New Beginnings

August brought a little more bounty from the yard. I've been figging and pearing out. Our poor orchard got a monster pruning before spring, so most of our stone fruits didn't produce this year. But figs and pears!! They came through. I'm hoping for persimmons and a few pomegranates later this fall.

August also means Butte County Fair and back to school. Valerie showed a goat this year at the fair.

She also had her officer retreat prior to school starting. Here are some photos of her and her team. She is president of her chapter this year. What a great way to wrap up senior year.

Valerie and Amira had some quality friend time with Ruth before school started. Valerie met Ruth as a 3rd grader so many years ago. 

Our big change this year is that Rex is moving down to Long Beach to start a program at UTI. We got the family together one last time before his big adventure.

Not long after this, the girls headed back to school. Michael started traveling for work again. And I followed Rex down I-5 headed to Long Beach to get him settled into his new place. He is renting a private room/bath in a house. The woman who owns the house, Ms. Garcia, rents out rooms to international students and professionals. She lives there and often looks after her grand children. I think it will be a good space for him.

We ran into a bit of traffic even at 8pm as we headed through L.A. on the 405 on Friday night. The slowdown added about an hour to our commute. We left Chico at 12:30pm and checked into our hotel in Long Beach by 10pm. Now, traffic was not the highlight of the trip down here. We stopped for food at the base of the Grapevine around sunset. As we climbed up the pass, the full moon with a strip of smoke rose up like a huge lantern in the dusty sky. That was quite a show. No photos of that as I had to have both hands on the wheel.

On Saturday morning we drove over to his new neighborhood and packed him in.

The room is pretty small and sparse. There is a bed and desk and hard tile floor. We made a stop out at Target and Ikea in Carson to get a few things to make it his.

Once we got his bedding washed, added a rug and hung up the wall art he brought from home, it felt like his space. We picked up some succulants to add a little vitality to his living space. (He even has a venus fly trap plant now).

After a full day of nesting, we went out to Long Beach Thai (just a short walk from his house). It was very good! I'm sure he'll be back.

As we had our evening walk back to his new digs, he discovered a flock of feral parrots living in the neighborhood. There is a brown squirrel that lives in the trees in the front of his house. A house around the corner has a cage full of parakeets set outside their front door. The merry chirping and singing of those birds has a familiar ring to it. Maybe he'll think of Wasabi when he hears them.

Sunday morning I took him grocery shopping before pointing the minivan back north to Chico. I left around 11am and got home by 7pm. Fortunately I had lots of podcasts and an audio book for the trip. 

Today Rex will have orientation at UTI. The girls are back to school. Michael is working in Las Vegas. And I have a ton of work to catch up on since I stepped out for most of last Friday.

This autumn will feel different from the years gone by with only four of us in the house. I hope that Rex sends us some photos of his adventures. But I know how difficult it can be to capture all those moments when you're busy living them.

Go Beavers!

First off in farm news, our smallest turkey is now big enough to roost up with the big kids. Pictured below is our tiny turkey who was the only egg to hatch out of that last batch in June. Somehow it has an injured leg and hobbles a bit. But it's really keeping up with the big ones out there. Also, it's adorable.

Come the end of July it was Valerie's turn to visit Washington, DC. She was on a leadership conference with the FFA. I'd say she experienced a ton and came back a little more worldly. One of the things she learned that was once you get outside of California, not only is it possible, but highly likely to encounter a summer thunderstorm. This had been out of her range of experience. Summer to this kid meant that our state is hot and dry and probably on fire.

We celebrated some yard food around here. We truly had/have more summer squash and tomatoes than we know what to do with. We've had a good crop of peppers and plenty of zinnias and sunflowers. We had a bumper crop of spuds. We had cucumbers up until recently. I'm not sure what happened. But they are dead now. And we intermittently get eggs from the chickens and occasional turkey. It's time for another "Easter" egg hunt out there. We definitely have a hidden nest. Also, we have another turkey sitting on a clutch of mixed chicken and turkey eggs. Not sure how that is going to turn out ...

As mentioned earlier, if it's summer in California, it's probably hot and dry ... and likely on fire. The enormous Carr fire around Redding is about an hour North of us. But we are getting all the smoke down here in the valley too. The below photos were actually taken last Thursday as we drove through Redding on our way to visit Oregon colleges with Valerie and Amira. 

Normally when we point ourselves up interstate 5 to the North we have a grand view of Mount Shasta. We could not see Mount Shasta coming or going as the haze was so thick. In fact, on our way home it was raining ash down on us.

In order to get a respite from the smoke we headed up to Oregon last week to take a look at some colleges that Valerie is interested in attending. Once we crossed over the boarder to Ashland, Valerie took over the driving. Michael rode shot gun. I fielded phone calls and ran spreadsheets from the back seat. Amira sawed logs in the very back of the mini-van.

Thursday afternoon we had an appointment to tour Linn-Benton Community College near Albany, OR. Valerie would love to have a chance to be on their livestock judging team. I was impressed with the school tour. The small campus feels like they have a great sense of community. They also have a culinary program there where their grow the food on campus and cook it up and serve it for student prices. How cool is that? (Valerie has no interest in this program. But I liked the sound of it). The campus has lots of free tutoring, music classes, agriculture classes, welding, machine tooling, medical career path certifications and just about anything you can think of. Also, this college has a degree partnership program with Oregon State University (Go Beavers!)

This means that every single class taken at LBCC will definitely matriculate over to OSU. Niiiiice!

Anyhow, while we were up there, we ran through the town of Albany. It was slightly overcast (not smoky!) and in the 70's. We stumbled upon a carousel downtown. It's the Albany Historic Carousel. It took them 14 years to plan and build it. It just came into operation last year. All of the carousel animals are locally carved. I rode on a pegasus that had faeries in its main and tail. Amira rode upon a large rabbit. We had a blast. I highly recommend a visit if you are ever in the area.

Thursday after our Linn-Benton tour (and carousel rides), we drove about 20 minutes west to Corvallis where we enjoyed a very nice family dinner downtown and cruised the local shops. Corvallis is an adorable town on the Willamette River. It's beautifully landscaped with baskets of hanging flowers on each corner. There are painted murals and sculptures all over the place. This town really puts a lot into the arts and aesthetic and maintenance of the downtown. The vibe was just wonderful and probably would have been more intense had we come when OSU was in session. 

The restaurant was making up cocktails when we got there. They gave the below one for Michael to try but hadn't named it yet. After Michael tried it, he proclaimed that it should be called the San Felipe Campfire. (It was a bit smoky and tequila based). Well, the restaurant liked his suggestion and the San Felipe Campfire was born.

Friday morning we began our super full day of tours and orientations at OSU. We started off our morning by walking about 20 minutes from our hotel on the river over to the main campus. We checked in for a tour that would start at 1pm but were first sent over to the College of Liberal Arts for an orientation at 10am. 

As I listened to everything about OSU and, specifically, the college of Liberal Arts, I had sort of wished that I had this information before applying to a college or deciding on a major.

We were at the college of Liberal Arts as Valerie expressed an interest in possibly majoring (or minoring) in Music. But they have sooooo many other areas to study there. I liked the sound of oceanography myself. But, alas, that ship sailed and hit a sandbar so many years ago.

While here, we found out that if Valerie applies to OSU and gets accepted, she can live on the OSU campus and get all the perks of being an OSU student, including a free shuttle over to Linn-Benton where she can take all of her classes (for in-state tuition). She would only have to take 1 credit at OSU to keep that deal. Now, the hitch is that she pays out of state tuition for classes at OSU.

This sounds like a great idea! She would get the community of the big university with the small classes and tuition of a community college. 

Later that day we went on a full campus tour, admissions orientation and then spoke to financial aid for further details.

I was over the moon with the whole experience. Valerie kept telling me to settle down. She felt like I might have been more excited to attend than her. Amira was attentively tagging along. I hope she got something out of the tour too. 

But, honestly, this college gets so many federal grants and has so many perks for the students. When I attended college, I worked my way through and mostly attended classes at night. Due to budget cuts the library was constantly closed when I needed to use it and there were not a lot of special perks and clubs that I was aware of.

This school is amazing. I'm pretty much a Beaver fan now. I went shopping at the Beaver Store already. (Beavers crack me up. I couldn't stop saying "beaver" and giggling). Valerie was ready to divorce herself from the family by the end of the day and totally ready to move into a dorm there. She really liked the idea of a meal plan ... when I pressed her about what exactly it was that excited her about that she replied, "Not having to cook."

Saturday we said good-by to the cool clear skies of Corvallis and pointed south back toward the smoke. We stopped in Ashland for lunch. We traipsed through Lithia Park into the river walk area filled with artists, musicians and delectable dining.

It was smoky here too. Lots of people with face masks, actually. But compared to what we were about to experience down near Shasta and Redding, it hardly seems worth mentioning.

Here are Michael and Amira checking out some of the local wares while Valerie enjoyed a Thai Coconut Iced Tea below at the Sesame Asian Kitchen patio. This restaurant is great. Tons of gluten free and vegan options.

And now we are back home ... it's hot and smoky and raining ash. Must be summer in California.