July 2011

And how was your summer break?

Break? Break??? If you mean breaking our backs, well, then yes we are having quite a break! Michael and I (and even the kids) get up in the morning, have a quick breakfast and pack lunches and haul over to the new house to get cracking. There has been so much to do. We have definitely bought a fixer upper. But it is also really satisfying to see large chunks of it getting done. We've been getting home and having dinner out someplace on what Michael refers to as Barcelona time.



We've had new hardwood floors put in throughout. We've torn down the ugly fake rock behind the ugly wood stove (and gave away the stove on Craig's List)and put up some slate and tiled the kitchen. We've had all the kitchen cabinets and appliances pulled out. We now have just toe kicks where the new ones will go eventually. We've had plumbers out to the house three different times and the well/pump people out twice. The electrician just spent 8 hours out there yesterday solving mysteries. Michael is insulating and sheetrocking this weekend as well as building out closets. I've mostly been painting. I find that to be very satisfying. There's going to be some color in this house. I will put up some before and after pictures soon.

Our kids are pretty stoked to find that there are actually kids in the new neighborhood. Actually, the other kids in the neighborhood are pretty stoked to have my kids move in. So, they run around like a mob on bicycles, eating otter pops, drawing with chalk, swimming in pools, shooting each other with squirt guns and running through the sprinklers. So, the kids are definitely getting some bonus out of this move. In our old neighborhood, there are no kids their ages to play with. How happy are they!

On another note, we've met so many of the new neighbors. They are all curious and extremely nice. We've already received veggies from some of their gardens and the neighbor across the street invited me over to see her back yard (full of fruit trees, veggie garden, grapes, pergolas, roses, play structure, etc.) And I can't wait to meet the people with all the animals. There are people on the street with horses, chickens, pigs, goats, etc.

We are supposed to close on our present house August 5th. So, we are going to physically move August 3rd. That's just next week! It will be really nice to just wake up in a house and stay there. Of course, it will be really nice when we have a kitchen to cook in. That's coming mid-August, allegedly August 10th.

Corporations versus People

I know it's a little political. But this reaches across party lines and is important. So, I'm sharing. I think this is a fantastic, well done video!

Zephyr Across the West

Since Rex got a special trip to Netherlands with Daddy last winter, the girls and I took a special trip to Colorado this summer. One thing that made this trip special was to take the Zephyr from Sacramento to Denver. We had never taken the Amtrak train before, so it was a new experience for all of us.






Before we'd even boarded the train, Amira and Valerie met two girls, Faith Anne and Mandi, the same ages. The girls were going all the way to Rochester, NY through Chicago. So, they would be on the train even longer than us. And we had the luxury of a sleeping car which provided tons of entertainment for all four of the girls.





I rarely see beauty in the desert. For me it is an arid, desolate place to be endured while I drive as fast as I can to the next oasis. However, while sitting in the dining car watching the long shadows of the sunset paint the sands and silhouette the shrubs as I relaxed it really became a magical experience that I wanted to prolong.



Faith Anne and Mandi's mom had brought a video for her girls to watch that evening. So, our sleeper became a "movie theater". We were all tuckered out and went to bed lulled by the clickety clack and gentle rocking of the train. Before I drifted off I spent a long time staring at the incredibly bright stars shining above the Nevada desert. Without any towns or freeways near by, there was no other light to compete with the stars above.



The next morning we woke early to sunrise over the Utah desert. The sun was bright bringing a different drama to the landscape. In fact, the desert in Utah had a decidedly more barren look to it than Nevada. But, it also had more dramatic rock jutting straight up in different colored strata from the desert floor.



The four girls were reunited for another day of fun and games in the observation car. They played dominoes and card games and chased each other back and forth to the chagrin of the people in the dining car.




As we crossed over into Colorado, we began to really feel like we were in the Rocky Mountains. The landscape began to be rushing rivers, pine forests and snow capped peaks. The sky was less open and a little more cloudy. Occasionally we would spot geese or deer along side the train. Most often we were not near a road or a town. Seemingly wild horses drank from rivers that flowed through the valleys in the mountain passes.



Just as we finished dinner on the train Tuesday night, we pulled into the station in Denver. This was clearly a big city compared to the towns we'd seen along the route. Well, we did go through Salt Lake City in Utah, but that was at 3:00AM and we were sleeping and missed it.



Just getting off the train, the girls noticed a sign for the "Rex Lounge" so we had to photo that for their brother. They really missed him a lot and wished they could have shared the experience with him.



Faith Anne and Mandi jumped off the train in Denver to hug their new found friends good-bye. They were going to have to find some new friends for the rest of the journey. The train is such a social place, I have no doubt they succeeded.



Grandma Kim and Paul were waiting across the street from the station. We could see them from the train windows.







Grandma Kim showed Valerie and Amira her "second life".



The girls built a fairy house together. Inside and later moved it out doors. Most of our dining has been al fresco at grandma & grandpa's house. There is a baby bunny that lives under the deck where we dine. He visits the fairy house regularly.










On Thursday grandma dropped us off at the neighborhood pool/water park. This gave grandpa and the nervous cat in residence a much needed quiet time. It was also delightful for the girls. This time Amira was tall enough to go down the big slide. Valerie and Amira had a blast playing together in the pool all afternoon.








Thursday evening Grandpa Paul took the girls down to a river to look for snakes and mules. They didn't see any. But they did see a rabbit. This pace is crazy with rabbits! Of course, while they were out, mom and I had a glass of wine on the back deck and a cute little deer ambled by.



Friday was a trip to the zoo. It is really beautiful built into the mountainside on the south side of Colorado Springs. Mom bought tickets to take a tram up to the top. The views were incredible.




One of the highlights of our trip to the zoo was petting the baby wallaby. Super cute!





Just as the heat and altitude were really getting to the girls, we said good-bye to the giraffes on our way out. And we are having a restful afternoon at home while Kim and Paul attend a doctor apppointment. Tonight I'll take them out for Mexican food. Tomorrow we'll head into Manitou for a nice breakfast. Sunday will see us flying home to Chico. Certainly a quicker trip home than out.

Rainy Day Chez Wilhelm

It's another drizzly day. This is great for drought prone California. And I shouldn't complain, because before you know it we will be over a hundred degrees and complaining about that. But since it was also rainy last weekend (when Rex was supposed to go trippin' to the water park with his friends) and we postponed it a week, we though surely the sun would be shining. There was even a brief moment when the weather people thought it would be sunny and ideal. So, the Michael, Rex and a pack of boys are off to play at some sort of "fun center" for the day. I hear they have laser tag and climbing walls and all kinds of activities really geared to the Y chromosome.

I'm baking the gluten free birthday cake and whipping up a little cream cheese frosting and slicing berries for the top. I should take a picture (if it comes out okay!)Did you know that Betty Crocker has a gluten free cake mix? I know I go on and on about shopping directly with the farmers ... but, sometimes a box mix is nice! Okay, I did take a picture. Note, ran out of frosting. But I tried to hide some bald patches with all that fruit. Hey, the fruit is organic and I bought it from the farmers! In fact, the sunflowers are a gift from Tava's parents (farmers)to Rex. How sweet was that? Okay, here is the picture of the triple layer gluten free fruitastic Rex special:



So, Amira helped pit cherries while Valerie played with her rats. Now Valerie is on to spirograph (a perfect rainy day activity if you ask me). Oh, a basket of rats just appeared. I guess nap time is over for the rodents. Wow. They sure are cute. Really frisky at the moment. Okay, Cream has turned into a spaz. I told Valerie, "no more cheddar bunnies for him." Must be all that "natural food coloring".

Last week, Neni baked up a gluten free cherry pie for the family celebration. I tell you, gluten free crusts for pies, quiches, tarts, etc. are NOT easy. I was super impressed with the aesthetics as well as the texture and the taste. Way to go, Neni! And, hats off to Rex for requesting his dad's favorite dessert and then sharing. Michael was thrilled. Here's a picture that really doesn't show off the crust, but all that fire on top is impressive.



Yesterday Rancho Wilhlem had the well inspector and the whole house inspector drop by. The good news is that the place has good bones, brass plumbing, good original electric, a newish roof, good heating and air, a clean aquifer and good water pressure. This is all good news. I also had a cabinet guy come by and give us ideas and quotes on dealing with that nasty kitchen. I'm going to be so stoked to get in there. I'm having dreams of orchards and chickens and geese.

Well, I have a cake to ice and a table to clean ... and rats to cuddle with. Valerie says I'm the "fun aunt" to them.

I heard it's supposed to shine up and be sorta sunny this week?!

Ducks Home Growed

So, while fantasizing about this orchard I'm going to put on the new property, I began to cruise the net for information regarding ducks/geese/chickens/turkeys. Forgoodnessake! If I do decide to go for the "homesteader's delight" then, I need to have more info. I feel like I have the chicken thing down. But I really don't know anything about waterfowl, or turkeys for that matter.

Anyhow, I stumbled upon this cute little site:

Ducks Home Growed

Enjoy!

Cookies n' Cream

Valerie has worked hard and saved all of her money and read every book in the library about rats, rats and RATS. Her mantra: "I wanna raaaaat" has been heard ringing at the end of every statement.

Well, after our amazingly unexpected turn of events this weekend, I felt she really deserved to get some rats. Plus, I have no will power. I just can't say no to animals. (Thank goodness for Michael! He keeps us from being overrun and turning into an animal refuge).

Anyhow, we tried very hard to get a rat locally from another source (aside from the pet store) but decided that was our best option if we wanted to get very young rats that would be suitable for training and getting used to people.

Valerie picked out one solid creamy colored rat named Cream and one two toned rat (white with a dark grey hood and grey spot on its back) named cookies. Cream is a total rascal and full of energy. Cookies is a little more aloof and shy. He prefers to run up your sleeve or into your hair or hid in his house.

Here's a picture of Amira with Cookies.



Actually, these lucky rats even have a super-deluxe rat condo. It's about 4 stories high with a wheel for gigantic male rats. Of course we brought home six week old male rats who could squeeze right through the bars. Here is Cookies showing us how he would just squeeze out of the grown up rat condo.



So, back to the pet shop with us. Valerie chose the ultra deluxe mouse house (which will be fine while they are young). There are two little houses, two ladders and two shelves in it plus an exercise wheel. Can you imagine? A duplex with a gym membership??? They are in training for the rat Olympics. Valerie already has them walking a tight rope that she and Rex constructed.

What? My hair is a rats' nest? There's Cookies in my hair?? I guess I shouldn't joke about vermin in hair with the latest turn of events.





In other news, Valerie had her piano recital tonight. She totally rocks! She also brought her rats over to meet the piano teacher. We lost cookies up her teacher's shirt. It wasn't appropriate for any of us to really dive in after him. But her husband came to the rescue.

Rancho Wilhelm

Jeeze, Louise! I finally had 5 minutes to look back on Tifftown and see that she's been sorely neglected since 1 April. Well, that's the trouble with Tifftown. When stuff is happening, there is no time to write about it. When there is nothing notable going on, there's plenty of time to write about that!

So, I found a draft of my writing about the visit to Blue Sky Ranch back during Spring Break. I decided to publish it without pictures just for the sake of getting up there. Maybe with all my good intentions, I'll go back at some point and throw some pix up there.

In the meantime, I find myself a day shy of Rex's 11th birthday and all our well laid plans for the weekend thrown up for grabs and changed.

We've had a spate of very interesting weather here. It's been mostly sunny during the days and relatively cool, like 60's and 70's. Then come the evenings with flashes of lightening and dumps of rain. This all started last Sunday. Monday night the flickers of lightening came along with the rain and then a torrential hail storm. It was pretty amazing and dramatic. It was some time after 9pm (when the kids were supposed to be in bed) when Rex and Valerie came out to watch the sheets of flickering water and balls of ice blast the trees/yard/house. Rex looked at that and said, "This is not good for Tava's flowers." His friend's parents own California Organic Flowers. And I was picturing their beautiful flower farm being beaten down. Then I also reflected on GRUB, our vegetable CSA farm where I've been volunteering on Tuesdays. I wondered what was happening out there?

Well, true to what we expected, flowers and veggies were decimated by the violent storm. And I was covered with mud from head to toe after just a few hours of working at GRUB. It was hard to walk on the fields, I would slide through the rows afraid of falling on top of the surviving crops. They lost, by their estimates, a couple thousand dollars worth of lettuce and starts that had just been planted out. It really set them back some weeks on the growing. And the work in the mud was not as easy as it is in the dirt. If I had any deluded ambitions about how easy it would be to farm my own food, I was beginning to grasp with the reality of nature coming in and undoing hard work.

Here's a picture of Lee at the GRUB CSA Farm.



Speaking of ambitions to have a mini-farm ... I'll confess to compulsively following Food & Water Watch and Organic Consumers Association and seeing one too many documentaries about the concept of Peak Oil. That said, Michael and I have discussed for a long time the idea of being a little more self sufficient with regard to growing our own food. At our house here we have a beautiful yard, we're able to bike to town, we have a small garden, a few chickens and lovely shade trees. That said, because of our shade trees, my garden is not really producing like I wish it would and we can never have solar. Also, because of our suburban location, we could never have more than a few chickens.

"Give me land, lot's of land under starry skies above ... don't fence me in!" (I love that song). I have had a dream of having at least an acre lot with a small house (not a giant farm house or mansion) where I could have an orchard, garden and keep animals. I like the layout below. They say this can be done on 1/10 of an acre. I say they are optimistic. I'm going to layout my yard something like this but use more space and also not do raised beds, initially.



Anyhow, we found the place! It is on the north end of town (so, riding bikes into town is going to be long hot ride if it ever comes to that ... but, by car it is a short trip down Hwy 99. And we've only added two miles to our commute to the kids' school. So, we're not that far out). It is what I like to call a blank slate. There isn't any landscaping or shade trees or anything really. But the bones are all there exactly the way I want it ... my own well and pump, a house prime for solar panels on the roof (great southern exposure) and zoned for animals! And because there isn't any landscaping, I can take the whole north end of the yard and put in an orchard of dwarf fruit trees and let the chickens, turkeys and geese mow and fertilize. The mid section of the yard will be perfect for a garden ... a BIG garden! Maybe my food club friends will want to help plant and harvest and can out there? There is already an office space for Michael that is twice the size of his office now. And there is one fruitless mulberry tree in the back corner of the lot that is perfect for shading the poultry or for kids to climb.

I have to say, it needs some work. But if it passes inspections, we should be in there this summer! And within a couple of years we will be a working mini farm!!! I plan to put in fruit trees, berry bushes, grapes, herbs, veggies ... a real edible landscape. Other people around us have horses and stuff too. So, as long as we don't get any animals that are too annoying or stinky, we should be in good shape!

So, this house is bank owned at the moment and we've been going back and forth with them for about a week. We've also been planning for Rex's birthday. So, we've been busy (of course). Rex had plans to have friends come over Saturday morning and Michael was going to take them to Waterworks Park in Redding for the day followed by a sleepover.



Friday morning we got the call that we and the bank had an agreement on the house. While we were out celebrating and looking at new appliances we also got a call from the school about another lice outbreak. Are you kidding me? Well, only one member of the family has it. But still, I'm giving everyone the toxic shampoo treatment and taking hours of each day to pick nits and boil laundry. Needless to say, we've had to postpone Rex's party and cancel the sleepover portion. The good news is that it was going to be cold and cloudy at the water park this week. But it's supposed to be sunny and beautiful next week.

In other news the girls have an orchestra rehearsal Sunday followed by a piano recital for Valerie Sunday night and then a family celebration for Rex's birthday at Neni's house Monday. It will all be good. Sure we had one (literally) lousy day this week. But, next week we'll have no lice or nits, we'll open escrow and Rex will have a party at the water park. The girls and I will go camping with food club and I'll continue my fantasies of being a farmer.

Of course, I have to confess that as I walked through the FFA and 4-H areas of the Silver Dollar Fair last night, it would be really difficult for me to raise animals for meat. I just wanted to feed them all and hug them and pet them. Maybe I'll have to barter eggs and fruit for meat or something? Or, well, I don't know. Maybe I'll have to join 4-H and toughen up and learn some lessons from those farm kids.