so far so we do now know its untimate fate.  We could not get over the facet Parker Posey played a female Dr. Smith. In the previous two incarnations of this property, Dr. Smith was named Zachary Smith and was played by male actors.

Tonight we saw two episodes: #1 Impact – On the way to a space colony, a crisis sends the Robinsons hurtling towards an unfamiliar planet, where they struggle to survive a harrowing night, and #2 Diamonds in the Sky –
Another crash brings more travelers to the planet, as the Robinsons work to salvage their ship with help from their mysterious new companion.

Meeting the robot in the forest!

We hit the sack a little early after watching NCIS and Bull as tomorrow is the bone scan over in Signal Hill!

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Tax Day And Paul Is Worried!

Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2018 by Paul

Say What?

“Doctor, there’s a patient on line 1 that says he’s invisible” “Well, tell him I can’t see him right now.”

Paul paid all the taxes two weeks ago but the California Franchise Tax Board payment has not shown up in the Bank Of America system…did Paul subconsciously not mail it?  Oh, what to do!

No walk today, we are off to an MRI in Long Beach 1t 10:30 AM.  We didn’t do breakfast but headed to Dr. Pierce’s office at 9:45 AM.  MRI time it was!  The MRI maps water in the body, what?

We could hear Sue yelling from the waiting room!

Did You Know? MRI was originally called ‘NMRI’ (nuclear magnetic resonance imaging) and is a form of NMR, though the use of ‘nuclear’ in the acronym was dropped to avoid negative associations with the word.[1] Certain atomic nuclei are able to absorb and emit radio frequency energy when placed in an external magnetic field. In clinical and research MRI, hydrogen atoms are most often used to generate a detectable radio-frequency signal that is received by antennas in close proximity to the anatomy being examined. Hydrogen atoms are naturally abundant in people and other biological organisms, particularly in water and fat. For this reason, most MRI scans essentially map the location of water and fat in the body. Pulses of radio waves excite the nuclear spin energy transition, and magnetic field gradients localize the signal in space. By varying the parameters of the pulse sequence, different contrasts may be generated between tissues based on the relaxation properties of the hydrogen atoms therein.

It took about an hour when we got home, about 11:45 AM, we called Miss Robin and asked her to lunch… yes, with a lot of enthusiasm! We met at California Pizza Kitchen in Seal Beach (Westminster and PCH) and had a super lunch sharing the latest news!  Paul stayed on his diet having a CUP of soup and a small bowl of Mexican Street Born!  We are lucky having a wonderful daughter like Miss Robin…She is quite special!

In the afternoon, Paul worked on the Blueberry cage as he got the necessary coupling/joins from Amazon. The local hardware stores didn’t carry the necessary parts. $23 for eight of these little guys… pretty good deal!

You can get anything on Amazon!

The Blueberry cages in 90% finished!  It is getting dark so it is time to go inside…no, the porch light didn’t come on…Paul is a good boy!

We watched TV and crashed!  Right before going to bed, Paul checked the BofA account and voila, the Franchise Tax Board check had cleared, no jail time for Paul!

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It’s MRI Day… Amongst Other Things

Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2018 by Paul
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Monday Set The Pace For The Week

Posted on Monday, April 16, 2018 by Paul

Good Story… and TRUE:

Two alligators were sitting at the side of the swamp near the lake.
The smaller one turned to the bigger one and said, “I can’t understand
how you can be so much bigger than me. We’re the same age; we
were the same size as kids. I just don’t get it.”

“Well,” said the big gator, “what have you been eating?” “Politicians,
same as you,” replied the small gator.

“Hmm…..Well, where do you catch them?”

“Down the other side of the swamp near the parking lot by the Capitol.”

“Same here. Hmm…. How do you catch them?”

“Well, I crawl up under one of their Lexus cars and wait for one to
unlock the car door. Then I jump out, grab them by the leg, shake
the crap out of them and eat’em!”

“Same here.” says the big gator. “Do you eat Democrats or Republicans?”

“I eat the Democrats” says the little guy.

“Ah!” says the big gator. “I think I see your problem. You’re not getting
any real nourishment. You see, by the time you finish shaking the crap
out of a Democrat, there’s nothing left but an posterior and a briefcase.

Soooo, enough politics!  Today is doctor’s day as we are going to the orthopedist to try and determine what is going on with Sue’s back pain.  We got up a little early as we have to be on the road by 9:45 AM to go over near Long Beach Memorial at 10:30 AM.  We arrived with a little tie to spare and met with Dr. Spenser.  Good guy!  After some X-Rays he is pretty sure it is a spine to Sacroiliac joint issue… maybe arthritis!

The sacroiliac joint connects the sacrum (triangular bone at the bottom of the spine) with the pelvis (iliac bone that is part of the hip joint) on each side of the lower spine. It transmits all the forces of the upper body to the pelvis and legs. There is not a lot of motion in the joint and it is very strong and stable.

While we do not know for sure, it appears as though the back (spine) is OK and no more loose screws but the joint has issues. We are blessed to be in today’s modern age of medicine!

It’s a fairly long joint on both sides

Paul is a fan of “Amos N’ Andy” and remembers the time Andy was having back problems and called it his “Scaro Craker Jack”…a funny line!  They murdered the English language much like Abbott and Costello! Funny guys,  great show!

Random Memories:  Paul remembers the Amos N’ Andy Show from TV. The Amos ‘n Andy Show was produced from June 1951 to April 1953 with 78 filmed episodes, sponsored by the Blatz Brewing Company.  The television series used black actors in the main roles, although the actors were instructed to keep their voices and speech patterns close to those of Gosden and Correll.  Produced at the Hal Roach Studios for CBS, the show was among the first television series to be filmed with a multi-camera setup, four months before I Love Lucy used the technique.

Paul’s Mom and Dad would always watch the show and thought it was super…always funny.  We loved the ol’ rascal Kingfish!

Paul’s few liberal friends always railed about how the show was “racist” but that was a bunch of hooey!  Amos N’ Andy were no different than other comedic duo’s except that the others murdered the English language without a dialect!

One episode involved Amos and Kingfish taking pictures of bank robbers (who were white guys).  Obviously the robbers were looking for them so they went to the police and the police officers were black professionals, had ZERO dialect, acted extremely professional, and thought Amos and Kingfish were goofy!

Funny funny guys!

Check our Website for the introduction of the Amos N’ Andy cast by Gosden and Correll.

We headed home afterwords after scheduling an MRI for Tuesday, a bone scan on Thursday and a return visit for next Tuesday!  We have a bust week ahead of us!

When we got home, about 11:45 AM, we called Miss Robin and asked her to lunch… yes, with a lot of enthusiasm!  We met at California Pizza Kitchen in Seal Beach (Westminster and PCH) and had a super lunch sharing the latest news!

Upon returning home, Paul headed to Home Deport and got 10 pieces of 1 1/4″ PVC and some coupling so finish off the Blueberry cage!  After careful consideration, Paul made the cage out of 18 pieces of PVC pipe each exactly 6′ long making it a whopping 18’x6’x6′.  This will make it easy to reconstruct in upcoming years.

Did You Know? PVC was accidentally synthesized in 1872 by German chemist Eugen Baumann.[10] The polymer appeared as a white solid inside a flask of vinyl chloride that had been left exposed to sunlight. In the early 20th century the Russian chemist Ivan Ostromislensky and Fritz Klatte of the German chemical company Griesheim-Elektron both attempted to use PVC in commercial products, but difficulties in processing the rigid, sometimes brittle polymer thwarted their efforts. Waldo Semon and the B.F. Goodrich Company developed a method in 1926 to plasticize PVC by blending it with various additives. The result was a more flexible and more easily processed material that soon achieved widespread commercial use.

It’s Monday and that means Malarkey’s where we met up with Greg, David, and Irene.  We all shared a pizza and told tall tales, laughed, and giggled!

Returning home, we watch TB and Paul made chocolate chip cookies about 10:30 PM.

We watched the last of “Hart Of Dixie”…the last season was only ten episodes.  While it was quite entertaining and some fairly good acting, Paul was left with a bit of sadness that they seemed to portray sex as such a casual thing and of course the last three episodes they had to find a gay couple to foist upon the screen…checking a Hollywood box perhaps? It was, however, refreshing to see black and white folks all getting along and all having similar views of the world…like it should be in real life. All in all, it was OK.

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Sunday… A Day For Some Kulture!

Posted on Sunday, April 15, 2018 by Paul

All the world‘s a stage and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts. (As you like it)

It’s Sunday morning and Paul’s feets are ready to walk…Sue says hurry back as she is hungry so it was an hour trip today with a couple of jogs to make it interesting.  During the transit, Paul hit 200 miles this year!

Walking is a great way to get refreshed!

After returning home Paul again worked outside repacking the emergency kits.  We not have a camp stove with several bottles of butane, three cases of MRE’s, a new gas siphon, ten cases of water, and clothes/blankets plus a medical kit!  We’re good to go!

At 1:30 PM we departed for South Coast Repertory so see Shakesperes’s “Taming of The Shrew”. The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1592.

In Shakespeare’s battle of the sexes, The Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio wins. But, what if a 16th-century woman had written it? In Amy Freed’s clever and wickedly funny spin on the classic, Kate triumphs, too. When her unstoppable force meets his immovable object (or is it the other way around?), the impact is red-hot and, oh, so sexy!

South Coast Repertory presents the world premiere of “Shrew!”

The actress, at many angles, looked just like our amazing daughter-in-law Amy!  Piercing eyes and beautiful smile!

This performance was hilarious!  So funny, we found ourselves giggling many time and flat our belly laughing on many other occasions.

We zoomed over to the Santa Ana Elks right after the play (it was a six minute drive on the freeway) where we joined the on-going Jam Session.

This was the last Jam Session in the old building!

The last Jam Session in the old lodge!

Our table was full tonight with only the Kuhn’s and Robert’s missing.   Bob Z, Bob C, and Sandy were having a serious conversation.  This dancing thing is good as Sandy and Bob C. are octogenarians and going strong.  Bob Z. is just an octopus… Paul’s age!

Bob’s and Sandy at the Jam Session!

Paul just HAD to eat as it was the last time in this building so the “Captain Jack’s Chicken Delight” was consumed much to the dismay of Paul’s diet! We departed a little early, 8:00 PM, and headed home to watch some TV.

As we closed out the evening, Paul saw a picture of the Shuttle and had a flashback to 1975 when Joe and Colleen joined him at Rockwell in Downey to meet the Astronauts!  Gordon Fullerton was with us today.

Just an old memory… Joe and Colleen with Gordon Fullerton (Astronaut) in the ADL Downey, Ca  (Half of Paul is on the far right)

Did You Know? Charles Gordon Fullerton (October 11, 1936 – August 21, 2013) was a United States Air Force colonel, a USAF and NASA astronaut, and a research pilot at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, California.[1] His assignments included a variety of flight research and support activities piloting NASA’s B-52 launch aircraft, the Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), and other multi-engine and high performance aircraft. Fullerton, who logged more than 380 hours in space flight, was a NASA astronaut from September 1969 until November 1986 when he joined the research pilot office at Dryden. In July 1988, he completed a 30-year career with the U.S. Air Force and retired as a colonel. He continued in his position of NASA research pilot as a civilian. Fullerton and his wife and their two children lived in Lancaster, California.

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Yes! The Weekend Has Arrived!

Posted on Saturday, April 14, 2018 by Paul

The first time I got a universal remote control I thought to myself, “This changes everything”.

No walking today… It’s gardening time!  Below is my new Zebra Plant which  began to die… the leaves would shrivel up and turn brown.  research indicated it needed humidity…now, Paul has a spray bottle by the plant and the Zebra gets a little “baffy” twice a day! Zebra Plant  got its name from the white stripes on its green-colored leaves similar to the stripes of a zebra. The plant with its striking striped foliage and brilliant yellow flowers are a great antidote against the winter blahs.

We know the secret to the Zebra plant now!

To the yard!  Everything got a good dose of water today as it has been windy and dry for a few days!

The corn is growing like made right now!

The berries against the back fence are doing well and to help, Paul spread a layer of steer manure around the base of the plants.  Another month or two and we should have our first crop of these delightful critters.

Did You Know? Botanically, some of the fruits commonly called ‘berries’ are not true berries, and many fruits most people do not consider berries are in fact true berries in the botanical sense.

A true berry is a simple fleshy fruit formed from the ovary of one flower with seeds embedded in the flesh.

Some examples of true berries are blueberries, gooseberries, cranberries, grapes, tomatoes, bananas and peppers.

We will have berries in a couple of months

Random Memories: Paul remembers growing up on Comey Avenue is Los Angeles  and in the early 1950’s we did NOT have fences between the back yards like we have today.  The neighbors had a large berry patch in the back yard (these yards were 200 feet deep)  and generally had some kind of garden in them!  Oh, we also had an incinerator for burning our trash!  Paul would wonder out into the thicket and pick blackberries until he was stuffed, hands and clothes were stained, or “caught red handed”.

By 1955, the concrete block wall was raised and the berries disappeared.  Not to be deterred, Paul would go around the wall (and sometimes over it) and sneak into the neighbors back yard and continue to pick the berries.  Since Paul likes tart, many of the berries did NOT reach their full ripeness.  Red blackberries were the best!

Paul overhead Mom talking to the neighbors as they were complaining about the “damned birds” getting their berries even before they were ripe.  Little did the neighbors know that Paul was the bird!

The birdies are getting busy meaning Paul has to get busy covering the blueberries before the NLB’s get them (Nasty Little Birds). Perhaps Paul ought to be looking out for eight year old kids???

This year Paul is building a 18’x6x6 frame from 1 1/4″ PVC.  We will put a net over it when the blueberries arr ripening and during the heat of the summer when we move the blueberries to the protected side yard, we will provide a cover over our garden swing.

The net is going up today!

The nectarine tree is doing great with all sorts of blossoms on it.  The job now is to thin the fruit out as it gets so many thinning is required!

The blossoms reveal we will have a load of nectarines this year!

Paul did NOT walk today as he usually does.  He decided working in the yard is plenty of exercise and sure enough, over a period of four hours he did close to five miles.  Coming up on 190 miles!

Reaching 200 miles slowly but surely

Although Paul didn’t “walk” around the house many many times adds up!!  A couple of miles.  Close examination reveals most of the walking wasin the front yard today!

Typical of an afternoon in the garden!

We cleaned up and got dressed and headed for LAX to go dancing with the Nightlighters!  Because of medical issues, we have not been there for the past two dances and we we anxious to see everyone.  We stayed until 10:00 PM and then headed home to watch some TV.  Good dance and met a new couple who we hope join the fun!

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Oh Oh! Friday The 13th!!

Posted on Friday, April 13, 2018 by Paul

We danced at the GG Elks!

Yes indeed, today we start the easy slide into the weekend and a plethora of activities. Paul started the day with a walk to the bank! Yes, he was cleaning our some old boxes in the garage and he found another $2,000 in savings bonds dating back to 1995! Turns out these were Series EE and had a 30 year life so the face value was only $1,300 but that is a good thing!

Another three miles so Paul is nearing 190 miles this year!  He is thinking about stepping up the Pace and get to 250 miles by the end of June…a shot of 500 miles this year.  Does that mean he will be singing “500 Miles”, Lord we hope not!

Sneaking up on 190 miles!

After getting home, Paul got on the horn and made the 2018-2019 seasonal buy of tickets to the South Coast Reperatory Theater and to the Orange County Performing Arts Center.  We have been going there are almost 30 years and have worked our way to fantastic seats… We choose NOT the first row bu end seats in the fifth row…why you ask?  easy, we don’t have any trouble getting in or out, we are closer to the bar, and we do not get dust and perspiration from the actors this far back!

While making the reservation, we found out we are going to see “Taming of the Shrew” on Sunday afternoon… Bob and Donna saw it already and proclaimed it a great production.

Tomorrow we are off!

Paul obeys all the traffic signs… mostly!

Paul is ALWAYS prepared to stop!

After returning home and having lunch, time to open the Christmas presents from Amazon.  The new camp stove arrived so that will be added to the emergency collection.  We now have ten cases of water, MRE’s for a month, clothes, emergency meds, generator, 20 gallons of gasoline, a syphon, and not a camp stove!  We be ready…of course, the “big one” will strike when we are farthest from home!

Time to cleanup and head to GG Elks for dinner dance.  Street Corner Symphony was there tonight so that means LOUD!

We danced a few dances and kibitzed with the gang until about 10L00 PM and then headed for home to watch some TV, dine on a chocolare chip tookie, and finally crash!

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It Be Thursday; Down Hill from Here

Posted on Thursday, April 12, 2018 by Paul

As we sat down to our computers in our office today we remembered:

  •  “Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.” — Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
  •  “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” — Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
  •  “I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year.” — The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957
  •  “But what … is it good for?” — Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.
  •  “640K ought to be enough for anybody.” — Bill Gates, 1981

The day began in a spectacular fashion…72 degrees and an abundance of bright light…even the wind died down finally!

On the way and the first stop was right around the corner…  The white roses were magnificent. After some reading Paul found out that there are no species roses which originate south of the equator.

Walking is a beautiful thing!

A little farther down the path the yellow-white-tan beauties vie for Paul’s attention!  Against the dark green leaves, they babies scream for attention. Scientists assert that there are over 270,000 species of flowers that have been documented and are existing in the 21st Century.

The flowers in Spring are just amazing

Not to be outdone, Mr. Orange is right along side!

The sunshine makes the colors pop right off the leaves

We have many houses that are not fearful of attesting to their faith and we applaud them!

A reminder of Easter! Nice to see people proud of their faith!

Upon returning home, Sue had brunch ready and we enjoyed our meal with Paul sharing the happenings.  Sue always wants to know who Paul met along the way… not people… dogs!

Today Paul met Bozo, a dachshund.  This little bugger saw Paul and barked so loud he sounded like he was going to viciously attack poor Paul.  So, Paul kneeled down, lowered his head a bit, and put out his arm low to the ground.  After 3-4 minutes of sniffing and Paul, using terms of endearment,  because great friends with Bozo.  Bozo was a lover, NOT a fighter!

Did You Know? If World War I was tough on dachshunds, what came next was just weird. Nazi scientists boasted that they successfully taught the dogs to speak, read, spell, and even communicate telepathically. Germans believed that dogs were nearly as intelligent as humans, so they set up a special program called Hundesprechschule Asra to tap into that asset. Some of the outlandish feats claimed by the program included a dog that could say “Mein Fuhrer” and another that could write poetry.

Kurwenal was a dachshund that could “speak” with different numbers of barks for different letters—sort of like a canine telegraph. According to Jan Bondeson’s book, Amazing Dogs: A Cabinet of Canine Curiosities, the dog even had his own biographer detailing the pup’s daily life. He reportedly liked pink roses, illustrated zoology books, and attractive women. When asked if he ever wanted to be a father, the bachelor declared, “No!” Many were impressed with the fat little dog’s routine, but others suspected that he was receiving cues from his owners.

Right before he passed away, Kurwenal poetically barked, “I am not afraid of dying; dogs have souls and they are like the souls of men.” The dachshund was buried in the garden of his owner’s home.

After dessert, ice bream and extra-large blueberries, we watched two episodes of Hart Of Dixie before Paul hit the yard continuing pre-summer activities.  Today he figured out that the pool equipment was going to have to move 18″ so the future storage shed can fit into the corner of the yard.  A nice 8’x12′ tall shed ought do the trick!  Tink of it, an empty garage!

Later afternoon, we did one more episode before getting cleaned up and heading to the Phoenix Club to visit and dance.

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Two Years Ago Today Was WOW!

Posted on Wednesday, April 11, 2018 by Paul

Just another day and another adventure

Yes, it was two years ago this day that Paul had a heart attack!  While sitting in an waiting room awaiting Sue to finish therapy on her hand Paul began to feel sick, tingling, dizzy, sick to the tummy!  This was odd as he has never felt that way before. He looked up the symptoms on the iPhone via the internet and they said “heart attack”.  Paul called for Sue to finish immediately and go to the car.  Sue did not know what was happening until Paul said “We are going to the ER, I am having a heart attack!”.  The hospital was bout six blocks down Katella.

Sue knew it was serious when Paul parked the car and went inside without opening the door for her and assisting her out.  By the time Sue came in, Paul was already inside the ER wired to some monitoring device!

Sure as hell, they diagnosed Paul with a small heart attack and  admitted him.  That day they did an angiogram and sure as can be, he had a blocked artery near the heart.   The next day, the chest was opened up and the heart repaired at Long Beach Memorial… same place Sue had hers done.  It was easy but the recovery was a bugger!

Did You Know? Electrocardiography (ECG or EKG[a]) is the process of recording the electrical activity of the heart over a period of time using electrodes placed on the skin. These electrodes detect the tiny electrical changes on the skin that arise from the heart muscle’s electrophysiologic pattern of depolarizing and repolarizing during each heartbeat. It is a very commonly performed cardiology test.

In a conventional 12-lead ECG, ten electrodes are placed on the patient’s limbs and on the surface of the chest. The overall magnitude of the heart’s electrical potential is then measured from twelve different angles (“leads”) and is recorded over a period of time (usually ten seconds). In this way, the overall magnitude and direction of the heart’s electrical depolarization is captured at each moment throughout the cardiac cycle. The graph of voltage versus time produced by this noninvasive medical procedure is an electrocardiogram.

Follow the bounding needles

 

Paul was sent for an angiogram and the blockage was found! Looks like three arteries needed to be bypassed!  Los Alamitos was not equipped but it was serious enough and they send Paul to Long Beach Memorial in a cardiac ambulance.  They said if something happened, nothing could be done but at Long Beach Memorial they were equipped for an event.

Did You Know? Angiography or arteriography is a medical imaging technique used to visualize the inside, or lumen, of blood vessels and organs of the body, with particular interest in the arteries, veins and the heart chambers. This is traditionally done by injecting a radio-opaque contrast agent into the blood vessel and imaging using X-ray based techniques such as fluoroscopy.

The word itself comes from the Greek words ??????? angeion, “vessel”, and ??????? graphein, “to write” or “record”. The film or image of the blood vessels is called an angiograph, or more commonly an angiogram. Though the word can describe both an arteriogram and a venogram, in everyday usage the terms angiogram and arteriogram are often used synonymously, whereas the term venogram is used more precisely.

Typical condition where arteries are “clogged” not allowing proper blood flow to the heart

Back to today! Paul walked! Upright!   It was an excellent walk of about an hour and a quarter.  The weather was perfect… no coat or gloves needed today!  Today we headed south toward the beach!

Keeping up the speed

Windmills or whirligigs are always interesting.  They are pretty and seem to move magically!

Did You Know? A whirligig is an object that spins or whirls, or has at least one part that spins or whirls. Whirligigs are also known as pinwheels, buzzers, comic weathervanes, gee-haws, spinners, whirlygigs, whirlijigs, whirlyjigs, whirlybirds, or plain whirly. Whirligigs are most commonly powered by the wind but can be hand, friction, or motor powered. They can be used as a kinetic garden ornament. They can be designed to transmit sound and vibration into the ground to repel burrowing rodents in yards, gardens, and backyards.

You could hear them twirling in the breeze

We did not know that they were in season but here they are… One of the largest trees of this type in the world is about 15 miles from here!

Beautiful

Time to ride?  Someone is quite creative as the old bicycle has been put to a great use!  The yellow was extremely bright so it probably attracts bees and that is a good think!

Go for a ride?

After arriving home, we had brunch.  Sue took a left-over baked potato and chopped it up into bite size pieces and added a whole mess to stuff to it including some asparagus and made a ????  Paul did not know what to call it other than delicious! She has a talent to create magic out of thin air!  Paul is a lucky guy!

After working in the garden for a while, we watched one episode of Hart Of Dixie before cleaning up and heading to Old Ranch.  We had to get out of the house as our cleaning folks were coming plus we had a time to meet with Bunnaford.  Miss Bunny has been a friend for years but since we don’t play much golf, we have not seen her so we did.  We shared some taco’s with her and gabbed for almost three hours!

It was a great day at the ranch! – View from our table!

We departed for home at 6:00 PM and watched some TV.  After getting home, Paul determined Santa had been there… OK, it was the FedEx man with boxes from Amazon.

Paul got a case of MRE’s.  Our old MRE’s were just that, old!  They were packaged in 2006.  Paul opened one of the MRE’s from the old case and found it very good.  He tried the peanut butter, crackers, apple sauce, vegetarian pasta… They were perfect so back into storage they go.  But, to be safe we added another case of MRE’s to our stash.  So we have ten cases of water, MRE’s for two weeks, and 20 gallons of gasoline for our 8KW generator.  SHould the big one arrive, we are ready!

Time for a little TV.  About 11:00 PM, Paul baked some chocolate chip cookies to keep us awake.  We crashed at 12:15 PM and are ready for another day.

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The March Toward Hump Day!

Posted on Tuesday, April 10, 2018 by Paul

We can make Christmas happen every day!

No walking today… Gotta work in the garden!  So Paul started and finished the tree garden today.  The Nectarine, Apple, Avocado, and both Figs are looking great.  They got new straw mulch and got feed some goodies from the nursery.  It’s nice to be able to working the office and see the trees working hard to produce fruit for our table!

Watchem grow!

Other good news of the day… Our first < $100 electric bill EVER!  Paul has been battling electricity consumption for over a year now and by turning things off and watching carefully the bill has dropped 66% in winter!  We saved over $200 from last year!  Excited? Indeed!  Hey, it adds up!  I always remember ,” I’m currently boycotting any company that sells items I can’t afford. ”

The good news

So we got several Christmas presents today… safety goggles (for using the bench grinder), four rechargeable C-cells (Paul hates to drags the radio around the backyard looking for AC outlets), and a new supply of MRE’s… enough for a week for the two of us.

Speaking of MRE’s, Each meal provides about 1200 Calories (5020.8 kJ). They are intended to be eaten for a maximum of 21 days (the assumption is that logistics units can provide fresh food rations by then), and have a minimum shelf life of three years (depending on storage conditions).

The meals are pretty good!

Paul spent some time measuring for a small (8×12) storage shed needed to get the garage emptied! Of course, we will have to move the pool pump and heater about 24 inches to the north in order to fit the shed in but alas… it must be done!

Around 6:00 PM Paul called it a day!  Time to come in from playing in the yard!  We watched TV and two movies before the evening was done… Love those Hallmark mysteries!

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