Oh, deer me!

The date was Monday, February 18th, 2008. The place was the "Grand Canyon Deer Farm" just east of Williams, Arizona on the north side of Interstate 40.

I was visiting my mother in Prescott, Arizona and we decided we needed to get out and do something different. She had heard of the Grand Canyon Deer Farm before, but had never made a point of visiting it while she was still driving and more mobile than she is today.

The deer acted very happy to see us, being that we had bought a bucket of feed prior to entering the park. Some are more acclimated to people than others; some of the deer stayed just out of arms length while others practically climbed in her lap to get at the food.

My mother had a great time feeding the "starving" deer... the amusing part was that before we were to leave, the deer had started ignoring us. She'd hold out a handful of food, and they'd look at it and then wander off. We thought maybe they'd had their fill, but just then some new "suckers" would walk through the gate and the deer would run toward them, and eat out of their hands like they hadn't seen food in many days!

My mother plays Scrabble (and loves the game); I have never been a fan of it but try to tolerate a few games for her sake when I'm there. This trip was unusual in that we played seven games, and I won all seven of them. I'd draw the tiles that had higher point values, and then would be able to place them on the board where they would take advantage of extra point squares, often with multiple words. My mother, meanwhile, would get horrible draws with all seven tiles being vowels, or some other horrid combination that just didn't work for her. (She's no slouch at this game, and can usually whip the best of 'em!) Out of the seven games played, we both agreed that there was only ONE game where the odds were fairly even between the two of us. And being able to pull off that victory was just plain stupid luck on my part!

Having flown back to Boise on Tuesday, the weather had been nice up until my return. It then got a little cooler, with some rain and a light snow thrown in for good measure. This morning I woke up to find yet another small dusting of snow from overnight; fortunately the temperatures are getting warm enough now that the snow that fell will melt away, leaving only the stuff that accumulated from last month standing on the ground. Maybe if we get a nice warming trend we can get rid of that snow as well!

Family Time

Yes... that's me (Rich) sharing a glass of iced tea with his dad about 49 years ago. The setting was La Mesa, California where I lived in the same house from birth until after graduating from high school. The quality of this picture isn't great; I tried taking a digital photo of an existing photo. I would have scanned the picture, but my scanner is in Idaho... but I'm in Arizona visiting with my mother!

She's 88, and doesn't get out much so I've been taking her around to various stores and restaurants in the area and pushing her all over the place in her wheelchair. Getting her in and out of the rental car is challenging enough, but we're managing and she's loving the opportunity to get out and do something different.

I arrived here on Friday and the weather was questionable -- especially in the higher elevations where she lives. It had snowed a little that day, but by the time I got to Prescott the only evidence of snow was on the mountain to the south of the town. Today the weather was gorgeous, although the wind was a bit nippy. I was happy enough, but she found it a little cold.

After today's running around we came back home and she promptly took a nap. So instead of doing the smart thing and following her lead, I went and visited a local yarn shop instead. I found a book on sweater patterns and decided to add it to my collection.

I leave here early Tuesday to return to Idaho; not knowing the delays caused by rush-hour traffic on the Interstates while driving through Phoenix, I'll have to allow plenty of time in case of a major slow-down. With my luck the drive will be a breeze and I'll have way too much time to kill at the airport!

Where'd the Weedend Go?

It's Sunday, the 10th of February. This past Friday, Saturday and today would have been our three day weekend off (with our rotation we get one every 6 weeks). But the post office couldn't live without Valerie, so she worked both Friday and Saturday which left me with time on my hands.

Friday I decided to hit the road and go back up to McCall and see what the sculptures from the Winter Carnival looked like. With camera in hand I hopped in the truck and started the 75 mile drive, only to encounter snow after the first 25 miles of the drive.

When I finally got to McCall, it was still snowing... such a shock. The sculptures, however, were nowhere to be found. In their place stood huge lumps of snow, shadowing what might have been (a week before) an impressive work of art. Upon talking to the lady who owns the yarn shop up there, the snow fell the very next day after the judging and the sculptures have been buried ever since. And there's no photos on the links I provided in a previous entry... which is disappointing to say the least.

So... go to www.google.com and click on "images" and then enter the text

McCall Winter Carnival

You'll come up with some photos of what some of the sculptures from previous years looked like.

Saturday I drove Valerie down to Boise and dropped her off at the post office. From there it was on to the chiropractor, then CostCo, and finally a yarn shop in Eagle, Idaho (just west of Boise) called Handmade. I sat around there for several hours working on a project, and then met one of my co-workers there for a knitting lesson. (I was teaching her, in case you were wondering!) The weather yesterday was blazingly sunny, and relatively warm. It was almost like we were being threatened by Spring...

Today I've got some bread rising in the oven, did some juicing and am now in "Goof-Off" mode for a while. Next Friday I'll fly down to Arizona and go visit my mother for a few days. Maybe with a little luck I'll have another Sunday update, but don't hold your breath waiting for it!

(A few hours later, the bread was finished and a photo was taken. Butter up your monitor and have a bite!

Al Gore, where are you?

If someone knows where Al Gore is, please have him phone me. Or better yet, just stop on by and grab a shovel... we got over a foot of his "global warming" last night, and it was a real chore trying to clear out the driveway this morning. It must have taken an hour and a half to actually get the snow cleared out of the driveway so we could get the truck out.

Normally my Sunday routine is to get up early and shoot the cats (no, not that kind of shoot... they're both diabetics)! After that I usually run down to the Chevron station, about a half mile from here, and pick up a Sunday paper for Valerie. Today, however, was a little different in that it had dumped at least a foot of snow on us overnight and I couldn't go anywhere until digging out first. Then we opted to take our truck, because while the RAV-4 works very nicely in winter conditions, the road leading out of the subdivision hadn't been plowed yet and clearance was an issue.

I started while it was still dark this morning, and had to shovel a little trench around from the side of the house to the garage door -- because the wind blew toward the door I was afraid there might be a drift waiting to cave into the garage if I just opened the door without checking. There was actually a little gap between the snow and the door this time, as opposed to the last snowfall (where I didn't go look first... just opened the garage door and had snow tumbling inward).

I've never lived in an environment where snow comes up to the rooftops, and where people have to have tunnels from their houses out to the barn (as my mother has mentioned about childhood memories growing up in Wisconsin). Still... enough is enough, and we've had plenty for a while. It's funny to think that a couple of days ago the temperature was in the 40's down in Boise, and it seemed like a spring day. Then we got hit with another round of Global Warming... and now we're all pretty much up to date!

I've pretty much settled on posting once a week to this blog, Sunday morning if at all possible because that's the time when I goof off on the computer and Valerie reads her paper. Besides, I don't think the content of this blog merits daily postings... and the 2-1/2 people who read this drivel probably won't mind checking back for a once-a-week boredom update!

I'm going to leave you with a link to a website that gives a little information about the doings of the daughter of some wonderful friends of ours. We met these people back in the early 90's when we went to England, and they graciously took us into their home for a few days. I won't bother to describe what she does here, but will just simply ask that you go check out the website for yourselves. That being said... have a great day!

http://www.alalay.co.uk/