addendum

My friend David is healing, but slowly. He is off pain medication and is able to get around a bit more.

His head is doing fine and he is frustrated that he cannot "do" more, which is a good sign.

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I did hear back from my congressman. What I need to be "appointed" the "designated payee." Wow. I have to be appointed to look after my wife. Thought my marriage license had something to do with that.


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It continues to rain. We live in the desert, we get less than 10 inches of rain a year, sometimes a lot less, but this spring we have had rain. We don't get the kind of rain that is really wet, but that light rain that keeps desert rats from doing anything outside!

My shrink (if I had one) would say I was acting out my laziness.

Hmm

Not my studio, but the rather romantic idea I have of a near perfect setting!

the taxman

I got a letter from the taxman yesterday.

IT was the part of the man that tells me what my property is worth so they can tax it.

Sensibly they decided my house was worth less than the year before. They even lowered the value of the lot the house sits on, which reflects a bit of good sense as well.

But the computer looked at my garden and blew a bit or byte. I have .8 of an acre (after a few right of ways are deducted) and the computer said: “Ahh, not one but two building lots!”

So they quadrupled the value of that small plot, as they kept the value of my aging shop/studio the same.

This has happened before.

I will make a trip to the proper office and ask if they would issue a couple of building permits on this valuable piece of property. They will look grim and I will smile. “It is a little scrap of land between a canal and a ditch. There is no legal access. It cannot ever be a building lot. It will always be a garden, an unsaleable one.”

They will say they will check it out and in a week or three I'll get a letter saying that indeed the property is really worth even less than it was last year.

Someone has to keep the on their toes!

cookies

Friday the mail person came by.

Miriam brought the mail to my studio across the bridge. There was a package addressed to me!

I was not expecting a package, so I checked the return address. It was from grandson #1 (my namesake) and his wife Mandy.

I grabbed a knife to open the long rectangular box. Slit. Cut. Then I rolled the little box on it's side. It said: “FRAGILE” “PERISHABLE.”

And I knew what was inside!

David and Mandy both know my weakness for cookies, and here was a box of indivicually wrapped cookies.

They were so nice I told Miriam to take them back in the house and hide them. (The neighbor kids were in the house and Miriam feeds them more cookies than she should).

i decided we would eat them on a speial occasion!

So, thank you Mandy and David, you know that the way to my heart is through my stomach!

I remember these days with great pleasure.
Young father, young children, beautiful wife.
I loved them all -- still do!

my friend

I visited with my friend Jason yesterday.

He is moving back to Seattle. His job here went very sour and he is returning to his roots.

I met him on a camping trip, they were neighbors at the campsite. We discovered we went to the same church. I never forgot his name.

But now he is leaving. He and his adorable wife and kids. I will miss them. We are not really close friends, I have never been to his house or he to mine, but he is one of those who come into your life and add color and flavor and richness.

He moves this week

"Did you have a house to sell?" I asked.

"Yes, and we have an offer."

"One you can live with?"

"Yes, but maybe not the bank. The offerer is for half of what we paid."

That is all I know. I did not ask more, he did not offer. I do know there is a long, complex story there.

I am sure that some of the chapters are breathlessly sad.

Hope I guessed wrong, though i will never know.

The back "40"

friend david

Phone call from friend David. (There are so many David's in my life, but I am not making up names – this time!)

Friend David H (keeping him separate from David W) is in western Oregon at his in-laws place.

David and his wife Linda have been taking care of the in-laws for a year or so now. Dad was sick and died, mom is 90 and is unable to get out of bed or care for herself.

So they went back to mom's town to take care of paper work and most likely put mom in a facility. David has a bad back and Linda is about 5' tall. Neither are able to lift mom when she needs moved.

The phone rang. It was Linda. David had been on a ladder adjusting the tarps on their motor-home. The motor-home is a vintage Newell, which was about the size of a Greyhound bus of the day. In other words it was high.

The ladder slipped and David fell hard.

He had a phone, but Lynda was in the shower. He called 9-11 and had them call Lynda's brother who lives close, but there was no answer, so they sent the ambulance to get David.

At the hospital a CT scan show no broken bones, so they medicated him for pain and he went home. I have talked to him every day. He is miserable. He is in pain all the time and they have him on some really powerful pain killers, which he has to take regularly.

How much damage is there really? To early to know. It is a holiday weekend now and he can't get in to see a doctor until next week, though he could go back to ER.

The moral of all of this, I guess, is to be very careful. David is not new around ladders. He thought it was solid and secure, but the ground was rain soaked and it was much less secure than he thought.

He will be sore for a good while, I fear. Rats.

Heal quickly my friend.

My collection of trailers!

Miriam bought the now ancient Coachmen when she needed a place to live in Washington State, before we both moved back to Idaho,

The tandem axle flat bed was built by my step father (he died almost 30 years ago). Dad built it to pull behind a Dodge Colt station wagon with a 1600 cc engine. He used that combination to haul his full sized back hoe to the Salt Lake City area (400 miles give or take) to help his son (my brother) on a construction project. He made the trip and back without too many problems, but the poor little colt was never the same!

The cargo/box/job trailer is "only" 10 years old. I used it when i was working the building trades.

The tear is the new one in my funny funky fleet.

In Idaho a trailer license (not commercial or RV trailer) costs about $35 and is good for 10 years. Two of the trailers are up for renewal this year!

How time flies

I give up

We loaded the tear for a camping trip last weekend headed out and we got snow.

So I left the tear hitched to the car ready to go out this weekend.

But rain and more rain.

The places I would like to go right now (the desert), rain means mud and mud can be the undoing for all sorts of noble projects.

So, I took the clothes and food out of her, pulled her over to her parking spot, towel dried the little lady and covered her, first with an old thick bedspread, and then with a big tarp, big enough to cover the wheels and the fenders.

Drat, I had so hoped to spend a few nights out in the desert.

Maybe it will be dry enough in July.

Some days I feel like an old truck.
But not today. I feel like a coupe, fast looking, but without a starter!

birthday?

Today is my birthday, 73 already.

Birthdays come whether we like them or not, or we could die young and not have any more of them, as my father did.

Some try to avoid old age by one means or other, I am just going to enjoy each year, and at times even milk that old age thing!

Last night Miriam wanted to make a birthday cake, and I like cake, and we have some good ice cream to go with it, so, of course, I said YES.

This morning she does not remember.

I had a lot of messages posted on my face book wall this morning. Family, close friends, friends I don't see too often, and even some I did not know.

Thank you each. I am blessed.

Not my tear trailer.
I don't have that much patience.

snow

It was cool and spitting a bit of rain when we left this morning.

About 10 miles down the road it began raining a bit harder. I noticed an RV approaching that had several inches of snow on the roof. Hmm. Rain I don't mind, even camping, but snow?!?

We drove up a hill to go over a pass and that spit of snow turned into a very heavy snowfall. 2 or 3 inches on everything. Slushy. Not easy to drive.

Drove on to the turnoff to go to the gulch and the road was very wet and very muddy, so we turned around and headed back.

Friends in their RV were not far behind us. I stopped, they turned around and we went on to a check station, which was out of the snow area.

The state is checking boats for a parasite that could be carried by boats, and this one was manned by a deputy sheriff. He asked what we were doing and we told him of our experience. He said he did not believe we could even get through to our campsite.

Years ago when I was studying mountaineering, they hammered and hammered that sometimes the wisest move is a 180 degree turn. Going back early beats getting into serious trouble.

So we came back.

Today was supposed to be 53 here at home, not too bad a temp actually, but when we got home it was 41.

So we will camp another time! Soon!