Zero post since 2012.. Wow..

World just keeps turning, and time is flying on by...

After a quick stop at the Thompson's I hit the open road! I knew I had a twelve hour ride ahead of me so I just settled in for mindless driving task!

Update on Yesterday's Post

The fourth of July was hot again in Sac town, Isabelle and Karl and kids were up for a visit, and the plan for the day was to got to the lake, and have a BBQ at Bob and Karen's afterwards with fireworks. Well Justin came down with a sickness and couldn't go to the lake, bummer, but Logan decided to come along so up the highway we went. 
The lake was awesome, but there was a cool breeze that chilled you as soon as you stepped out of the water.  At one point I look up and see a Bald Eagle flying around, I pointed it out to everybody, but didn't get a picture of it.  I swam for over an hour and thoroughly enjoyed it.  
We all stopped in Truckee on the way home and bought some Marble Corn, the yummiest treat ever.  We got back to Bob and Karen's and Karen was already working on a wonderful dinner of BBQ chicken.  She had chips and that seven layer dip that everybody loves.  I picked up a cherry pie a Machado's in Auburn to add to the holiday dinner.  
Justin was feeling better, and dinner was on.  I had indulged a bit and wasn't feeling well so I left for home before the fireworks began.  
When I got home there was craziness in my neighborhood, my insane next door neighbors had 25-30 drunk adults out on their lawn. They were shooting off every kind of illegal firework known to man.  It was insane, I can't believe that my house didn't catch on fire.  I did grab the hose and spray down the roof. I have never seen fireworks that did what those fireworks were doing, and it reminded me of Harry Potter and how the fireworks would do interesting little turns and such.  Did I mention that they were holding up these fireworks and shooting them off with their bare hands.  Oh, and the police didn't bother to answer the phone.  So, Sacramento was experiencing the sounds and craziness of a war zone, a war zone of illegal fireworks shot off by idiots.
I guess I am getting old, but worrying about my house catching fire was my chief concern.


Yes, Pearl had a baby girl donkey born on this day, a cute little white and gray colored donkey. That makes three little girl donkey so far this summer, and hopefully two more on the way.

July 4 with Family

 okay,  Logan was slow to jump in, but eventually he jumped in this

raft and has himself some fun.


I took a picture of myself before I finally jumped in the lake..

I took this picture below of Mom and her two kids on a walk, love the contrast with the trees.

 A family that boats together, gets a great workout!!!!!

I forgot to mention the Bald Eagle, the dinner at Bob and Karen's house, the Flu bug, my crazy neighbors and their illegal/Harry Potter type of fireworks, and of course, the Baby donkey born on this day to Pearl. Guess I better come back tomorrow and start writing.

Greedy Girl

I have a funny story from yesterday at the ranch. I had an egg carton filled with 17 eggs, and I only needed one more egg to complete the carton.  I set this carton on the stove and went out to see if the chicken laid any more eggs. I was so excited to see 2 more eggs.  I headed back into the little rental house and found a huge mess to clean up. I must have used 1/4 a roll of paper towels to clean up this huge mess.  I don't know how those eggs fell off the stove. Isabelle said I should have cleaned up the mess with a dustpan, which would have been smart.

Random Musings

I remember being off track in the past and I was lucky to pick up the phone and call one of my sisters and they would always answer their phones, but now they have jobs, and are always working it seems.  This stinkin' working from home keeps my peeps busy. So now can't really call them, and I have to keep myself busy, but I don't want to do the work that I need to do. I feel guilty when I go off and have a day of fun, because I didn't work on the things that I need to complete.  I guess that problem is as old as time! I am off work and I want to have fun, and not do work that I never want to do.

I did manage to go to Yosemite for the first time ever last week.  Yellowstone is better, I can say without a doubt in every sense of the way of a national park.

I had a birthday last week and I decided to get myself a little something special.  I pooled all my birthday money and I bought a lovely turqouise, actually the color is adriatic, Kate Spade purse. This is my second major indulgence in the fancy purse area, and I don't know what has taken over my common sense. Last summer I bought a red purse designed by Michael Kors.  My desire is to have several purses to rotate through the typical year.  I have my brown western purse, my red purse, and now my summer fun new purse, perhaps I will add one more to my collection before I am done.

RAIN

This is the view out of my bedroom window, yes, finally rain here. We haven't had rain since November I think. Maybe the weather forecasters will stop griping about a possible drought!
It's finally raining here, yippy!

Update

82 golf balls, and three broken tee's!

Golf Ball Round Up

I was up at the ranch today, and after feeding the cows, I noticed some golf balls in the pasture. At first I thought it was just a few, but after filling my pockets with 38 golf balls, I headed for the little rental house and a bucket to put those darn balls into. I grabbed a grabber tool and the quad and headed out to pick up the rest of the balls. I had to scale speed bump hill to rangle more of those darn balls. I ended up with a grand total of 77.

Rooster Round Up

Oh my goodness, last Spring I was given a chance to bring agriculture in my classroom, so I took it! My friend, Daphne, brought me a chicken incubator and 24 fertilized eggs. No big deal, they sat in my classroom doing their thing, while I did my thing; and then one day they started hatching. They were so cute, but yet so stinky. I keep them around in my classroom while they grew and grew and finally they were out-growing their space. I took them to Roseville where they got their own special living quarters custom made. Well, as they grew they got noisy and mean. They seamed crowded, so I started taking some of them, two and three at a time, up to the ranch. I targeted the roosters to go up to Auburn, leaving behind the girl chickens-egg layers. It wasn't too long before I had at least 16 Roosters up in Auburn. After all this crazy-iness has gone on for months finally enough was enough, time for the rooster madness to stop. The darn roosters crowed all the time from sun up to sun down, middle of the night and even the middle of the day. A few Roosters got out of their cages and eventually lost their lives, one beautiful Rooster was able to live outside his cage, he is still free to roam about. But the other Roosters that were moved into the big cage (dog kennel) wouldn't leave each other alone. So I called Daphne and asked her if the guy that she got the eggs from wanted the Roosters back. He did! Yes, so yesterday I got a bunch of cardboard boxes and rounded up all the caged roosters, and the turkin! The turkin is a cross between a turkey and a chicken. It took some doing but all the rowdy roosters were loaded up. The turkin broke the fishing net. I drove the boxes of Roosters all the way from Auburn to Elk Grove, about an hours drive, to their new home. We un-boxed them and the guy clipped their wings. They were released in a huge outside pen. I say good riddens noisy roosters!

The Last Couple of Months have gone by fast..

The new school year has started and I wanted to put up some random pictures from the last couple of months. This first picture is me sitting at my desk at work. I think my shirt is rather loud, but I bought it because it is lightweight cotton and perfect for summer in Sacramento.
I really need to explain this red purse, most people who know me know that I don't go for anything made by designers, for reasons I will not state here on this blog, but this purse by Michael Kors, is awesome, great size, great color, and just about the same size of the purse that I have carried for the last 6 years.
Okay, these pens by Staedtler are the very best pens out there, I can't recommend them highly enough, but don't let the kids use them, they press down too hard with them.
This sign was posted at Cal State University in the Science hall, it made me laugh out loud. Can't imagine what the college teachers are putting up with these days..
Yippee, the hay is delivered, stacked, covered, and ready to feed to the cattle over the next sixth months. Yippee!
Yes, the PEARS are on, and today after I finish up at the car dealership, I will be a picking some naturally raised, farm fresh, locally grown and organic pears...
A quick summer camping trip up to Truckee before the school year starts.
Me and my little punk dog Sadie off on a road trip.

April Showers bring May flowers so they say....

Well another May has come and is almost gone, so I have some random pictures to share from my May...

January Gloomy Skies

January always brings a gloomy dark fog that seems to stay around along with the rain. I am being tag-teamed by rain and fog. I actually drove up to Applegate to find sunshine last Saturday. I spent about 20 minutes in the full sunlight just soaking as much as a could into my soul. It doesn't help that I have been battling a cold that is hanging on. I finally pulled out the Mucinex last night and I am bound and determined to fight this long standing cold.

Merry Christmas!

GEORGE & MARTHA'S WEDDING

This past weekend was a special event for our family. George got married to a wonderful woman named Martha. They got married at the Springville Art Museum. It was a very nice ceremony, almost like a church service. Bob spoke a few words about George and the example that George had set for Bob throughout the year's it was nice to hear. It was also so nice to see George's daughters all together.

Crazy School Jog-A-Thon Today

Oh, the craziness of today's Jog-A-Thon was too much.. The students had a blast all decked out in Martell Colony matching t-shirts. I don't know how much money we made but the students clearly had a good time.

Stephanie's Fight

Too young to have died of skin cancer, is the only thing that comes to mind when I think of how fast this whole thing came down this last week or so.

This is one of a few pictures that I took at the Kaiser hospice room that Stephanie was in on Saturday night September 4. This was taken a few short hours before she died. She had asked for some "Smart Water" and there is a cute little story about that. At this point all Stephanie wanted was her mommy!

August becomes September

Always the first major sign of fall, is the delivery of the semi-truck full of Joe Lastufka's alfalfa from Colusa. Pete Demas delivered the load and squeezed it off the truck and drove it down the driveway up onto the landing. Nicolas and Logan came up the very next weekend and covered the load with tarps. Those agile young men had it covered in no time at all. Also a thank you to my brother-in-law Karl for helping out with this project. Isabelle, Karl, Sean and baby Kaden also were in town. Here is a picture of Sean and Justin-Bobby. Isabelle is fending off my Sadikins as my Sadikins is trying to lick little Kadens fingers.

For Isabelle's Birthday we all went to Leatherby's Ice Cream parlor and had yummy ice cream. Here is a picture of Karl's Black and Tan which looked AWESOME!