Irises Arise

Mom left, so the warmer weather arrived. With it came Dara's usual trip to Yerba Buena Nursery to check out the new Pacific Coast Irises. She same home with this one. The bearded ones seem mostly to be a couple of weeks away from coming out in great quantities, but these Pacific Coast ones are starting to pick up steam all over the garden.

New Car!

Thanks to some much appreciated help from my parents I made the leap and bought myself a new car last week. After quite a bit of research (and way to many visits to various car dealerships) I ended up with a 2009 Prius to replace my poor old, well-loved but leaky convertible. Here's hoping that she lasts me a long time!

Bees Buzzing Around the Trees

I don't think these guys are harmful to our big oak tree, and I think they're actual honey bees, not wasps. But any way you look at them, it's an intimidating sight and sound.

Border Patrol Outsourcing

I am thinking maybe they could apply this approach used on the US-Mexico border to guarding the coast.

Anyone with an Internet connection can now help to patrol the 1,254-mile frontier through a network of webcams set up to allow the public to monitor suspicious activity. Once logged in, the volunteers spend hours studying the landscape and are encouraged to email authorities when they see anyone on foot, in vehicles or aboard boats heading towards US territory from Mexico.

And apparently you can do it from the corner bar, no matter how far away the corner is.

"We had folks send an email saying, in good Australian fashion, 'Hey mate, we've been watching your border for you from the pub in Australia'"

Let's hope the next innovation isn't to couple this idea to hunting via the Internet.

Bird Watching with the Ponies

Red Eagle Ranch is the lucky host to a breeding pair of red-shouldered hawks this spring. According to Mary, the Native Americans called red-shouldered hawks "red eagles" and they are the namesake of her farm. They usually don't nest very close to humans, but these two have taken up residence right next to a pathway to the fields. They're incredibly beautiful and I see at least one almost every time I'm out riding. (I suppose I should also let you know that I didn't take this picture of the hawk, just found it on the internet)

Mom's Visit, Update 2

A terrific visit! I'll try to let the pictures tell the story.

Garrett came up to visit with Grandma, and we managed to talk her into posing in this four-generations shot along with Nia. Stormy is the granddog who will really miss going on walks with Grandma.

We drove the stomach-wrenching roads up to visit the redwoods in Big Basin state park on our way over to the coast on Friday.

Dara and Mom hiked us through several miles of muddy but picturesque trails through the redwoods to find Sempervirens Falls.

Here is the Seven Gables Inn we stayed at in Pacific Grove. I tried to capture as many gables as possible!

And this is the view from Mom's room. It took some convincing to pry her out of there.

On Saturday, we headed further down the coast, stopping at Point Lobos State Reserve on the way. We spied three otters playing in the kelp beds and spent some time watching them cavort around.

We drove down below Big Sur to Nepenthe for lunch. Dara and I have great memories of washing up into Nepenthe like drowned rats when it rained for three straight days on us while camping at Big Sur in 1980. Fortunately the weather with Mom was georgeous, but a bit cold.

On the way back north, we stopped in Carmel to tour Tor House, a wonderful stone house built by hand by California poet Robinson Jeffers. They only do tours in groups of six people on Fridays and Saturdays, and we just kind of stumbled upon it in a guide book. Great history, literature, and architecture all rolled into one! That evening we drove back along 17 Mile Drive, past the Lone Cypress and Pebble Beach golf course, to have dinner in Carmel.

Here's Mom and me at Lover's Point in Pacific Grove, about a block from where we were staying.

Mom's Visit, Update 1

Visiting the quilt show in San Francisco. Don't try one of these at home, kids.

After lunch in Sausalito.

The traditional Marin headlands pose on a beautiful, clear day!

Dancing through the daffodils at Filoli.

It was 48 degrees when Dara and Mom got to Filoli this morning, on its way to a blazing 56 in Redwood City. It was warmer than that in Denver on the day we left. But at least it stopped raining!

It's been awhile...

As usual, I've been negligent in my blog posting (and picture down/uploading as you will notice later on). You've heard a little about my activities from Dad (home for Christmas and met up with Mom and Dad in Colorado for some snowboarding), so what else is new:
-New job. Well, not really new, but a promotion within my current job. I'm pretty excited about it, though plans are also in the works to move AFDIL out to the Airforce base at Dover, DE... not terribly excited about that, but accepting of it. Why couldn't they move us out to Hickam AFB in Hawaii (that's were we get all our bone samples sent from)? I'd be way more excited to move there! Dad also mentioned that I was out in Denver for a geekfest (aka the annual American Academy of Forensic Sciences meeting), where I presented a poster on research that I did for grad school. It was really exciting and completely nerdy.
-Polo is still going strong though the weather has shut us down several times recently. We're hopefully gearing up for a strong spring/summer season.
-I finally finished a knitted quilt that I've been working on for 3 or 4 years now. In the meantime I've completed several hats and scarves, 2 baby blankets and a blanket for Josh.
-Lots of pictures. Obviously I haven't downloaded pictures from my camera in ages since I have pictures from Christmas cookie decorating, but they cover everything from cookie decorating to the cats, Denver and my knitting. Enjoy!

The other kind of construction

I still consider myself a construction pro but my new job is putting my abilities to the test. I am working on a mechanical crew. Unlike housing or commercial construction evrything here does something, We are currently building a big conveyor system. This isn't like tiling a bathroom or reroofing a building, its a very complicated assembly. I am following along quite well but thank god I am not in charge. I need to learn some basic skills to make myself more valuable, certified welder and pipefitter seem to be important so I'll start there. My good neighbor is giving me something of the runaround but I will resolve that soon then its off to my barn project. Have fun as you gather in SF.