Wide Open Land

These days I try get home from work before it gets dark. I go in around 5am so I guess I don't need to feel too guilty about leaving around 4:30pm. One of my favorite things is to rush home, put on my waterproof UK style walking boots, pop a very enthusiastic dog into the back seat and head off 10 mins down the road to Brown's Ravine. That way we can hit the open spaces without any need for the leash.

Two evenings back, there was finally a break in the rain and as we watched the sun go down over Folsom Dam in the distance, I chucked the ball as far as the thrower would allow. The picture above is a perfect representation of the bundle of joy that is Roxy wating for me to launch the ball to the heavens. There is nothing she loves more than chasing the ball, finding huge sticks to carry and chew and wide open space to sniff and run. We are slowly finding our places here in Northern California, and while much land is fenced off (trespassers will be shot), there is still a lot of places to roam and explore. The girl and I are making it our own. 

It's dark out there

We are recovering from the trauma of a 28 hour power outage. One disadvantage of living out in the boonies between the trees is occasionally in high wind and rain situations (we currently are undergoing an "atmospheric river" - they just love naming weather out here) these trees dive onto power lines causing all kinds of havoc. The lights went out around 8 pm the night before last. I was expecting a few minutes of darkness, but seeing as it was close to bed time anyway (we're getting old), we just played with our various phones and tablets and went to sleep as usual thinking that all would be well in the morning. I woke as usual around 5am and the house was still in the dark. My normally dark early walk with Roxy was even eerier than usual with the pitch black broken only by my flashlight reflecting off the eyes of the local deer. I fed the dog, packed my bag and went out to the car, only to realize that the garage door was not going to open without electricity. Sigh. So it meant climbing on a ladder while holding the flashlight in my teeth to remove the pin holding the opener motor to the door (mine does not have the useful pull string that disengages the motor). Off to work I went.

Now all the while bwo was nursing a terrible cold. She was miserable and cold with no heating, so she decided to light a fire. Only the flue was closed, so she decided to put it out, only it was one of those compressed sawdust logs that don't go out easily, so the house filled with noxious smoke and she was even more miserable.

She handled the issue like a pro, eventually smothering the log with wet cloths, and all is well with only a slight smell of burning throughout the house. The lights finally came on at 10:30 last night after we were asleep for a few hours. It turns out a tree fell on the power lines a few houses down the block. It took PG&E many hours to deal with the many calls from all over the area.

So we were happy this morning when all was back to normal, and then due to the continuing rain and wind a tree in our yard fell over.

Luckily it missed the septic tank. On the positive side, I now get to buy a chainsaw.