(Almost) Every year I do a Christmas Newsletter which I send via snail mail. This year I actually did one—and actually got it in the mail before the end of the year! (I mailed them today.)k
It looks a little hokey here since I simply did “copy and paste” for each section of the letter which was composed in Printmaster Platinum 12.
Mary is 12 Will (#34) is 11, Stanley (9) is 13
Last night we had a couple of earthquakes, not huge ones, but still they made our fifth wheel rock and roll!
Today we've had some nice rain that we Californians, with our drought, especially appreciate. And that culminated in a beautiful full rainbow. I couldn't get the entire arch in my photo-darn!
And naturally I didn't get a photo of the earthshakers!
Mother Nature keeps us on our toes!
What a beautiful sunrise this morning at Laguna Seca here in Monterey, California! Since I am definitely NOT a morning person I was not up to photo (or even see it) but Gary was and captured it on his IPhone camera. The race track is in the lower third of the photo and turn 7 (referred to as the backside of the course) is the top of the dark hill. Turn 7 is the corner that precedes the famous corkscrew which twists steeply down the course.
This is the view at the time I was up and about this morning!
Wishing you a wonderful Sunday in your neck of the woods!
My two close friends Nook HD and the TV on the wall VERY early this morning after a "blood draw" and morning "meds."
I continue to heal and hear lots of terms like quads and hamstring and old and new scar tissue. Yesterday I'm quite sure my PTs tried to kill me but also I continue to make great healing progress!
Yes, they wake you early in the hospital! It's still dark outside!! All for the good of recovery of this knee replacement.
Happy first day of Fall! I took this photo this morning from my bed at the Rehabilitation center where I am recovering from knee replacement surgery last Friday.
The morning sun filtering through the blinds was so pretty on the pumpkin that Vivian had brought by for me.
(I think it would look very pretty as a pumpkin pie too!)
There’s something about sunflowers that bring a smile.
I’ve been recovering from knee surgery for a month or so…just got rid of that pesky walker so a cane is my best friend right now. I was cheered up when my friend Doff came by the other day and brought me these sunflowers
(her real purpose was to go over the all-important football pool with GET )
The crystal pitcher is a retirement gift from PacBell when I took early retirement several years ago. I like to collect clear crystal and glass. The little blue pot is vintage Bauer.
I have a couple of reasons for loving sunflowers:
Hope your day is as full of cheer as a sunflower!
“The blacksmith dropped his hammer, the carpenter his plane, the mason his trowel, the farmer his sickle, the baker his loaf, and the tapster his bottle. All were off for the mines, some on horses, some on carts, and some on crutches, and one went in a litter.” (On the reaction in California to the discovery of gold at Coloma, January 1848)
Our younger son Gary has been a gold panning enthusiast for awhile so when the opportunity presented itself to actually run a gold panning operation California Gold Panning he and his Vivian jumped at it. He said sayonara to his job in Monterey and they moved lock, stock and barrel up to gold country. . .and they are having a ball.
GET and I stopped for a couple of days in Jackson on the way back from Lake Tahoe and were soon learning new terms like sluicing and classifiers.
Getting “booted up” is the first order of business. Even with boots on, mucking around in the running creek, you will most likely end up with wet feet!
GET contemplating whether or not he is going to get “booted up” and start panning. (This day he was content to observe.)
Because of the rain the creek was running pretty fast.
First comes classifying which is digging from the bottom or edge of the creek and “straining off” the big stuff. Then pouring the excess water out of the bucket: (looks like a colander to me)
Then the remaining stuff in the bucket which looks like a bunch of dirt is fed into the sluicer which is set up in the running creek, in this case Woods Creek.
Finally what remains in the sluicer gets panned! Hopefully there is gold in the pan and at Woods Creek you most likely will be successful. . .no not that big nugget but real gold! Lots of hard work but fun.
Disclaimer: This is a very elementary description of the process and not to be taken as gospel or complete since I wasn’t paying real close attention. I was wandering around in the rain taking pictures!!
Can’t get enough of our Spring California Poppies!
In the rain the boulders and moss were shiny.
Tried to get a clear photo of the rain dripping from the twigs but wasn’t too successful.
Gnarly tree trunk!
Pretty cool retaining wall. I wonder how long it has been there? Maybe since gold rush days?
I wonder if these boulders are as distinctive when they’re dry.
The grass seems to like growing in the running water.
Enough wandering around by Woods Creek and back to the subject of gold panning! Grubstake Gary (he really prefers just plain ol’ Gary) thinks EVERYONE should come up and take panning lessons at California Gold Panning. . .not a tourist attraction of panning in a trough like this:
Gold Panning. . .a good thing!
