WINTERS IN SUMMER

 Sometimes you just have to go SHOPPING!  We didn't come home with anything but a full stomach.  Meet the crew from Winters, a tiny old farm town in the middle of big cities.  You can't believe the farmland around there unless you drive it.  And drive it we did, trying to stay out of the I-80 parking lot due to wrecks.  We got lost twice because internet service was spotty.

I mean really ... who couldn't make this?  It's just a long metal box (or whatever container you have) filled with cactus, succulents, flowers and even aloe.  It had some herbs stuck in the middle.  No weeding involved and it was beautiful!

Putah Creek Cafe was our destination.  REAL napkins and Ball jar glasses full of REAL water, not that chlorine stuff.

This gave me a great idea for MY kitchen.  These are grandmothers recipes for soup, framed and hung on the wall with her wooden spoons.  I think I'll try this.

We thought to order a CUP of clam chowder, but it quickly turned into a BOWL.  That was a VERY good choice.  This soup had more clams in it than I have seen anywhere.  No kidding, there had to be at least half a full can of baby clams in each bowl.   THE most tender clams I've had.  I ate every bite and waddled out the door full to the brim.

But NOT before picking up a piece of pecan pie.  This is a 6-1/2" x 4" box.  No kidding ... the biggest piece of pie I have ever eaten in my LIFE!!  We saved it for dinner and breakfast the next morning.  I even brought part of it home!

We did a little shopping here and there, but I didn't buy one thing.  Cyndae found several just her style.  If I were 25 years younger, I might have found something, but not this time.

From there, we took the back roads to her daughter Beccas community garden plot.  This is NOT it.  However, I drove my truck down a super narrow gravel road.  Not the black road on the left, but to the right of that, barely 7' wide, my mirrors almost scraping the fence.  Cyndae was sure this was it.  

Nope ... I didn't think so ... and I didn't see anything that looked familiar.  Finally, after wandering through the entire place, I scanned the map on my phone.

Cyndae .. it's over here.  Three miles away!!  They rent out plots under the big green dot, water included.  We found the exact place we parked before, but could not determine exactly which plot was theirs.  Sadly, we left with no tomatoes or figs.

Exhausted, we headed back to the house.  In an hour, we left for daughter Beccas house/swimming pool.  Did I mention they have beehives?  Do you know what bees like a LOT?  Water in the swimming pool.  We spent the first hour giving CPR to about 50 bees.  We saved two flying somethings, a ladybug and many bees.  They thanked us by flying away.  

Dinner was leftover Mexican food, followed by a crazy movie where the FBI was trying to find out who killed a whole plane load of people years before.   They sent him to investigate his girlfriend.  I'm sorry I don't remember the name of the movie.  We knew who did it, but were fooled not once, but THREE times before the very end.  It was the FBI guy who did it ... and she set him up.  He was killed by the wine.  I TOLD HIM NOT TO DRINK THE WINE!!!!  Turns out he did it to save her from being killed.  Yeah, it was one of those.

More tomorrow about the return trip!!!

Wish I could sleep this well!

EVEN SHORTER POST TODAY

 SO ..... this is what happens when you don't turn your computer off.  Someone got my WiFi address and hooked up to my internet connection.  I figured out how to delete them from my computer, but my WiFi bill is now twice what it should be.  Stinking criminals!!!!

I've leaving for home soon, a 2+ hour drive and I'll deal with my carrier then.  In the meantime .....

Always happy!

SHORT POST TODAY

 I used to be excellent at traveling.  I never forgot anything, cruised right along the highway and arrived on time.  That did not happen on this day.  It did however, start out right with the last of the homemade garlic sourdough bread grilled cheese!!

As for the plums, I took the seeds out, but them in half and froze the entire bag full.  They will be just fine for making jam when I return.

I finally took off around noon.  I THOUGHT I had checked the highways and byways for accidents and slow downs.  I did not do so well in this endeavor.  There was a huge traffic jam on Hwy 99 due to construction.  No problem, I'll go about 30 miles and cross over to Hwy 5.  Easy Peasy.

Well not so much when the GPS kept telling me (about 89 times) to turn around.  Sorry girlfriend, but I'm going THIS way.  It was a two lane rough road with many stoplights.  No problemo ... the traffic was light.

I hit I-5 and cruised right along for maybe 10 miles.  That's when the parking lot happened.  What the hay ...... no construction, no accident, just miles of cars going 20 mph.

No worries I kept telling myself ..... it will get better.  I took Hwy 12 towards the coast, another two laner full of tourists.  It really wasn't too crowded with cars, but the tourists stopped on the two lane bridge, jumped out and took pictures of the water.  You should have heard the honking.

I crossed both the San Joaquin and Sacramento River before hitting the worst road I've ever driven on.  Funny, it was great going the OTHER direction last time, but going North, it was horrible.  Even at 50 mph, my poor truck actually moved from one side to the other because the road was so rough.  

Finally, after 2-1/2 hours I made it to Cyndae's house.  I met her friend Bill before sitting down to talk for three hours about all things Elks.  Apparently they have no paid staff like we do, and are much smaller in size.  It was quite the interesting conversation.

In no tine we were off to dinner.  Surprisingly, this is an old cowboy town surrounded by farm land.  They grow a lot of sunflowers here.  Unfortunately they are also growing lots of new housing.

La Cocina was the destination where we sat down on those huge, very heavy painted chairs.  Our waitress appeared to be the Lady of the House, who waited on us hand and foot.

I had carne asada.  This is not it.  I didn't take a picture, so I just snagged this from the internet to show the great food they serve,  It was delicious!!  There was enough for three people on my plate, so I brought most of it home.

That was pretty much it.  I was exhausted, but we watched a movie, the name of which escapes me.  It was 10:00 by the time I hit the hay.  Of course I woke up WAY too early this morning, bleary eyed and tired.  We shall see how the day goes.  I think I see a nap in my future.

He never leaves my thoughts.

I CUT THE CHEESE

 NO NOT THAT CHEESE!!!  I cut a nice piece of cheddar cheese with that knife and I said "where have you been all my life?"  Wow ... it went through like butter and fell right off the edge.  I'm not sure about the tomatoes, but the CHEESE, it's a game changer.

But first, I was off on a run around the neighborhood.  VERY early since I was trying to miss the heat.  The sun was just coming up through the trees.

We have been getting the weirdest cloud formations this year .....

And even a mini tornado in the sky.  I've never seen anything like this one!

The good news is I actually RAN the entire 2 miles this time.  I really didn't think I could.  It happened mostly because I was so intent on the music I was listening to that I ran right past my turn.  When I finally looked up and didn't recognize the neighborhood, I turned around.  Maybe I should ditch the music!!

This sweet one was squawking, warning the neighborhood there was a crazy lady running around loose.

Back home I whipped up a quick breakfast.  I used the knife on the tomatoes, but really didn't notice that much difference, other than it was easy to cut through the peel.  The peels on homegrown tomatoes are much thicker than the tomatoes you buy in the store.  The piece of cheese I cut is on the bottom.  

Though I should not have, I followed that up with cantalope straight from the field.  Oh my Great Aunt Suzie ... there is nothing better than vine-ripened cantalope.

I followed that up with peanut butter ice cream.  Just kidding ... this was MUCH later in the day and I only ate one little scoop worth.

I wasn't going anywhere because I had a big Elks Trustee/Board meeting on this night.  I try to rest up so I don't scream and yell too much.  

This is the Cascade Subduction Zone outside of Washington state.  I've watched this program on Nat Geo previously.  If you haven't seen it, take a look-see if you can.  This is just amazing.  This is where the earths crust slips below the other crust.  

They go on to show how the last major earthquake happened in the 1700's.  Most likely a 9 on the Richter scale.  This picture show's what it looks like and how the top portion avalanches down on the one going under.  It's an amazing program to watch.  

It's also pretty scary, and why I have not moved to the Oregon-Washington coast.  Turns out we are almost past due for another one of these big earthquakes that will create tsunamis 40-60 foot tall.  

If you see this show on your Guide, be sure and watch it.  It's fascinating.

And then I was off to the meeting.  I knew this was going to be a doozy, and it was.  I literally got booed and applauded.  The problem is these folks have not been around long enough to know what's actually going on, or to know the ins and outs.  And they don't believe me when I tell them.  Thank goodness on this night I had backup.  I literally got out of there at 9:30.  A four hour meeting!!!

The good news is the the gal who has been helping me with sourdough bread, brought my second case of jam jars.  

Along with that came four pounds of Elephant heart plums.  No I've never heard of them either, but the last batch I made was the best I've ever had in my life.  I jumped up and down!!  I get to make another batch!!!

Unfortunately it won't be happening for a few days because I'm off to Sacramento.  At least I think I am, after I take care of a line of business stuff first.  I would not normally go, but I'm trying to make sure Kitters understands that when I leave for a few days, I always come back.  Not sure that's going to work, but I'm trying ....... because ......... I'll be going back to Maui next month.

It still does not distract me from my sweet boy being gone.  

LOANING THE KNIFE

 Well that was fun .... or maybe not so much.  There was a horrible crashing sound about midnight that woke me up.  WHAT WAS THAT?  I mean really, it sounded like someone crashed their car into my back fence.  I waited before grabbing my phone and peaking out the window.  Nothing ... there was NOTHING.

How could that be?  The neighbors heard it too because all their lights were on.  Then it happened again.  Good grief ... that's thunder like I've never heard it here!  We rarely ever get thunder and lightning.  Then my phone buzzed.  Yessiree ... it was a thunder storm of epic proportions, but about ten miles away.  It went on for the next two hours.  So if this blog doesn't make sense, you'll know why.  I was up for about 2 hours.

Yesterday however, it was a gorgeous morning when I went out for a run.  I didn't run however.  I just wasn't feeling it and I kept yawning trying to take a deep breath.  No worries, I'm fine.

Lookie here ... a quick walk into my back yard and my Cooper shrub.  It's blooming like crazy!!!  I love the fuzzy flowers ... they remind me of him.  Not that I need to be reminded, as you already know from all the pictures I post!  

By 11:00 I was off to accounting work.  I've mentioned this is AG country, and any road you take from my house, you will see growy things.  I pulled off the pavement to get this picture and almost got stuck in the sand.  I really do need to check on new tires for the Jeep.  I think this is squash of some kind.  There are also fields of lettuce and tomatoes.  The corn has already been green chopped for cattle feed.

Then of course there are fields and fields of almonds and pistachios.  These almonds are ready for harvest and my house will soon be covered in dust.  If you have ever purchased pistachios in those green bags, you bought some that were grown right here in my neighborhood.

So the accounting didn't go well at all.  There was a big fiasco with accessing the bank account online, just like at home.  I spent two hours trying to fix it before finally calling the bank and letting them know it was THEIR problem.  I expect they will get back to me at some point.

Back home, I found this on the doorstep.  What the heck?  It took awhile to figure out the mystery.  This is from the sweet lady that gives me all the amazing tomatoes.  This is a tomato knife.  Who knew?  I called her to get the scoop.  Sure enough, she said this thing works like a charm on tomatoes and cheese.  Probably on lots of other things too.  

There is an old wives tale that says if you give someone a knife, you cut the relationship off.  Back in the day, when her family and mine were both in the cattle business, everyone got a knife when they were a little kid of 7 or 8 years old.  You never knew when you might need to use one to cut a calf free from a rope, or cut a horse loose if they got hung up in something, or cut a willow to use as a fishing rod.  I still have the knife my dad gave me when I was 7 years old.  

However, the knives were never GIVEN to you.  They were LOANED to you in case they needed them back, so you would not CUT the relationship and end up enemies.  And so she stated this knife was LOANED to me to cut up the tomatoes.  When they are gone, she gets the knife back ... which may be in about 30 years.  

My afternoon was spent on the road.  I finally contacted the gal who does the embroidery on the quilts for the four Veterans this year.  She lives about 40 minutes away, so off I went to deliver the fabric.  It turned out that she was not home.  She is a caretaker for the elderly and had a client in distress.  The lady had received one of THOSE phone calls that her daughter was in the hospital.  You know the ones ... send me money for the doctor so she will live.  She of course panicked.  Thank goodness for the caretaker because she immediately called the daughter, but then had to wait for her arrival.  Stinken evil people!!

I had to leave the fabric in the back yard.  She called me later to say she had retrieved it and would be working on them this weekend.  YAY!!  

Kitters bugged me a LOT in the afternoon, so I played the feather game with her for a bit.  She has no problem whatsoever getting her point across.  Later, she meowed and would NOT leave me alone, running to her food dispenser.  You have PLENTY of food.  But that wasn't what she wanted.  She wanted a bit of that canned stuff hiding in the fridge, whereupon she left me alone for the rest of the night.  

That was it ... nothing really exciting except the loan of the knife.  I'll give it a try today and see how good it works.  Oh, and more tomatoes are on their way to my house!!

So here we are with Mr. Cooper.  This was in my Class A rig, possible on our way to Alaska.  I had to put the doggie gate up every time we went somewhere to keep them out from under my feet.  Back then there was no chaining them to the seat.  The second he heard the air brakes, he moved to this spot to see where we were, and to be sure I didn't leave him behind.  He and Jessie were the best travel puppies ever!!

THE MAGIC KINGDOM

 Oh for the cool of winter.  I know, by the time it arrives I will be complaining about the cold.  At least this morning it's down to 68 degrees with a high of 90.  Any respite is better than that 102 oppressive stuff.  My door is open and the fan on high!!  The sun painted a pretty sunrise picture.

It was Tuesday of course ... time for another rousing round of BINGO.  I wasn't exactly looking forward to this one.  I'm too old to be learning new computer programming.

Kitters was her usual troublemaker self.  I'm sure I have one lizard under my armoir in the bedroom because she is always looking under there, and I KNOW I have one under the dryer in the laundry room because I watched him scurry away faster than I could grab.  

Then she got a little OVER bold while I was petting her, which is demanded as soon as I sit on the couch.  She got sideswiped when she grabbed with both paws and bit me.  I don't know if that's play or just being mean, but she ended up on the floor.  It's okay, I just shoved her off and yelled NO.  She got the message.

I did absolutely nothing but phone games for the next couple of hours.  I figured I better rest up for the late night at bingo.  Lunch was quick and easy ... pulled pork salad. Yes it looks terrible.  There is lots of cabbage salad underneath, followed by tomatoes and cheese.  Pork on top with a sweet onion dressing.  It was delicious!!

Having been requested to attend a meeting at 2:00, I was at the lodge at 1:30.  I wandered around looking for anyone who might know about the Bingo Kitchen Menu machine so I could get a head start.  No one even knew what I was talking about.  Okay then ..... off I went to the upstairs meeting.

The problem quickly arose.  The meeting person was not to be found.  I stopped in at the office, only to be forewarned of two MORE problems.  Hey ... I am NOT the problem solver around here.  By the time I went back downstairs, I had two packages of paperwork to look over.

That lasted all of ten minutes before I went back UPstairs for the meeting.  That lasted all of five minutes.  I was definitely getting my steps in for the day.  Down once again, I found the gal who would teach me the register had come in early.  Perfect!  I won't have to have a substitute on the infernal machine for long.

It always works better if I actually hit the buttons and you just tell me which ones, but she would not relinquish the register.  I typed as fast as I could on my phone so I would have some idea when I tried it by myself in a day or so.  It's pretty easy, except for removing tax on one item, hitting those three dots and the today arrow, changing the time, custom reporting and printing twice on some, only once on others.  The good news is our cashier got another flight and will be here for the next six months.  YAY!  

Bingo went okay ... yes some dress alike and all wear their Bingo regalia.  There's everything from stilettos to slippers, probably ten wigs, many of which change every week from black to blond and back again.  Clothing runs from short shorts to long flowing dresses to stretchy pants.  Stretchy pants and short shorts don't go with stilettos, but they wear them.  We've talked about those before.  

With a slew of newbies coming in who have never played our kind of bingo before, there was lots of yelling for the first few games.  Sometimes they have patience, sometimes not!  We even have one sweet lady with Alzheimers who comes every week.  Her husband drops her off and picks her up.  She remembers everything about playing 15 years ago.  On this night she won not ONE but TWO jackpots.  No one complained one bit.  The good news is her husband gets a break every Tuesday night and on THIS night got $500 in his pocket.  

Everyone seemed to be in a better mood, including me.  I even talked to the guy who is supposed to run the show.  I've been more than extremely distant due to the handling of a problem, which finally got fixed ... for the most part anyway.  Sometimes you just have to stand your ground.

The night was almost over and the volunteers were getting antsy.  That's when I got the phone call.  Apparently there was a little fight upstairs at the bar.  Okay, not a little one but a BIG one.  I just laughed ... it was not about Bingo for once.  Beers were slammed down and words said.  I stayed stuck to my little bingo seat and did not get involved.  It's better to get out with your head intact.  

And so ended another lovely night at Bingo.  Some of the newbies won, meaning they will be back next week.  I am very much surprised at the husband/wife combinations coming in.  This used to be almost exclusively a woman's domain.  Even the homeless are getting in on the act.  Two came in late and plunked down $100 bills to play for the night.  You just never know who is going to show up.

Every night when I got home from Bingo, this is what I used to find.  Mr. Cooper with his ball, waiting for me to toss it back to him.  Still missing this sweet face so very much.

It's accounting day .. oh won't that be fun.  Then it's off to get the Veteran quilts embroidery done.  Such an exciting life I live!!  

OH SO SAD, JACKIE IS GONE.

 First and foremost, I have some bad news.  I'm sure you've seen the pictures of the baby eaglets from Big Bear Valley in Southern California.  

Jackie (2012) and Shadow (2014) were a mated pair of bald eagles who lived near Big Bear Lake.  For all these years, their raising of babies has been followed on live cameras.

Oh so sadly, the Mom Jackie has passed away.  She was found on the ground and taken to the Wildlife Rehab facility, that did everything they possibly could to save her.  It was apparently anemia, but they could not come up with anything definite causing it.  Her mate for life is still hanging at the nest with the last two babies, who are now all grown up.  What a horrible loss for the community.  They have produced babies for many years.  Fly high Miss Jackie ... you were a GREAT Mom!!!

I got up at the normal 4:30, only to run outside to ALMOST see some nice color in the sky.  It was a hot 70 degrees, meaning we were looking at another 102 degree day.  UGH!!

I opened the smoker and stuck the thermometer in the biggest hunk of pork. Wasn't I surprised to find it was already 10 degrees hotter than it should be.  Oooohhhhh that's not good!!!  I quickly took it out and shut the smoker down.  

From that point on, I was so distracted by cutting it up that I completely forgot to take pictures.  There was no towel spa treatment ... it was overcooked.  I just chopped it up and stuffed it in baggies.  Of course the pork loin piece was dry as a bone, so I threw in a little apple juice for good measure.  

With nothing else going on, I went outside at 8:30 to lie in the sun for a bit.  Here I am looking through my hat at the brightness that was bringing the heat.  I lasted all of 20 minutes before hanging it up and heading inside.  

Truthfully, I did nothing the rest of the day.  Oh there was the panic phone call that we did not have a cashier for the Bingo Kitchen tonight.  The one on the schedule got her plane reservation cancelled due to weather.  She won't be back for two days.  We called three other people who all said no.  See -- it's easy to say NO.  People just do not want to volunteer any more.  

We finally convinced one gal to come in, if only to teach me that particular cash register.  It's completely different from mine.  That way I can con someone into running the infernal machine and I can cashier for the kitchen in emergencies.  I'm not sure what we will do when NO ONE volunteers.  Close it down I suppose.  Don't tell anyone, but I secretly yelled YES in my head!!!

Lunch was a pulled pork taco with what I had.  It was really quite tasty, but needed some "juice" to moisten it up.  

I wasn't feeling up to par on this day, a rarity for me, so I parked myself on the couch.  Amazon loves it when that happens.  

I did finally go out and replace my old faded raggedy flag with a new one from Walmart.  We shall see how long THIS one lasts.  

I did spend a couple of hours cleaning the barbecue.  I don't know what happened last time, but I forgot to clean up the bottom three pans.  What a JOY that was!  I had to use a heavy paint scraper to get the big stuff off, then soak it for over an hour.  

I have to say this is the best smoker I've ever used.  It's a Bradley electric that uses wood bisquettes that advance automatically.  I actually have another Masterbuilt smoker that is more difficult due to it having a tray for wood chips.  You are constantly refilling the wood chips from the outside, though you can't see the container, making it difficult to know WHEN to add more.  

I got this one on Amazon MANY years ago for half price on Prime Day.  Shipping was free.  I think back then it cost me $200.00.  They appear to be a little cheaper now, but maybe they are smaller.  This one is still going strong and I think it must be over ten years old. 

In case anyone is interested ... this is Pig Powder.  There is no substitute, though many have tried.  It was developed by an award winning smoker of everything pork, named Jim Tabb.  His daughter has now taken it over.  It's not exactly cheap, but I guarantee you will like the flavor.  It's won all the barbecue shows you see on TV and worth every penny in my book.  Great on pulled pork and better on ribs.  Just go to pigpowder.com.  I buy two of the regular 12oz size every time I get down to one bottle.  NOT the spicy.  I am not a spicy girl!!!

That's it for today.  Time to put on my armor and SHINE at Bingo!!!