Cosumne Gal

I am NOT Martha Stewart by any means. I've lived in the country and on a farm long enough to understand that tidiness is not a top priority. But this week I'm really getting frustrated with having to live with everyone else's stinking messes.

First, some good news. Bob started work on Monday at a job he really, really wanted. He's working for a company that maintains refrigerated units in supermarkets. He leaves home at 6:00 and gets home at 5:00. Next week he'll be going to summer school classes after work, so he won't be getting home until quite late. This is an abrupt change from his days last week, when he stayed up until the wee hours of the night playing computer games, got up sometime before noon, and worked on his projects all day.

And therein lies my frustration.

The projects are now just sitting. And all the crap that has been displaced so the projects can be accomplished is just sitting. All over the place.

The carport, which was cleaned out for maybe a week, is now full of the stuff that was removed from the garage.


The lumber and the shelves that were torn from the garage are just sitting out in the weather.



On the positive side, the nails were pulled from all the boards before they were thrown in a pile, and Bob did put a couple of caution cones near the shelves so someone on a tractor won't run over them.

Why was the garage gutted? Because it needed to be rewired. That was accomplished at considerable cost, and the plan now is to put plywood on the walls and paint it, put the shelves back, and store the things that are stacked in the carport on them. But who knows when that'll happen?

Another project is the back porch, where the washer and dryer are kept. Bob gutted it, also, and has drywall put up on maybe half of it. He had to stop working on it for a month because of project #3, which was to replace the electric box on the side of the house. The inside wall behind the box is the back porch.

This is the new box.


See that yellow envelope? We waited a month for the electric company to show up and say it was okay to put this new box where the old one had been for 50 years. In the meantime, the electrician had dug a trench for a ground wire and it had to stay open until it was inspected. But hey, no problem, just string a caution tape and let the decrepit old lady of the house stumble around it...and also around the pile of drywall scraps heaped on the sidewalk. Oh, and add a hose and an extension cord, too.


To add to the fun, the trench cuts across the drain to the washing machine. If I run a load of wash, the trench fills with water. So there is now a mountain of laundry to be done. If the trench is ever filled.


And just a snarky note: (mostly so I can use the word again) why can't guys pick up their messes? Is there a reason why these concrete sacks have to be left like this? Are they, perhaps, biodegradable? Is there a reason why the push broom is left in the way? If this was the only mess around here, it would be minor and you could just say "Jan is sure a picky bitch."

You may feel like saying that, anyway. But there is more.

Leaves get raked and left in piles.


Trees are trimmed and the trimmings are left in piles. Actually this stack of branches is under a tree that still needs to be trimmed itself. But that won't happen because the stack is in the way.


Junk that John dragged in here years ago is still sitting around in piles.


You can never tell when a piece of crappy wood might come in handy.

You can never tell when an old mattress might come in handy.


Especially when it's been tossed right next to the hay stack and left there for a year. Perhaps it was meant to be a mouse motel?

The summer solstice has passed, the days are getting shorter. Winter will be here any day now. Gaaaaaah!!! I don't have a clue how these projects will get finished. I don't know when I'll ever be able to do laundry again. I suppose if all the stuff that's lying around is still there when it rains it will officially become junk and then it can be hauled to the dump. That would be encouraging except this dump-bound pile has been sitting for over a year.


It's still here because my old truck still has not been fixed. It may have actually transitioned to the dump-bound pile itself.

Being old and wise doesn't help me deal with frustration. It's actually harder for me now because I've already used most of my lifetime allotment of patience. Bob said if I get much worse, he'll grab a piece of this tape and tie it around my neck.

Every year it happens. The summer solstice occurs and the daylight hours immediately start getting shorter. Sigh. It doesn't matter to me that we still have a long, hot summer ahead. I miss every single one of those minutes of sunshine.

This morning it is cloudy and chilly. Gollie is trying to stay curled on my lap and absorb a few degrees of body heat. Ouch. She needs her nails trimmed. Correction, SHE doesn't need or want that, I do. I'm hoping those clouds make it over the Sierras to Colorado, where Linda and Terry need some rain.

Can anyone be happy today except the people south of the equator? We're losing our sun to Australia and New Zealand again. If the world ends in December, as rumored, we may never get it back.

I'm making a pot of Godiva white chocolate coconut coffee this morning and getting ready to go patrol the yard for dead gophers. With hawks in the front yard and owls in the back yard, I didn't want to put out poison, but the gophers were getting out of control. They were scampering across the lawn in the middle of the day. I've got 4 so far. I really miss our cat George.

We've had many cats here over the years. Here are two from the early 1960s.


The calico in the foreground was Mabel, she was a little squirt, like Gollie. I can't remember the name of the kitty on the porch. Brother Jerry, do you remember? At the very bottom of this picture is the top of my dog Silky's head.


Silky was a great dog for a girl who really, really wanted a horse. He was named after Silky Sullivan, the race horse. Silky's brother Rebel was Jerry's dog. Silky was very smart. Rebel was very stubborn.

Coffee's ready. Gotta go.

I can't comment on the California Poultry People Facebook group anymore. I think the group has a lot of members who are new backyard chicken owners, the kind who think chickens are meant to run free. Many of their posts are like this: "I came home from work today and found my favorite hen half eaten, what could have killed her?" The chicken was not in a pen, it was "free ranging." So my comment was be, "Free Range = Free Meal."

They don't need me - or anyone who has raised chickens for any length of time - in that group anyway. Reality is rough when you're learning to raise poultry, they'll find out for themselves.

Here at home, my chickens are doing quite well. Bob's ancient white Old English bantam hen has laid 15 eggs. Several have hatched.


I've got quite a few really nice Dominique bantams, so I'll have some to show this year and some to share. The only problem is I'll need a big grow out pen for a while, until they're big enough to tell which to keep. I don't want to suggest starting yet another construction project around here. The garage and the back porch projects are still stalled waiting for the utility company inspection. Bob's evening summer classes will be starting soon and he has a new job to report to on Monday...yay!!! It's a job he really wanted, as an apprentice in the refrigeration field. But he'll be busy 12 hours a day. I may have to build this myself. I can do it if I can find the tools, nothing is where it's supposed to be because the garage is torn up.

If you read Katherine's blog, you'll know she found the cutest baby cottontail a while back. I've been taking care of it and yesterday morning I finally released it. That was NOT an easy thing to do. I'm missing this little face:


I would have happily released it into my yard except for the hawk and the highway. The young hawk was on my front lawn this week, early in the morning. As I sat at my computer I saw it take off with something small and furry in it's talon. Hopefully a mole or a gopher. I found a good place for the bunny down near the creek in a safflower field, where there's lots of cover.

The young redtail is turning out to be just the terror my chubby pigeons have needed to learn some evasive maneuvers. It's enthusiastic, but not very good at hunting yet. I have let the pigeons out for an hour in the afternoon, and they're learning to be watchful. When the hawk flies by they hit the brush, then sneak back to the pigeon pen. They were all tucked safely away when it landed on the pigeons' lookout power pole this afternoon and stayed there for 15 minutes while I took lots of pictures.


I should have walked around to the other side of the pole for better light. I don't think the bird would have moved, it has no fear, doesn't even blink when we walk out the back door or out into the yard. As long as its parents aren't around (I haven't seen or heard them) the pigeons are relatively safe.

As soon as the hawk left. the Boss Pigeon came out onto the "porch" and strutted around as if he'd chased it away himself.


Let's see, what else has happened around here? The lilies are still blooming.


And I repotted one of the Texas Mountain Laurels I started from seed. I put it in a peat pot so I can set it out next spring.


The two I put outside last year are still there, but they're not growing as fast as this one is. The ones I saw growing in Texas were in full sun, so that's where I planted the others outside. Maybe they're just working on putting down a good root system before they put a lot of energy into growing leaves.

Several years ago, when Bob was maybe 9 years old, our friends Chris and Louise announced their plan to take off and live on their boat. They had a party to celebrate, and they took us sailing in San Francisco Bay.

As we sat down to dinner, Louise asked each of us to tell our life's dream. It was an interesting moment. I discovered I had no dream. I forget what I made up so I'd have something to say, but that's when I decided that being where I am is just fine for me. I am biologically connected to my piece of real estate. I can take a road trip once in a while, or do something small and unpredictable occasionally, and that satisfies my need for adventure. I was probably a homing pigeon in a previous life.

We went on with our separate lives and I lost track of Chris and Louise. Whenever I thought of being on a fairly small boat for the rest of my life with one other person, though, it made me shudder. Being in a whole house with two other people and their accumulated junk was hard enough. I thought that "reality" had probably intervened and my friends were happy just sailing up and down the Sacramento River occasionally.

A couple of days ago Louise called. It was so good to hear her sweet voice. There is going to be another party, she announced. A farewell party. The boat, she said, is finally seaworthy after several years of refitting and some annoying delays, and they'll be leaving this fall. They're just going to sail under the Golden Gate Bridge and turn left. They've never given up on their dream.

Does that make you wistful, or give you the heebie jeebies?

Review: a couple of weeks ago we here in Sloughhouse trudged over to our local CPAC meeting (which is a planning advisory committee) to protest the proposed building of a 500 foot radio tower next to our farm land. The problem is it would block the route crop dusters have to take.

Today we had another meeting. What it comes down to is this: Capital Public Radio has a $300,000 grant to improve its transmission. To get this money, they have to have a tower built by November of this year. They claim to have started this project 5 years ago and they claim to have spent a lot of money just getting this far. The tower would actually be built by an investment company and CPR would only be one of many users.

So there was a meeting today at the CPR offices. People from the county planning department and the department of environmental review were there to gather information. Ten of us from Sloughhouse attended, accompanied - I'm proud to say - by a member of the CPAC, our county Farm Bureau rep, and two reps from the county ag commission who are familiar with our area.

If any of the planning department dudes and dudettes had bothered to get in their car and come out here at 5:30 a.m. when a plane is spraying, all of their questions would have been answered in an instant. But no. We spent a lot of time looking at a map and putting little markers on it to show where obstacles to spraying already exist. In my opinion, the farmers were put on the spot to identify and justify their farming practices, something that is totally none of CPR's business.

Aside from the tower issue, we've had an ongoing series of challenges from our county government, which has absolutely no respect for farmers or farm land. So this was a good opportunity to communicate with the county people about that. One of the major points the farmers tried to make is that the Sloughhouse valley is a unique place, with soil and farming conditions that are very rare. It's exactly the kind of farm land CEQA is supposed to protect.

Was anything accomplished today? I don't know. The city people who are responsible for writing EIRs for these annoying projects are simply clueless. They may well acknowledge the value of the land, but not understand how a project they think should get a negative declaration because it's "harmless" can actually make using the land very difficult. A lot of them really, truly, don't know where their food comes from. Others think that just because they can raise tomatoes on their patio without spray (by picking the worms off), farmers should be doing the same.

One of the dumbest things I heard today: "This tower is designed so it won't be obtrusive to the view, the tower and the guide wires are practically invisible." And in the next sentence that person claimed this feature shouldn't be a problem for a crop dusting pilot.

The CPR people were trying to say that the farmers should "modernize" and do away with spraying by planes, giving no suggestions what would replace that. They couldn't see, however, that their tower would be perpetuating a near-obsolete technology. It's all about getting that $300,000, isn't it?

This would make a good investigative story for National Public Radio.

I bought a bacon and egg burrito for breakfast this morning, I was in town for water aerobics. Then I parked in the shade in the small shopping mall and ate it. I don't eat carbs, so I was busy picking the flour tortilla away when I noticed a nice big crow eating something in the grass. It was being dive bombed by blackbirds. At first I thought it might be munching on a baby blackbird, but it wasn't. It was sucking the insides out of an egg.

The egg was too big to belong to the blackbirds. It was a pigeon egg*. A very fresh one; so I just considered it birth control, not murder. The crow finished the egg, ate the shell, then perched on an exit sign for a nearby fast food place. The sign said, "Thank You!" I couldn't get my iPhone out fast enough to get a picture.

There were lots of blackbirds out with their squawking fledglings and the crow was one of a pair of parents that had 3 juveniles. This shopping mall has several grassy areas with nice trees. There must be automatic sprinklers because there were several nice puddles for the birds. The parents were trying to teach their young to forage for food. It wasn't working very well.

The blackbird babies could fly. But they only had eyes for their parents. I tore up the burrito and put it on the lawn. The parents came over and pecked at it, the babies standing behind them, shaking their wings and screeching loudly. Mama bird picked up a piece of burrito and dropped it. She did this several times. None of the babies would come forward and take it. She finally shrugged her wings (really, I could see it) and poked the piece in one baby's big mouth.

If that had been a human child we would all have chided the mother for giving in. We'd say, "How do you expect that lazy kid to learn anything if you're always placating him?" Some parents do anything for some peace and quiet, don't they? Maybe that's not wrong, if the birds do it, it must be the natural thing to do. I never had to make that decision, Bob was an easy kid, he never screeched. (He would say, "You wouldn't screech either, if she was YOUR mother.")

The young crows weren't learning their lessons any better than the blackbird babies were. They were  hopping about aimlessly, looking at the sky for mom or pop to show up with the chow. An adult crow would have noticed immediately that the blackbirds were flocking on the ground nearby, and would have surmised that food was involved. If there had been a seagull within 5 miles, it would have been there in an instant; they have a psychic bond with all food in the universe. (We don't have seagulls here in the summer, they come in the fall when the salmon are running and they stay through the winter.)

Except for the dorky redtail that got slapped around by its mama this week, I haven't seen our country birds behaving like the suburban birds were. The hummers just show up as a family and sit around on the feeder, sucking up syrup. The jays can be annoying for their parents, but there are so many mulberries on the ground even the laziest jay baby can easily feed itself (and then go spread that purple poop everywhere). I have heard the robins, but haven't seen any fledglings. Maybe I just haven't been paying attention. I need to do that.

*How did I know it was a pigeon egg? Because I see a lot of them, and because I've seen pigeons on top of the fast food place.

I've been pretty uptight this week. There are 3 separate projects going on at the house. The back porch is torn up. That's where the washer and dryer are located, so I can't wash clothes. I may have to go to a laundromat this week if I want clean underwear. The garage has been totally emptied and all the stuff that was in it is in the carport. Some of that stuff is tools. Tools that can't be found for the back porch project.

An electrician is trying to fix our inadequate power supply by replacing the present fuse box with a bigger one, but he hasn't been able to get SMUD (our utility company) to come out and sign off on the project. We're low on SMUD's list of priorities out here and I don't have Uncle Orin anymore. He used to work there and he could get things done.

The back porch can't be put back together until the wiring problem is solved. You can't finish a job around here without getting into at least 5 unplanned messes. I've made several trips to the hardware store for one item at a time, as the need arises. I hear a lot of groaning and cursing from Bob, who is doing the work out there.

Yesterday the wind blew lots of dust into the house. The cleaning lady usually comes on Monday, but the house is so full of the junk from the back porch there's no way she can deal with it. Rather than sit here in the house today, fuming until the top of my head exploded, I decided to take a relaxing ride around the fields.


This is what the best farming soil on the planet looks like. It's bordered by the Deer Creek riparian area in the background. If you can't grow crops in this soil, you aren't much of a farmer.

Here's another view. This piece has been planted (with sweet corn, maybe) and irrigated to sprout the seed.


The mud in the foreground was at the bottom of the irrigation ditch. I can testify from personal experience that our soil makes terrific mudpies. Haven't made one lately, though. It also penetrates your clothes and will not wash out. Bath towels in shades of brown are a good investment. The topsoil in this little valley, I've been told, is 80 feet deep.


The Christmas trees are pretty wild-looking this time of year as they get their new growth. It's a great place for songbird nests and games of hide-and-go-seek.

There is one row in the middle of the trees that looks Christmas-y with its green leaves and red flowers. Do you know kind of tree this is?


A pomegranate. I think the guys planted a row of fruit trees just because someone came along who gave them some baby trees a few years ago. I don't think they sell many pomegranates at the corn stand, but they are pretty.

Here's a tree that makes a strange choice for Christmas.


I'm not sure what it is, they didn't plant very many and most of them are still out in the field. People all have a favorite kind of tree and aren't very accepting of something out of the ordinary. I still think they should trim some of these trees in square shapes instead of cone shapes, but the guys claim they wouldn't sell.

This is the lawn farmer's clipping pile. I don't have a clue what he intends to do with it. I'd vote for spreading it and plowing it back into the ground. Preferably before the creek comes up and it all makes a mess in the Christmas trees.


This is my house from the back 80.


It's pretty much surrounded by trees and you can't see it very well from this side. But there's seldom anyone out here, so it doesn't much matter. There should be pigeons sunning themselves on the roof today, but the hawk is living in the tree right by the power pole.

Time to go back to the house and try to ignore the present state of affairs, bite my tongue and be cool.

The young redtail is still hanging around in the oak tree in the front yard.


It's not like it hides, it couldn't be discreet, anyway, because all the other birds squawk and dive bomb it. This is a juvenile redtail. As dorky as it is, I don't think it's the one that's been snatching my pigeons, but I wasn't going to let them out so it could practice.

It stayed in the tree for a while, then landed on top of the horse shed.


It stayed right there when I walked outside with my camera and took a long time trying to focus on it. Obviously I failed, even though the bird posed quite nicely. When it left the roof, it landed in the horse pasture.


It poked around the in the weeds for a while, like it expected there was supposed to be a gopher there, just waiting to be eaten. Maybe there was, but the hawk never it. Then it flew up onto a fence post to get a better view, I guess.





It doesn't really have an evil red eye, that's your imagination. The bird did not care that I was only 12 feet away. It sat on the post for a long time. Even so, I never got a decent picture of it because of the backlight.

Finally John came walking into the scene, totally oblivious to the hawk. He got pretty close before it flew away (and he still didn't see it, nor did he see me with my camera).


The hawk landed a little further out in the pasture and went back to poking around in the weeds.


I was looking through the viewfinder on the camera, trying to get a lovely close-up. Neither the hawk nor I noticed the silent threat from above.


Suddenly a parent hawk came barreling in and knocked the young one over. You could almost hear it say, "...and THAT'S how it's done, you moron!" before it took off and left junior wondering what hit him.

It could be fun having a hawk family around here, if the pigeons weren't going stir crazy.

This picture of my fat little 6 year old face pretty much summarizes how I feel today. Yes, I seem like a totally obedient child, but push me the wrong way and you WILL suffer.

I didn't realize I was always that way. I'd been thinking it was just a recent condition. In reality I've just perfected the technique. Now I understand Mona Lisa.

My friend Katherine has moved from Wilton, which is 10 minutes from my house. Now she's about 2-1/2 hours away, further north in California. I'm not much help at moving, but I volunteered. I drove the peafowl. It was a warmish day, but the 3 of them were quite comfortable in their carriers in my RAV4. We listened to ABBA, of course. They liked it.

I got to the ranch first and managed to get this picture of Katherine driving in. Following her was her friend Wendy with a huge truck and trailer full of her belongings.


When I left, I took a slightly different route home so I could stop by my brother's house in Forest Ranch, near Chico. Jerry has been very busy with a landscaping project. He hauled in 20 pickup loads of dirt and built up his lawn area.


So now he has twice as much to mow. He cut into the side of the hill and made a stone fence, and used stones to hold the dirt he'd moved in for the lawn area. He also dug trenches and put in underground sprinklers and drip systems all around the house.


The place is absolutely gorgeous.

I stayed overnight, then left for home the next morning. One place on the road that was especially pretty right now is just north of Yuba City. The huge oleanders that line both sides of the highway are in full bloom. The road looks like a tunnel of flowers.


Oleanders used to be the primary landscape plant along California freeways, but most have been torn out over the years and replaced with a concrete barrier.

Nearer to Sacramento I saw 6 different crop dusters out spraying the rice fields. I wonder why they were working on Sunday?



The crop duster at home flies over my house at 5:30 a.m. These guys were flying at noon. Maybe ours works early to avoid work-bound traffic. Some of the drivers from Rancho Murieta are totally stupid about crop dusters, they call and complain as if they'd spotted a foreign enemy invading the homeland. If you live and farm in a rural area and someone gets the bright idea to put a housing development nearby, fight it with everything you have. There is absolutely no benefit to a farming community to have dorks driving through it.

So that's where I've been this week. I have also been to water aerobics and pilates. I built a temporary pen for my young birds. I have tried to stay away while Bob attempts to put up drywall on the back porch. If he doesn't try, he'll never learn (she says, gritting her teeth).

Everything that was left in the garage has been taken out and stacked in the carport so the garage could be rewired. Everything from the back porch has been stacked in the kitchen and dining room. And now the jobs are dragging along. Bob's drywall helper isn't available every day. The electrician is waiting for the electric company to come and inspect the job before anything can be put back into the garage. I'm already really tired of having stuff laying around everywhere. I can't find anything.

Oh well, at least the jobs have been started after years of being put off. I'll be happy when they're finished. I'll just keep repeating that to myself.

How old was your boy when he stopped playing with Legos? Mine hasn't reached that age yet. I don't think he ever will.

No, it didn't die. This was it's last warm bath before I turned it loose in the flower garden. I made a little house for it out of the pieces of bark it had been hiding under in the aquarium. It was there the next morning, and then it moved on. Hopefully it's doing well.

A couple of days after Sue's impromptu performance at the concert, she found a critique of it online. Near the end of the article she was shocked to see this:


The critic's email address was given, so Sue contacted her.

"Whitney, thanks so much for acknowledging my first ever on-stage appearance!! That was the craziest thing I have ever done in my life. It was pure adrenaline! I decided to move closer to the stage to see BJM up close. My boyfriend decided to stay where we had been lucky enough to find a table. Once I joined the rest of the front row folks, I got the proverbial "wild hair."


"...I found myself dancing across the stage at a rock-n-roll concert! It was a joyous experience! It was so fun to look at the audience, and the high-fives I received walking through the crowd afterward were fantastic!! Okay, so never underestimate a middle-aged woman with eyeglasses.


"...Finally, do you happen to have any pictures? I'd love to have one."

Whitney's reply:

"You're my hero! I will look to see if I have any pics, but my camera wasn't good and I couldn't get up close. I'm 34 and understand that feeling very well. I was in the pit at Sleigh Bells with my little brother and had to bail. I thought I was going to get crushed and die. You are quite brave. Don't ever stop going to shows and acting wild and showing these kids how it's done. We need you."

Indeed, we do. There isn't enough fun in the world.

I promised to tell you my friend's tale "tomorrow." That got stretched a bit, but here I am, finally, to finish the story.

This is about my friend Sue and her guy friend Bill. They're 50ish. Sue is a well-dressed, stylish, professional woman. Bill is a philosopher and a gardener. They both like music. Recently they went to the concert of a popular rock-type band.

The concert was held in a large auditorium. There were small tables and chairs along the wall for people who preferred to sit. Most of the audience was standing, however. Sue and Bill arrived a little late and found a table close to the back of the room.

The audience was a mix of the band's older and younger fans, and everyone was enjoying the concert. After the half-time break, Sue said she'd like to get closer to the stage to get a good look at the band. Bill preferred to stay at the table, so she worked her way through the throng by herself. She managed to get to the edge of the stage, which was about nose-height for her.

Sue was having a great time when a young lady on her left noticed her maturity and her interest in the band members and asked, "Are you the mom of one of the band members?"

Sue was appalled. She said nothing to the girl, but something inside her had snapped. She turned to a burly young man on her right and asked, "When they start playing the next song, will you boost me onto the stage?" The young man and a couple of his buddies thought that sounded like a fun idea, so they did just that.

In a flash, and despite the look of shock on the guitarist's face when he saw her coming up, Sue was on the stage. She shimmied, she bopped, she danced around and across the stage. The crowd cheered her on. She looked out across them, absorbed their energy, and danced like there was no tomorrow. Finally the security guys got to her and led her respectfully off the stage. She didn't care. She was jazzed. She was thankful she hadn't tripped on a power cord and fallen off the stage. It was a crazy moment of glory she'd never forget.

Bill sat at the table and watched all this. He saw Sue being escorted off the stage and then disappear. He thought she'd been tossed out, so he picked up the purse on the table and turned to leave. It wasn't Sue's purse. She was wearing her shoulder purse up on the stage, but he hadn't noticed. The purse's real owner saw Bill pick it up and start to walk off, and she screamed. Security guys got to him, picked him up, and pushed him against the wall.

It took a long time for Bill to explain what had actually happened, and for the security men to finally let him go. He kept hoping Sue would appear to back up his story. But Sue had gone directly from the stage to the restroom, where she was sitting in a stall, texting to her friends about the adventure.

The moral(s) of the story? Ladies, you're never too old to rock it. Guys, pay attention to the details.