Surprise Visitors

Not much was going on this week, which is why there haven't been any posts. The only thing we did was fill out applications for health insurance as our COBRA insurance is due to run out next month and it doesn't have a portability plan. Considering Hubby's last year health history and my ongoing type 2 diabetes keep your fingers crossed for us. If either of us gets denied we'll probably have to go to the State insurance. The Oregon State insurance available to "otherwise uninsurable" is even more expensive than what we are paying now!

Since we filled the bird feeder and put it on the deck rail we have had more and more birds coming in. You can always tell when all the little birds take off that something "sinister" is in the area.

This red tailed hawk has been hanging around. We've also seen another, with the two of them swooping through the air circling and sparring up above. It's very cool, though I'll bet the little birds aren't happy.

Mr. and Mrs. Mountain Bluebird have found a home, though not in the house I built for them. Shortly after I put the house up we saw the bluebirds and a pair of mountain chickadees checking out the house. They seemed to be squabbling back and forth over which couple would get to be the occupants.

In the end neither pair took the house and it is empty for now. However the bluebirds have taken up residence in one of the vent holes in the shop.

We get a lot of these wild finches.
And we think this is a Wilson's Warbler.

Our true surprise but welcome visitors called Tuesday to see if it would be okay if they swung by to see our new house and stay for a night. They were on their way from their home in Washington State to Wyoming to pick up a tractor and would be on their way back. We checked out Google Maps and figured they would be heading this way by Thursday.

It was good to see Chris and Michelle again. Chris had stopped by the rental in Roseburg a few months ago but it's been many many years since we saw Michelle. We knew them from Bakersfield and my husband was Chris's training officer back about 20 years ago.

Anyway after touring the house Chris actually fixed our central vacuum system. Here he is showing us how to work it! Then he tried to fix the instant hot water faucet but determined that the heating element was broken.

I enjoy having visitors and the ones that fix things and do stuff around here are even more welcome!!!

Next month my friend Vicki and her mom are hoping to swing by on their roadtrip. My daughter is planning another visit (Dad's birthday is next month). And my sister in Bakersfield was going to swing by early in the month after attending a wedding in San Francisco.

Next month will be a great one for visitors for us and I'm looking forward to it.

Visits

Last week our friends from Roseburg came over to visit us for a few days. They brought their powerwasher so we could wash the deck in preparation to be sealed/stained when the weather gets a little more steady.

We took advantage of a break in the weather to take care of business.

Supervising.

And since we had it here we washed the outside furniture.

Then we had a great surprise. Our daughter and granddaughter showed up!

She loves Kneadermeier!

Our friends brought their two extremely well behaved dogs. Two chocolate labs, Sarge with the blue collar, and Molly with the pink collar.

Carli brought her roommate's new puppy, Sadi. We decided she's a boxstiff.

She's typical puppy: very active!
Here are the girls taking the tractor for a spin.

All too soon our Roseburg friends had to return. The next day (Saturday) we got a really good snow.

Two friends on the deck.

As is typical lately around here, by evening the snowman was fast losing his battle with the "heat". First he lost his eyes, then nose, the his head fell off! Sunday morning he was just a small pile of snow.

And sadly again, the kids took off for home on Sunday morning.

It was a great visit with family and friends, though it was far too short! I am expecting another visitor in about a week, and in May my daughter is going to hopefully come up again and I'm tentatively expecting another friend as she passes through.

So for the time being I have something to look forward to while we wait for spring/summer.

(PS-Thanks to our friend who took some of these pictures. His are the ones with the date on the lower right corner.)

Saturday In Cambria

Thursday Vicki and I went to Cambria after the showing of my house. Our husbands were there with us by early Friday evening. On Saturday we decided to go and explore the San Simeon area. A friend of Vicki's had told her that the Hearsts had an old dump site way out and at low tide you could see a lot of discarded things from way back in the day, including a tractor (!!).

Vicki and I had taken this route once before but hadn't gone as far the alleged dump site. This would be the first time my husband had been there.

We started out around 10:30, which was supposed to be the time of the low tide for the area. It was kind of foggy when we started out, but not as cold as it looked.

This picture doesn't show it too well, but a lot of the trees had hanging moss which made me think of Christmas trees adorned with green tinsel.

If you've been reading this blog for a couple of years you may remember these trees from this post.

They haven't changed much.
There's also this shot...

...and these trees.

The first one was taken with the flash, the second (below) was without.
The wild coast line.

And here's that path on the way back, with and without the flash.
The without shots make me think of "The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe" movie.

We found a dumpsite with mostly broken and burnt shards of pottery and crockery, but there was no tractor sightings. It was a good hike anyway, and don't tell anyone we were actually trespassing. Hey, we weren't the only ones out there!

On the way back the marine layer had pulled back just a tad.

Same shot, different angle.

Ditto. Notice the two hunky guys on the left.

Later that night another couple joined us and we had a great dinner of green salad, pasta alfredo, garlic bread, and chicken picatta.

Not to mention copious amounts of vino.

What did I say last time? "Life is good!"

Indeed!

In Oregon

Both Google Maps and Mapquest were showing me driving to my sister in law's house in Oregon would take 12 hours. Additionally they showed that to get to Redding it would take 6 hours so it stands to reason of course that the remainder of the trip would take 6 hours.

Vicki and I got up and had a simple breakfast at the hotel and we were on the road at about 9:00. I figured that would put us in Eugene around four or four thirty, with a quick lunch break.

We crossed the Oregon border (which I had planned on taking a picture of the welcome sign but I was yacking too much with Vicki and I missed it) and soon we were passing through Medford. As we were driving we noticed one of the mileage signs indicated we had about 120 miles to go, yet it wasn't quite noon yet.

Something wasn't computing and I think it was the Google Maps and Mapquest distance/time calculators.

We ended up having a nice little lunch at the Apple Peddler in Sutherlin and headed back on the road. We got to my sister in law's house around 2:30, a full two hours ahead of our projected time.

We took a little walk around part of her property. My goal is to be able to have a similar type of set up. About half of her property is wooded and she cut a lot of little trails throughout.

Here we are at her garden heading for the woods.

A main trail.



Here's her cute house in the middle of her property.
And obviously there is a lot of wildlife there. Here she is feeding "her girls".
We won't meet up with the realtor until tomorrow so I'll have more later!

In Redding

My friend Vicki and I left Bakersfield this morning at about 8am headed for Redding. We stopped for lunch at an In N Out Burger for a quick lunch just north of Sacramento and started back out. We were just passing through Anderson (about 7 miles south of Redding) when we saw the Shasta Outlet Mall so we had to stop and do a little shopping.

An hour and a half later we were back on the road and in less than thirty minutes we were safely ensconced in our hotel room.

Here are pictures of our room.

From the entry just passed the bathroom is the "kitchen" area which consists of a microwave, refrigerator, ice bucket, and coffee machine.

Just passed the "kitchen" is the "living" area, showing the tv...
...and the sitting area, with the desk on the side.

Now for the bed area. Vicki is calling her husband to let him know we made it to Redding.

Looking back through the bed area towards the sitting area.
The tv in the sitting area from the sofa.
And of course the bathroom.
Just lovely!
So there you have it! So exciting, I know.

Tomorrow we head for Oregon and my s.i.l.'s place. We are half way there!