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/

A Day Off...

Wednesday (January 23rd) was a rare day. Valerie didn't have to work on her day off, as she so often does. I didn't have anything going on as I thought I would -- I had our local union newsletter to print and mail, but had only received the final submission the evening before. The real kicker was that, while cold, the day was BEAUTIFUL. Not a cloud to be seen, sunlight so blinding that sunglasses weren't just an accessory. We were heading to McCall.

McCall, Idaho, is a town nestled on the south shore of Payette Lake, perhaps 110 miles or so north of Boise. Every winter they host the McCall Winter Carnival, and the main attraction for the people who drive up are the ice sculptures. Here are two links that might provide pictures of some of these sculptures.

http://mccallwintercarnival.com/

http://www.idahostatesman.com/397/gallery/271050.html

As of this writing, there aren't many pictures uploaded to the Idaho Statesman site, and the McCall Winter Carnival site only has photos from 2007. (This will no doubt change once the carnival is over.)

One of the biggest butt-kicking moments I had on our trip to McCall was that as we were leaving town to come home, we saw someone working on a sculpture that looked like it was going to be a few running horses. I was too absent-of-mind to stop and get a picture or two of this work-in-progress... this was no small work, and would have been interesting to have captured the moment.

The photo posted for this entry was taken about halfway between where we live and McCall; I love when the trees are heavy with snow and as you can see in the distance the sky was clear! The road shown is State Highway 55, and is the main link between Boise and McCall. Today's weather calls for a 90% chance of snow, and that's enough to keep us from even THINKING about going up for a look at the completed sculptures. Why? The road is narrow, and every time it snows when there is a lot of traffic there are always people either sliding off the road or else into the lane of oncoming traffic. There are a few folks that think that because they have four wheel or all wheel drive they can zip through icy corners just as fast as if the pavement was dry. You can spot these people easily because of the banged up vehicles they're driving!

Winter Continues...

It's Sunday... and Monday is a holiday for postal people, so after a week of pretty nice weather I was looking forward to --maybe-- getting the bike out and doing a short ride in Boise. We woke up this morning to snow... and the same is predicted for tomorrow. At the moment the sun is out, but I imagine everything is pretty wet. We can't ride in Garden Valley because of the accumulation, but Boise works well except if it's snowing!

Maybe things will change before then, or the weather will simply change its mind and give us a second chance. Then again, it's supposed to be getting colder and nastier with Tuesday having a projected high of 24 degrees. That's going to be a fun day of mail delivery!

Go Ahead and Mail It!

I just e-mailed a relative of mine who called me with a question yesterday. She's got a good idea, and if she wants to share it MAYBE we can urge her to post a comment on this post! The question involved mailing certain items, which reminded me of the following:

There are always weird things that people like to mail. What I personally hate are the damned coconuts people mail from Hawaii... they tend to roll around the truck, and are a real pain to hammer in through the mail-flap in the people's front door! (OK... we actually just hand them over to the people, or leave them on the porch by the mailbox.)

There was one occasion where some bo-bo mailed a BANANA -- and it actually arrived at the Boise Main Post Office while it was still yellow and UN-bruised! That's some kind of record... I would have expected something black and very mushy!

There was a disabled veteran's group that used to mail light bulbs out as a fund-raiser. There's nothing more entertaining than getting an accordioned package with glass shards spilling out of it! It would seem that during transport these lightweight boxes ended up underneath something that was not lightweight.

We've seen wooden postcards, Frisbees, basketballs wrapped in brown paper ("Gee, I wonder what this is?"). We've delivered envelopes from exotic beaches (with a small part of the beach spilling out of the envelope, a.k.a. SAND). We've seen rocks, tires, bottles with letters inside them (clever advertisers?) and small packages with cell phones that are STILL charged and ring while we're driving on our mail routes -- there's nothing more unsettling than a package that starts making weird noises! And there's nothing more maddening than one of those musical greeting cards that has been damaged in handling and the thing keeps playing its little tune over, and over, and OVER!

The thing that used to bother me the most was a beekeeper on my first route that ordered honeybees through the mail. They would come in a little square, screen-meshed box and I was certain that at anytime they'd find a way out and come to visit me in a way I'd rather not think about. Queen bees were different; they came in little individual padded compartments and were well sealed and protected.

All in all, we're seen some entertaining items in the mail over the years... no doubt we'll see a few more interesting mailings before our working days are done!

Ice and Stupid People

In the last week and a half since the snow started falling in earnest, we have seen several wrecks either early in the morning as we drive to work, or in the evening as we're heading home. Most of the time they're within an area of about half a mile of the summit of "Horseshoe Bend Hill", as we call it, on state highway 55.

The hill tops off at about 4200 feet and there's a nice curve right at the summit, just to make things interesting. It's a four lane road, and many people feel that this is the best place to pass the "slow-pokes" in front of them.

They seem to forget that what might have been rain at the base of the mountain is snow up at the top. Many of them seem to forget that snow, when driven over repeatedly, gets packed down and turns to ice. And still others seem to mentally misplace the concept that, while all-wheel or four-wheel drive is nice for getting through bad conditions it doesn't do a damned thing for you when you hit an icy corner with the same gusto as you would on a hot summer's day.

People who live in snow country know these things... yet there are still some who seem to leave this knowledge at home when they get in the car for a nice winter's drive. I wish to salute these people, as seeing their vehicles smashed with the tires pointing skyward, and emergency crews with flashing lights trying to clean up their mess certainly adds an interesting change of scenery to my otherwise slow and monotonous drive!

Making Up For Lost Time

It would seem that this winter we're actually going to have snow sticking around for a while, whereas the last couple of winters have been almost "snow-less" at our elevation. When Boise gets a little snowfall, it melts away within a few days. We live at slightly higher elevation than do the people in Boise, so when we get snow it tends to stay for a while. This past week has given us several flurries, and the result is evident: we have a real-live winter this year!

Attack of the Snow Cat

Valerie finds it amusing to throw the cats out in the middle of the yard when it snows and then watch them leap and disappear, leap and disappear all the way back to the door.

The only trouble is that our cats are now almost 16 and 15 years old, so Valerie only walks them out to where the snow is and then sets them down gently. It certainly was more entertaining when you could fling them half way across the yard!

Did I mention that today (Monday) was my day off, and that it snowed from late Sunday night up until about 3:00 PM today? Hey... I got to go for a walk with the snowblower twice today! I also found my cross country skis and went out for a little while, heading down to the local Chevron station and then back around our subdivision's loop (which has a big climb involved). I only wiped out twice... both times after a downhill glide where I needed to turn abruptly but didn't quite make it.

It's dark now, or I'd seriously consider going out for more abuse!