Holidays

I hope your holiday celebrations were filled with happiness, friends, and family. Our was very nice although David and I did not spend it together this year. I believe it is the first Christmas we have spent apart since we have been together... for geez... what is it now 7ish years or so?  Sumthin‘ like that.  We have the golf course right now and that is traditionally an active day on golf courses if the weather holds out.

People are off of work, out of school, and have family visiting.  So David could not leave it. 

 At the same time, I was so close to my family I could not pass up the trip to see them this holiday season since I have missed the last few years... and in particular I wanted to see my daughter and wily Grandson.

I had a wonderful visit with the family.  Everyone is doing great. As for the gift giving part of the celebration we draw names around Thanksgiving to narrow down our shopping lists and then exchanged our gifts Christmas morning.  

My brother-in-law Jeff drew my name and with a bit of detective work he found a necklace on Etsy that I had my eye on and that was his gift to me and I love it.









I had my Mom’s name and picked her up a few things and a book she has been waiting for... she was especially pleased with the book and has already finished it. 









There was almost an international incident as the Xmas tree tried two or three times to tumble over onto the party but Grandpa and Ave saved the day!  They just propped it back up and we simply laughed about it, and partied on.  TIMBER!

 Donovan is a busy bee.  He ran all over the house and is learning to bite. I know because he bit me... he has some pretty nice chompers that he uses on me... his Mama,  and of course on chocolate raisins.  He also climbed the Christmas decorating ladder and let us all know about it ...

and had a great time opening his presents even though his favorite toy was the wrapping paper tube! 


He got some full on Jedi Knight action with that thing until it fell apart and he started eating it. 

 His mother got him a little truck that plays music and/or honks when you push buttons on the top.  Best of all one of the button plays the song... “Funky Town”  and he REALLY enjoyed that and would do the baby dance whenever he could get it going good. The baby dance at this age consists of shifting and bouncing back and forth on his feet and then once in awhile throwing in a shoulder/back twist.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 The drives down to California, and back home again were (thank goodness) uneventful and I decided to travel down Hwy 101 instead of I-5 because of the snow in the mountains.  On the recommendation of my sister and brother-in-law Jeff I also decided to try a couple of audio books.  I downloaded one off of Amazon (via audible.com) and the other from the iTunes store and found I really enjoyed listening to them on the trips.  It was super simple. I downloaded them and then burned them onto discs. 

Then for the very first time I learned just WHO committed the Murder on the Orient Express as I was driving through the Emerald Triangle.  Very exciting!

I was very glad to be home... David missed me and I missed him.  He just about overdosed on frozen burritos and Delta was starting to not be interested in eating her food.

Turns out though, Delta was not moping.... we found out after the fact but she had snuck a dead salmon out of the creek.  In case you did not know... eating dead salmon can kill dogs and is a big issue here in the pacific northwest.  She got sicker and sicker and it was getting hard to get her to eat. We did not know what was wrong at first but when she just stopped eating all together we said enough... there is something really wrong.. and took her to the vet.  Turns out she had salmon poisoning.  Very treatable if caught in time... but if not 90% of dogs will die from it.  Apparently, domestic dogs are the only critters who have an issue with salmon poisoning. Not wolves, foxes, coyotes, cats, raccoons, bears... only domestic dogs and the story is that once they get it and if they are cured they supposedly won’t get it again. 

The salmon eat a snail, the snail has these fluke egg things in them... so the dog eats the salmon and the flukes hatch inside the dogs.  And she was pretty sick.  IV fluids, antibiotics, floppy like a rag doll sick.

It has taken a couple days and we have had to become tricky with her medicine  (hiding it in a spoonful of ice cream) but she is much better and is slowly starting to eat again.  It broke our hearts to see her so sick she is really a tender sweetheart of a girl.  She gives us a lot of love.

Beautiful artwork by Artist & Author Jackie Morris

We are so glad to have her back on track now and feeling better each day that is passes.

Just one more additional story that made the holidays... oh so special.  I went to go get some supplies from the store because we had a small tournament lined up for Jan 1.  The supplies included a few cases of beer.  I set them up on the counter and with my head down I was continuing to unload the cart.  The woman behind the counter grabbed the beer, scanned it, then said “I am going to have to see your...” and I turned my head to listen to what she was going to say.  She looked into my face and said, “oh... never mind.”

OUCH! 

I wailed, “OH MAN!  The timing of that!  You could have finished the sentence... Geez!”  She said “oh no.. no.. no... that's not what I meant.  Um... you just seemed to be in a hurry so I was not going to have you get your i.d. out.” 

Not a convincing recovery but I will take what I can get. 

Day in the life...

That is 5 AM.
Good morning.

It is going to be a sunny day so people will be coming early.  We eat an egg or two and then start our morning.  David, of course, has mowing to do. Like 5 different kinds of mowing on 5 different machines or some crazy thing.  Much of this has to be done before the golfers arrive.  Most every day.  So... he leaves before we do.

I sit and enjoy my chocolate hazelnut agave half and half with a little coffee in it.  That is.. I enjoy it until we get a call that there are large bird type creatures floating willy nilly up and down the creek... completely disregarding our rules about no geese.

Delta and I are the 'No Geese Allowed Enforcers.'  I pull my hair into a pony tail, toss on a cap, put the sig in the holster (kidding) and get Delta.  It is time for our part of the morning to begin.  We head out of our little trailer home to one of the shops to get one of the work club carts.

I get updated via radio (nextel walkie talkie cell phone thing) where these intruders are located.  Delta hops in the back of the club cart and off we go.

As we get close we hear them... the foolish creatures are silly enough to be going for a stroll on land.  Land is Delta the Predator's domain.  I stop the cart and Delta takes off like a shot.  She really is magnificent looking when she runs full bore across the fairways and greens like that.

Anyway... the geese run as fast as their webby toes can carry them and into the water they go.  Then into the water Delta goes.

HONK HONK HONK.

 You can hear it all over the course.

I stop the cart and jump out running up and down the bank keeping an eye on Delta and giving her encouragement.  "Get 'em outa here Del!  Get 'em out! Good girl!"

She is swimming like a fiend... but swimming like a dog fiend.  Her feet are not as webbed as theirs. She has the Lab swimming instinct from her bio-dad ;)  but from her bio-mom she has the German Shepherd ... 'must eat must eat' instinct.   

The parents swim in the opposite direction of the babies... and the babies DIVE DIVE DIVE.  They disappear and Delta swims right passed them.  Behind her they pop up... boink boink boink.. but she does not see them as she is focused on the parents. Who says prey are not smart?  They were totally messing with her.  The parents continue to swim slowly just out of her reach leading her astray.  Behind her the babies then gather back together and swim to the side and hide under grass.

When the parents feel like they are far enough away they take to the air and head back to the babies.  Delta turns in her path... swimming upstream now and making really no headway at all.  She will never catch them. Water is their domain... as is of course the air for the parents.  She really can not compete very well with that.   This goes on for ages and then I pull her out.. literally and we head towards another batch down by another hole.  And the same thing happens all over again. 

We are just trying to be rude hosts really.  They can go live somewhere else.

Delta runs down the banks looking for more geese and.. "oh wait!  Look! A squirrel!  I like squirrels too I ate a squirrel once I bet I can climb this tree watch me..."  She has a touch of OCD I guess.

But she sure is pretty.

Back to the geese.  This goes on until I get tired and I think it might be too much for her and it is not necessarily a scene golfers want to hear.   Honking and yelling and splashing might prove too much of a distraction.

So I then take her back and we hang around a bit until David needs help with something else.  I am not needed in the clubhouse yet, so today I drive a little Daihatsu dump thing full of gravel for him to shovel.  "We" are filling the holes in the cart path.  

Look what pretty flowers and pretty trees! Oh that one has purple flowers and is called either an elephant ear tree or an empress tree.  Someone else gets distracted easily too. Hmph.

Oh yeah...   there is David shoveling again. 

Then after the mowing is done David has been learning how to fix the machines he has driven all morning. 

At the end of the day we have supper and fall asleep at like 8 only to wake up and do it all again.

We are having the best time!

Mosey on over into Texas....

 

We mosied... mosyed.. moseyed....hmm  have to look that up.. anyway we wandered into Texas from our newly beloved Louisiana. We drove straight into Houston then went due south to Surfside.  Surfside sits right on the gulf, as did our RV park 'The Breeze'.  

 

David reserved us a fabulous spot at 'The Breeze'. There it is at the very end of the park there... with the red arrow.  Practically right on the beach.  This time we settled in for a longer stay.

David and Delta have been having the best time here.  As soon as we got there they hit the beach and did so several times nearly every day we were here.  She is getting better at her Frisbee catching, bike running, and she pretends to chase birds.  She is not fooling anyone... she really is just running with them as they skim the shore. 



 We collected a few shells... this time without the frenzied fever...  and rode our bikes along the beach.  The sand was packed harder so you could ride.... and drive(!) along the beach. 

There were not as many shells as there were in South Carolina but many of the same types  of shells were here.  However... along with shells thanks to Hurricane Ike in 2008 you can find pieces of china, or house tiling, brick chunks etc.  The houses along this strip of beach here at the gulf was pretty well destroyed and we watched a lot of construction going on around us.  I dunno about this hurricane business.  I think I might just throw in the towel... listen to mother nature's not so subtle hints and move to higher ground.   Of course.. people who rebuild after hurricanes think those in Tornado Alley are crazy... and those folks think Californian's with their earthquakes are nuts. To each their own.

One sunny day we drove about 40 miles up the strip of beach from Surfside to Galveston.  A busy little town with a lot of shops and quite a collection of large ornate victorian homes.  This home is the Bishop's Palace.  Hmm... it's good to be the Bishop. 

Surfside is right next to a HUGE plant.  The Dow Chemical plant is literally right down the road and is surrounded by many other types of plants.
     

I am sure some of the surrounding operations are independent of Dow but I bet they contribute to each others business in some way.  These plants are like cities.  They cover acres and acres... they have their own ports, roads, and rivers... they also employ a LOT of people... a lot of men primarily.They are cities unto themselves in an Escher kind of way.  Ignoring the obvious comments....  when you look closely at the plants... they are absolute honeycombs of industry. It is actually interesting in it's construction and operations.

The time, work, and thought that went into just the building of the plants are amazing.  They light up the sky at night and are literally buzzing with activity. 

At night along with the solid.... steady.... roar of the waves I could hear the hum all the way out towards the beach.

Between Surfside and the mainland is marshland.  The inter-coastal waterway winds through and you could see large barges and ships moving through.  It was kinda weird seeing it from the beach side.. it looked like the ships were making there way along the roads.  Also at night the shipping lanes were really obvious out in the Gulf.  We saw big ships making their way towards Dow's and whoever elses pier and beyond.. but at night when you looked out into the gulf it looked like there was a freeway with the lighted ships all in a line waiting their turn to dock and fill with stuff.

The sunrise is beautiful on the gulf.  Here is David and Delta out for their morning coffee walk:

I think David is part Aquaman.  Of course he might prefer a comparison to Poseidon...  :)

That trident thing is much groovier than the green tights...

Anyway, he loves anything to do with water.... oceans, gulf, rivers.. all of it.  He gets energy and peace from it all at the same time.  He was out walking the beach several times a day... sometimes I would go with him, and sometime he would take Delta... well... 90% of the time if we were going to walk the beach she was with him.

Anyway... I enjoyed the beach but not nearly as much as they did.  I also like the water but I have found I am more of a lake/river/forest kinda gal... a regular Naiad.

I enjoy the ocean but I am becoming afraid that the pacific region has spoiled me.  If I am going to listen or watch ocean waves I like the randomness and surges of the pacific.  One large wave crashing terrifically on the rocks while the next simply rolls up on the shore... there is a rise, a pitch, a danger to the whole affair.  You can't turn your back on that water.


 
 The waves here to me were... well.... monotonous... Buzzing and humming steadily.  Also.. there are no trees.  There were palms.. but these palms aren't really trees.. just tall skinny pokie bushes.






Dang it.  I tried to like it I really did... but I just could not wrap my head around it... I got no inspiration at all... not to write, not to read, not to scribble and scratch.  It also did not help that we had a few rain storms pass overhead so even if we wanted to go try to hang out on the beach we couldn't....  we were stuck inside. One storm even caused a flood warning and water came up over the road right near where we were staying.   

All in all.. it was a nice quiet park.  Very quiet setting.  

But... we are on the road again.  Heading steadily west and it does my heart good.

Ahhh.. but did I mention the sunrises?

The start of something new...

We-uns noticed that we had some new neighbors moving into town just down the road from us. We noticed because the other day out of our window looking across the lake, we saw someone drop in on the other shore and swim diagonal towards the west end of the lake.

It seems there is a home being built just down the road from us on the lake. So David, Delta, and I decided to be neighborly and go greet them. We got dressed in our yooper best and headed out.

(Oh my gosh we are so goofy.)

Back to our path to the new neighbors house...

Delta thought she would take a host / hostess gift and found something oddly appropriate along the way. It took her a couple times to choose something she liked... she wanted to find just the right one.

Hmmm.. not this one... it's too small....

THAT ONE!
Just perfect but a bit hard to carry.

She brought it back to me to get my opinion.

Unfortunately, Delta's gift went unaccepted. When we got there, no one was home.

We can see they have recently been doing a little fixing up of the place and settling in. They have just started on their home as you can see because it is rather modest in size. I hope they have enough time before winter sets in to strengthen it up a bit.

Hmm... I wonder if the fact the house is so small at this time of year... and that they are even starting to build a house this time of year is some kind 'old injun' sign. Dunno. Need to find me an 'old injun'.

Dad, any thoughts?

Heh heh.

As of yet, we have been unable to make their acquaintance. They seem to be rather shy folk. Delta found where they were taking down some maples and pines and dragging them off the bank and into the water... where they tow it across the water to their home. It is probably ok for her to be sniffing around there at the bank... but from what I hear even though she is 90+ lbs... a dog does not want to try to go after a beaver IN the water.

Beaver

Type: Mammal

Diet: Herbivore

Average lifespan in the wild: Up to 24 years

Size: Head and body, 23 to 39 in;
Tail, 7.75 to 12 in;
Weight: 60 lbs

Did you know? Beavers are second only to humans in their ability to manipulate and change their environment. Beavers can swim at speeds of up to five miles an hour. They can remain underwater for 15 minutes without surfacing, and have a set of transparent eyelids that function much like goggles. Their fur is naturally oily and waterproof. Hmm... interesting. Thanks National Geographic!

Now for a bit of tragic excitement.

In the past year I have mentioned a couple times the only drinking establishment here in town called the "Trail's End". It is the local bar and I mentioned it in my posting about the grand tour of Sidnaw and then again when I posted about the arrival of exotic dancers during one of the most popular local hunting seasons... which is just about to start again.

Well the Sidnaw landmark has fallen... not really fallen...
more like burnt to the ground.

What you saw on the corner here:

turned into this the other night:

I don't have pictures of what was left after the blaze yet but it took 2 hours for that place to burn literally to the ground. It included an explosion or two thanks to something most folks are attributing to propane... the alcohol, and soda tanks, and grease etc from the grill probably did not help much either.

As we do not live in town we knew nothing of the blaze until the next morning when I was going to work at the Post Office. All that I saw that was remaining of the building was two brick chimneys, and a small portion of a burnt block wall. The rest lay in smoldering heaps pushed and collapsed into the basement. The smoke still lingered in the air and it had permeated everything around it. The post office smelled of house fire all day. Additionally, throughout the day flames would lick out from the piles of debris, and small cinders would fall like snowflakes.

It was quite the attraction... I don't remember seeing that many people in town and they came all day. Heck, the local channel 6 sent the news team out from Marquette.

A pretty little gal in a magenta blazer / pea coat kinda thing came in and asked where the fire department was. I just kinda chuckled and directed her to the aluminum shed where the volunteer trucks are kept. Hmmm... she must like magenta. Have to admit that color does look good on her.

One of our local gals here Lonnie Collins even gave her a quick interview before they went and set the cameras up on the smoking ruins of the bar. I wish we got channel 6 local news... we could watch it and tell Lonnie how famous she is but the TV reception does not come in so well out this far from Marquette.

The fire happened around midnight and the bar owner who lived upstairs got out safely. Thanks to the volunteer fire department his truck was saved as it was in the garage. I heard the plastic and rubber trim was melted around the windows, and he was unable to wash some of the soot off the windows either but got it clear enough to drive... at least he had his vehicle and was able to drive out of town after he finished up with the Fire Chief.

No one will know where or how it started until the local Fire Marshall investigator comes out. At least no one was really hurt other than some smoke inhalation problem with one of the volunteer firemen. He is ok now also by the way.

The hunters, ATV-ers, and snowmobile people will miss one of their watering holes BUT it looks like someone has bought the restaurant in town! Maybe there will at least be somewhere for people to get a cuppa jo or even breakfast in the morning. Rumor is the folks who bought it have another restaurant up near Calumet and they are trying to get this one up and running before all the hunters come in... which is already happening in droves. The old deserted camps that are hidden away around every corner out in nearly every section of the woods have suddenly been filled with testosterone soaked life again.... Trucks, smoke, wood, boots, Carhartts, meat, beer, camo, booze, knives, ATVs, neon orange, guns, and outhouses. scratch scratch.

And now to catch you up on our exciting news... while we are very lucky and the snow that fell mid-October melted... Winter is still on her way. There is no snow or ice on the ground right now so moving around is still relatively easy if not chilly. So... we have decided to make like the snowbirds this year and pack up our knapsack and go in search of greener pastures! Literally. GREENER PASTURES... or maybe I should say greener greens.

I will post more later on our upcoming escape... but here is a hint.
We are movin' on up just like the Jeffersons:


Good-by old friend Palomino... you were a very trusty ride. Just what we needed... BUT

HELLO NEW FRIEND!