8 Things I Learned in March

  1. See the pointed peak? After many years of noticing it, I learned it has a name: Sulphur Mountain. A friend called it by name when we were having a poppy conversation. Shortly after, another friend left me a message telling me to be sure to see the poppies on Sulphur Mountain. Twice in one day!
  2. Even if poppies begin in January, even if it snows on them in February, they can still be fabulous in March.
  3. (THIS IS A STRONGLY EXPRESSED OPINION THAT I AGREE WITH – NOT SOMETHING NEW THAT I LEARNED). From Kevin D. Williamson: “Daylight Saving Time is a great example of the progressive imagination, forever at odds with the organic cycles and natural variation in human life, insistent that no aspect of that life — down to the time on the clock — is beyond regimentation and rationalization. Inconvenient. Irritating. Arrogant. And, in spite of the connotations of the word ‘progressive’, absolutely stuck in the past.” I severely dislike being jerked around and resent the foolishness that tells us we are getting another hour of daylight. We are not getting any more daylight—it is simply being “moved” to another part of the day. Humans do not have the ability to create more daylight. (Did you know it is Daylight SAVING Time – not SAVINGS?)
  4. After being without a printer that works with my computer, it is a real treat and a luxury to have one that ACTUALLY WORKS! Reminds me of how special an automatic garage door is—I never stop appreciating it. 
  5. California Poppy Preserve, Antelope Valley is off State Route 138 off of Interstate 5, just south of Frazier Park, heading toward Lancaster. I have seen photos from this place for years but never knew where it was.
  6. Trail Guy was channel surfing and found A River Runs Through it, one of the few movies we saw together at a theater, thirty years ago. (REALLY?? 30?? Yes. really.) Back then I thought it was a boring movie with nice scenery. This time I actually liked it. (The oil painting is titled “One with the Stream”, painted in 2011 of Trail Guy fly fishing in Mineral King; it hangs in our dentist’s office, Dr. Darren Rich, a dentist I highly recommend and not just for his good taste in art, in Exeter).
  7. I was looking through some old sheet music by the Carpenters (I still love the Carpenters, always have, always will). Did you know that “Bless the Beasts and the Children” was cowritten by Barry De Vorzon & Perry Botkin, Jr.? Neither did I. I don’t know who he is; that was a weird little surprise. Related to Trail Guy? Not all Botkins are related to one another, so who knows? Here is his website: Perry Botkin, Jr.
  8. She Of The Barking Dogs has retired—what a relief! When she is home, the dogs don’t bark. 

If it wasn’t for February, March would be my favorite month; February wins because it doesn’t get hot, sometimes it rains and snows, the clock stays where it belongs, and it is the beginning of the intense green along with flowers.

Ten Things I Learned (and Relearned) in January

  1. Feather-leaf lavender now grows in my herb garden. I had never heard of it or seen it before. Yep, planted it in January and yeppers, I used a gopher cage in the ground.
  2. Life without sugar – ugh. I relearned that this is hard, unpleasant, and without benefits. After 3 weeks, I decided why bother. (“Does dark chocolate count? 72% is barely sweet,” she whined.) 
  3. In order to do my Wilsonia book, I bought inDesign. It would not work with my new laptop, so I continued to use it on my old one. Now it won’t work on my old laptop either. You can’t buy InDesign anymore—you have to subscribe for $21/month, which is $252/year!!! Enough to make a preacher cuss, I say.
  4. Labor isn’t taxed in California UNLESS it is working on gold. What?? Yeppers. Got my wedding ring resized, and paid tax on the labor. Yes, I quizzed them about that. (Sure is shiny now!)
  5. I’m not as smart as I need to be. Every time I format a book (that means putting all the information into a computer program so that it is perfect-looking, so that it can become a real book), it feels as if I have never seen the program before. Adobe InDesign is designed for people who spend all day, every day, tapping on a keyboard and staring at a screen. It is not designed for people who format about one book per year.
  6. I learned that if I delete photos on my phone, they disappear off my computer. This is highly inconvenient. I don’t want 30,000 pictures on my phone – that is a nuisance. Because I didn’t understand the connection, I have lost records of completed paintings – only 1 of those many Sawtooths remain in my photo files, and who knows how many others are vamoosed. 
  7. I learned that on my phone, I can go to Albums, Recently Deleted, and then select and recover photos. The hard part about this is that some of my paintings look like photos and it is difficult to tell what I am seeking when it is the size of a postage stamp.
  8. I FOUND A NEW WEB DESIGNER! She is right here in Three Rivers! I have worked with and enjoyed her for years but didn’t know that she could do the techie things that I need done. 
  9. For my subscribers who aren’t getting photos in the email notifications of my blog posts, you need to unsubscribe and then resubscribe using this link.   When you get the email confirmation, click on it, and then you should start seeing the photos again. 
  10. Finally, I learned that it is actually possible for me to run out of things to post to my blog. First time since April 15, 2008. I wonder what caused my brain to empty?

You can see that this month was dominated by tech. The month wasn’t all bad—my friend and I recently resumed walking together after a severe collapse of discipline, beginning with the fire in September.

11 Things I Learned in December

  1. Alma mater is not Latin for someone’s mama named Alma. It actually translates as”nourishing mother”, so it refers to the university (mother) at which you studied (were nourished), and more commonly, from which you graduated. Good grief, I have 4 alma maters. Wait – was I “nourished” by each one? I can’t remember specifics, but must have learned something. That was well before I started keeping these handy lists.
  2. Discipline-based art education is a way to learn about art in 4 areas: A. production, B. Criticism, C. History, and D. Aesthetics. The approach was formulated in the 1980s by the Getty Foundation and was a departure from the “creative self expressionism” that dominated when I was in school. If it had been taught this way, maybe I would have finished a 4 year degree. A friend told me about this (Thank you, DM!) but I haven’t found a site that explains it as clearly as he did.
  3. All those lines that I’ve been noticing in the sky are called “chemtrails” , the result of something called “geoengineering”, which is atmospheric experimentation and manipulation by covert aerosol distribution. Some document from NASA, written in 1966, indicates that such environmental shenanigans have been going on since the 1940s. I am beginning to think there is a conspiracy here, one to hide and pretend that this is not happening. To question it is to be dismissed as a “conspiracy theorist”. Good grief Charlie Brown. How totally creepy. Maybe you can understand more than I do if you choose to follow these links: Alachua County, Europe Reloaded, Geoengineering Watch.
  4. Almost all large companies hide behind phone trees (except L.L. Bean); they experience an “unusually high volume of calls” at all times; they now have the convenient excuses of Covid and supply chain trouble; they say that they value your business; most offer a call-back option instead of waiting on hold; none of the ones I have tried to connect with ever called back. Anyone wondering why I didn’t want to get a computer, email, a website, or a cell phone? Too bad; this is life as we now know and live it. 
  5. Related to #4, I relearned that in order to get big companies to do the right thing, IF you ever reach a human, you must be firm. If you act angry, ask to escalate the call, maybe even raise your voice and tell them what they are “offering” is completely unacceptable, they usually come to see the truth. WHY WHY WHY is this necessary? Buy local, buy used, borrow, refurbish, and avoid big box stores. Take the road less traveled.
  6. It is very hard to buy things in stores because many don’t carry items for sale, but only for display. If you want to buy something, they write it down, ask you for all sorts of personal information, put it into an iPad, have you verify the information, enter it into a computer, ask for more verification. They charge for shipping the item to their store, for delivering the item to you, for setting up the item for you, and of course for sales tax. They call to say they will deliver on a certain date, they call again to tell you what time and ask you to call back to confirm, and then you get tangled up in the branches of their phone tree. If you can’t get through to confirm, they reschedule and it starts all over again. I had no idea that this is how it “works” now. Anyone wonder why I avoid shopping, keep my things for decades, and prefer thrift shops?
  7. A friend sent a link to a wonderful song. It comes with photos that go along with the lyrics, but the music alone is enough for me. Holy Now by Peter Mayer.
  8. My wedding ring needs to be resized. I needed to take it off, which took awhile with lots of dish soap. There is a permanent dent in my finger, and now I am a little bit afraid to put it back on. Is my finger fat, muscled, or have my knuckles grown? I vote for muscled. . . all that knitting, typing, drawing, painting, weed pulling. Maybe in January I can learn about where to get this done. 
  9. This was to be the year that I made Hoshigaki persimmons. I learned 3 things: A. make SURE they are firm; B. make SURE they have stems to tie the string around; C. DON’T put a persimmon on either end of one string to counterbalance when they hang because if the string gives way on one, both will go splat. Perhaps I will have success with this peculiar, time-consuming and delicious way of drying persimmons next year.
  10. Sawtooth as viewed from the former Sunnypoint Campground in Mineral King, with rushing water in the stream and wildflowers, all exaggerated from the real view in real life is one of people’s very most favorite scenes I have ever painted. Number 6 is now on the easels.(This is #5).
  11. We have gotten more rain in the month of December this winter than in the entire previous rain year! (I think a rain year begins with July). I sure hope we are allowed to have it for irrigation, etc.

 

Ten Truths of Life List

(More weird lines in the sky when no jets have flown overhead)

Lists are a regular tradition at the end of a year. People list things that happened, celebrities who died, accomplishments, goals for the next year, resolutions, words to live by, on and on. . .*

I’ve been thinking about truths of life. Writer Anne Lamott has a famous list, and you can hear her explain them on a very good TED talk. Her list made me think about my own.

Here are some truths that I know and can count on. 

  1. Life is better with a cat.
  2. Almost everything in life is a mix of good and bad—life may be better with a cat, but eventually the cat dies; social media is a sewer, but it is also a place to keep up with your modern (and often puzzling) nieces and nephews.
  3. The two best ways to spend time with friends are working on a project together or taking a walk.
  4. There are no perfect friends; no single person can meet all your needs.
  5. The more stuff you own, the more stuff breaks (and gets lost, dirty, or messed up and wastes your time in maintaining it).
  6. Gardening is war.
  7. “Upgrade” and “update” are euphemisms for “complications”. 
  8. “Educated” and “smart” are not synonyms; knowledge does not equal wisdom, and information does not guarantee discernment. In the same vein, common sense has become quite uncommon. 
  9. My approach to sweets: if it isn’t chocolate (dark), it probably isn’t worth the calories.
  10. Beauty is a need, and it is something that has no danger of an overdose.

Sincerely,

Your List Lady AKA Central California Artist

*A list from the past before I started doing those end of the month Learned Lists (because search engines like links in blog posts): 2016

 

Eight Things I Learned in November

  1. Pineapple quince is good for baking like apples, and eaten fresh it is like a green pear but very dry. (Something is telling me I might have learned and forgotten this one before!) I didn’t pick one – only saw them, took a photo, and asked The Farmer, who supplied me with this answer.
  2. Want to know why painters wear white? There are several reasons, including tradition. It was the official color of the painters union, is the base color of almost all paints (couldn’t be the base of the dark colors, could it?? of course not!), is cooler in the heat, signifies to others a professional appearance and approach to work, and shows all the layers of work done. Finally, if you see people wearing white, it might make you careful about what you touch.
  3. What is BCE and why instead of BC? BC means before Christ; BCE is the newer way of indicating time and stands for Before Common Era. (You can probably infer the reason for the push to change the old designations). 
  4. In the same vein, AD means Anno Domini, which is Latin for “year of our Lord”; it is now called CE for Common Era. This implies there will be another era ahead – will it be called UE for Uncommon Era?
  5. A few months ago, I learned that the dial tone on the phone is F#. Being a curious person, I decided to test it. IT ISN’T F#!  It is a flat A – not A-flat (can’t find the symbol for the musical flat sign on my computer keyboard – maybe I will learn that next month).
  6. It isn’t wise to schedule a blog post series during an active art show. I wrote the chapters of “How I Designed a Logo” before IMAGES OF HOME opened, scheduled it ahead to run on consecutive days, and then my show happened with many fun things to show and tell. Now I keep interrupting the flow of “How I Designed a Logo”, and it dilutes the impact of this large and important (to me and D-Bar-J) custom job. I hope you are enjoying the series despite the start-and-stop nature.
  7. I lowered the price on The Cabins of Wilsonia from $50 to $40; the sales picked up right away! Is this because the website store page has a tag on it that reads “Sale!“? If I knew this, maybe I’d drop all my prices by a dime or a dollar and mark it as being “on sale”. But alas, I didn’t learn anything solid other than lowering the price increased the sales.
  8. Badgers have a white stripe on their heads. I’ve never seen a badger but my UPS driver saw one dead on the side of the road near Kaweah Oaks Preserve, took a picture and showed me.

Did you learn anything in November? (Does anyone besides me keep track?)

10 Things I Learned in October

  1. Ever heard of a car called the MR2 Spyder? I hadn’t. It was made by Toyota from 1984-2007 (2005 in the US)– how did I miss this? (Oh that’s right – I drive Hondas) MR2 comes from mid-engine (in the rear like a VW), rear wheel drive, 2 door or “Midship Runabout 2-seater”. It is considered one of the most dangerous cars in the world, for reasons that I read here but didn’t understand. Who cares? I do, because one of my former drawing students just bought one of these hot-looking little sports cars.
  2. Fire teams travel with a copy trailer; that’s how they get those giant maps printed every single day for reporting to the public.
  3. Libby is an app available through the library- I tried this so I could read from the phone. While it works, not many books on my To-Be-Read list are available in this format and even fewer as audio books, and I prefer real books made out of paper. I resorted to this because the library in Three Rivers closed again, this time because of smoke.
  4. There is an exodus from California, more than 182,000 leaving in 2020. I have lost drawing students to Oregon, Nevada, Wyoming, and Wisconsin and know other folks who have gone to Texas, Idaho, and Arizona. This emigration (could it be called “right flight”?) has made it is very difficult to find moving companies or U-Haul vehicles.
  5. Air Quality Index is determined by people living in the area. There are monitors set around the community and the information is updated regularly, maybe even automatically. For example, in Three Rivers, there are 10 addresses listed; they get averaged together, and I can see the specific reading that is closest to my house.
  6. Firefighting is not all that it appears to be. This disturbing opinion piece by a longtime firefighter shows a side to our fires that some may have suspected, but had nothing to go on. Adversarial Front Line is an opinion piece published in an independent Truckee newspaper called Moonshine Ink.
  7. After a big wildfire followed by a rainstorm, the river turns black!
  8. Contentment is a beautiful state. A friend sent us a generous gift card as a thank you, which Trail Guy handed to me with the instructions to “Get something special”. I recently bought daffodil bulbs and some shrubs to plant (bug off, deer!) and some yarn (oh just hush up), and I truly want nothing.  (Well, I could use more time for gardening and knitting but money can’t buy that.)
  9. A good question to ask yourself if you are decluttering is: “Would I buy this again?” If the answer is no, GONE!
  10. A set of unusual circumstances gave me the opportunity to spend several evenings with some friends. While there, I learned that playing Jeopardy is fun, especially when you have a Pause button on your teevee. People have to know a ton to get on that show; a recent winning streak was about 35 games, with the guy seeming to know everything. Then suddenly he had an off night where he folded like a cheap card table. He couldn’t hear us shouting answers at him, and it was a mystery. My friends excel in popular music and in math; I did well in Ireland and Bible. We all were able to come up with surprising random answers, but it usually took us several minutes of discussing. I have no idea how the contestants can know so much and think so quickly, but I learned that Jeopardy can be fun.

 

9 Things I Learned in September

 

  1. Crocs: Classic All Terrain Clog or Offroad Sport Clog? I found Offroad on Amazon (not referring to the fake ones I bought in the previous month) and then found All Terrain on the Crocs site. All Terrain (2nd photo) have a better tread, but I haven’t had a chance to try them on a trail yet.(Come on, you stupid fires, and I am taking both pairs if we have to evacuate).
  2. Akimbo means standing with a hand on your hip and your elbow pointed outward. I didn’t know this. (Well, duh, that’s why it is in a Things I Learned Post)
  3. If you are vacuuming your bathroom and start waving the wand around (chasing spiderwebs or something equally adventurous), watch out for the loose end of the toilet paper. Of course, it is good for a laugh…
  4. August has been my least favorite month for most of my adult life; September is threatening to replace it.
  5. September brought a very hands-on lesson about the difference between opinions and facts. During these fires, people express their opinions such as “It isn’t looking good for Mineral King” or “So-and-So Who Supposedly Has An Inside Track said mandatory evacuation is coming soon!” These opinions affected me at first; I should have blown them off as FakeBook noise (even though many were spoken in person). Now I can recognize an opinion and wait for the real information.
  6. The Human Calculator is a guy named Scott Flansburg. Fascinating! I heard him on Mike Rowe’s podcast and learned that all calculations lead back to 9. Maybe not all. . . but get this: pick any 2 numbers, add them up. Add up the digits within the answer, subtract them from the answer, and if the new answer is right, it will be divisible by 9. For example, 44 + 23 (just random numbers)=67. 6+7=13. 67-13=54, which is divisible by 9.
  7. Fire containment is based on the percentage of the perimeter of the fire. I wish I didn’t need to know this.
  8. Did you know that a dial tone on the telephone is F#? You can use it to tune a guitar in an emergency! (Just what constitutes a musical emergency?; yes, guitar strings begin with E, but if you find F#, you can get to E, and finally, no, I don’t play guitar).
  9. This Evergreen Home is a new-to-me blog about simple living. The page called 101 Simple Living Tips is especially good, and has links in it to other sites full of good tips.

9 New Things Learned in August

Is it redundant to say “new things learned”? Maybe so, because if they haven’t been known previously, then they are new. To me. To you, also, I hope. And if not new to you, you can revel in the feeling of “I already knew that!”

  1. It cost $41.50 to send a copy of the Cabins of Wilsonia to England. Really! And the man was happy to pay it, because he found one for more than $91.50 online in his country. He also found a paperback copy of The Cabins of Mineral King for 13 pounds (can’t find the symbol for that on my American keyboard).
  2. It would cost $635 to repair a blown speaker on my 4 year old laptop. WHAT?? Not worth it. If I need good sound, I will plug in the Bose speakers. Why did the speaker just go all rattly like a cheap car stereo? My other laptop got wonky at 6 years old. I thought about going to ifixit.com but taking apart the laptop feels very risky.
  3. People can get a fungus in the ear. Gross, eh? It can be treated with a mixture of white vinegar and water. If this doesn’t do the trick, you can buy a microscopic bottle of Athlete’s Foot Treatment for $49.95. I am not making this up (nor am I talking about myself here.) Sorry if that is too much info. I learned it in August, so now you get to learn it too. You’re welcome.
  4. If it feels as if the end of the world is near and if you like to learn about End Times, here is a very helpful sermon, clear and simple information that feels somewhat encouraging. Happening Now. Political warning: it leans right politically, so if that is annoying to you, you know in advance and can make a decision about watching or not.
  5. I learned that my tolerance for too many conversations, too many activities, and too many people is waning. The busy nature of Mineral King in August wore me out, and sometimes, I needed to hide.
  6. Crocs make clogs almost worthy of being called hiking boots. So far, so good, nay, GREAT!
  7. I declined an opportunity to teach a drawing workshop. This is because with a mask requirement, it is too hard to read people, and to understand their muffled voices. It is also harder for them to understand my muffled voice, and even harder to breathe. I knew this already, but didn’t realize how much of an obstacle it is to learning until I found myself dreading something that I usually look forward to.
  8. Swimply is a new way for people to earn money at home by renting their swimming pools. Good thing my neighbors haven’t done this or I would owe them thousands.
  9. My friends have a strong influence over me. One gave us a miniature battery operated blender tool for whipping cream or making a fake latte; another friend told me about putting 1/2 and 1/2 with cocoa powder in her coffee. I have always drunk my coffee black, but I decided to combine these 2 things – whipping 1/2 and 1/2 with cocoa powder into my coffee. Whoa. Better keep that one as a treat and not make it a habit.

Naked Ladies are the only growing thing of beauty in my yard in the crunchy, smoky, brown, dried-up month of August. 

12 New Things I Learned in July

July was another month of learning odd facts, interesting tidbits, touching stories, and annoying experiences.

  1. A friend who knows odd facts said that the biggest danger while sailing across the Atlantic Ocean is running into cargo containers that have fallen off of ships. Eventually someone will figure out a way to locate those missing Seatrains and turn it into a teevee show.
  2. Got an answer about Iron Springs and Soda Springs from my friend Fort Worth Jim, a geologist: “The water has carbon dioxide in it which makes the water acidic. Acidic water can dissolve iron but when it flows out it loses its carbon dioxide, and iron is forced to precipitate out of the rock.” (But will I remember this info?)
  3. Remember I told you about the inefficiency of Home Depot last month? The saga continued. After not being able to fit the mini-fridge in Fernando, I took it back into the store to put it on will call. The self-checkout had neglected to provide a receipt, so it took a very long time to set things up. Trail Guy and I returned for the fridge the following week, and it was gone. They chose another model for us through lots of computer tapping and lots of wasted time, and when we went to retrieve it, it didn’t exist either. We picked a third model, loaded it up, and figured it was a done deal. Then I started getting phone calls to come pick up my “merchandise”. The first caller didn’t even identify the store, much less the “merchandise”. The second caller did, so I called back to be sure I wasn’t getting charged for two. Sure enough, I was. Much computer tapping, hold time, exchange of various numbers and dates, and now I think it is solved. THIS IS WHY I HATE TO GO SHOPPING!!! Excuse me for shouting. If it isn’t at the Three Rivers Mercantile, I don’t need it.
    Maybe we should have hooked this fridge up in the workshop instead of the new one from Home Disaster.
  4. Sometimes when our cabin neighbors leave, they give us their extra groceries. That way they don’t have to toss them or take them home. It is fun! We don’t always consume everything, of course. Last month we received a tub of potato salad, something I don’t usually eat because I just don’t like potatoes or raw onions. Trail Guy had a bite and said it was sweet. “Sweet?” I read the ingredients, and the third one on the list was SUGAR!! Really?? In potato salad?? Why on earth?
  5. Peripheral neuropathy makes toes go numb and can be helped by L-methylfolate, a B vitamin referred to as a “medical food”. I don’t know if it works yet but I do know that numb toes are a nuisance while hiking (or walking or standing to paint or just being alive). I wish I didn’t have to learn about this.
  6. If you know this amazing lady, congratulate her on a promotion to Chief Ranger at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area!
  7. There are some people who exceed the average definition of generosity in life. These are people who donate organs, people who pay for meal services for recipients of organs (one of my incredibly generous blog readers is paying for a meal service for my friends Rachelle-of-new-lungs and Steven-the-husband-of-the-century), and someone who received a heart and now helps transplant patients and their families. Her name is Ava and you can see her story (and give if you are so inclined) here: Ava’s Heart.
  8. Some customers/friends have been wanting a logo for many years. I recommended someone to them and it didn’t work out. Why didn’t they think to ask me, or why didn’t I think to offer? Because logo design is not my main thing, but after a year passed, I got the courage to offer my feeble design services. More will be revealed in the fullness of time. What I learned was this: ask!
  9. Fake Crocs cost less, have a thicker sole, are narrower, and don’t have a visible brand name; they are made in China and sold by Amazon. Lesson learned. I liked the color, but I got a blister on the TOP of my toe (hunh??) and tripped twice while walking in them so they will become hang-around shoes, not walking shoes.
  10. Sending cookies from Three Rivers to Los Angeles costs $14 via UPS and $9 via the Post Office.
  11. Is Three Rivers in a third world country? Our neighborhood went 5 days with extreme minimal water due to a failed pump and unavailable part. This coincided with the largest power bill we have ever had, while our A/C is on a voluntary rolling black-out discount because there isn’t enough electricity in California. (Can you believe that hydroelectric power – using rivers – is considered non-renewable energy??)
  12. My neighbors are very generous and let me use their swimming pool. What I learned while in the pool is that Cleveland Sage smells terrific and overpowers the smell of chlorine.
    Swamp onion does NOT smell like Cleveland Sage.

P.S. Stupid HD just sent me a check for the amount of the fridge. WHATSA MATTUH WITH THOSE PEOPLE??

 

Things I learned (and probably forgot) in previous Julys.

July 2020 ° July 2019 ° July 2018

11 Things Learned in June

My list for June was quite short and I was about to make an excuse; then I gave it all another think, and here is the longest one in awhile.

  1. For the very first time in my entire 61 years, I attended an open casket funeral, where the deceased was visible. It wasn’t one of those deals where the attendees file past if they are so inclined – he was fully visible from every place in the chapel. “Disconcerted” might be the best word for how I felt.
  2. I described A House in the Sky to my hiking buddy, a memoir about a woman’s experience of a 460 day kidnapping situation. Her husband asked me why I would want to read such a disturbing tale, which made me think. My conclusion is that it was interesting, and it caused me to be very very very thankful for my life. (Maybe 4 verys, or even 5).
  3. Live oaks are dying all around my neighborhood. Drought? Maybe, maybe not. The native trees are “designed” to live in our climate, which historically has droughts (or dry years) every 5-6 years, as learned by studying the rings on Giant Sequoia trees. 
  4. As I dithered on whether or not to get my 25 year old car painted, it occurred to me that I could spend the equivalent amount of money on looking better myself, something that would probably only last for 3 months, as opposed to the car looking good for the rest of its life. (No decision has been reached.)
  5. Leaky canoes at Hume Lake seem to be a normal thing. Oh well. It was nice on the lake regardless.
  6. This site is fun and helpful: Everyday Cheapskate 
  7. Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale by Adam Minter is an education about what happens to all the stuff in the world when we are finished with it. It can be put in a landfill, incinerated, taken apart for recycling, dismantled for parts, or used by other people. Poor countries import massive amounts and use it in all these ways; of particular interest to me was the innovative ways our junk gets used to build useful items. (Remember, “Junk is the stuff we get rid of; stuff is the junk we keep”.) Some countries have laws against importing secondhand items; other countries have laws against exporting them. Those laws cause a problem for the economies that depend on secondhand products. The planned obsolescence is also causing problems. Having replaced our water heater, washing machine, refrigerator, and the A/C in my studio within the past year, I can relate to this. But then how do I get my broken things to Ghana or Nigeria so they can use the parts??
  8. Some friends shared some new peppers from their garden, called “Padrone”. Green, wrinkled, and not hot. I wonder if they would grow in Three Rivers. . . maybe I can save a few seeds.*
  9. A farmer friend told me the way to understand climate and weather is to look up something called “degree days”. I haven’t studied it, but according to my friend, there are going to be a certain number of hot and cold days every year. He gave these examples: if there is a cool spring, it will be a hot summer; if it is mild summer, it will last a long time. I would like to understand it in terms of weather, but it is used mostly to predict energy usage to heat and cool. Here is the explanation from the National Weather Service.
  10. Big box stores are inefficient, overstaffed with incompetent employees, disorganized, dependent on computers for inventory which waste the customers’ time and prove to be unreliable. I’m talking about Home Depot. Good Grief Charlie Brown. Nope, not going on social media to badmouth them; just hoping I can always plan ahead enough to have Three Rivers Mercantile order what is needed to avoid future aggravation of HD.
  11. You might be able to have a say in the redistricting of California that happens every 10 years. Why bother? A good example is that Three Rivers is lumped with Bakersfield, Ridgecrest and Lancaster, where no one goes, instead of being with Woodlake, Exeter, and Visalia, where most people work, shop (HEY! We have a great hardware store in Three Rivers!), go to school, go to church (HEY! We have churches in Three Rivers too!) access county and state offices. The site is DrawMyCACommunity.org I say “might” because I don’t have a lot of confidence in governmental requests for public participation. I couldn’t find the already drawn community called “Three Rivers-Visalia COI” to “endorse” it, as the newspaper article suggested. Everything is complicated.

Let’s rest our minds with something less complicated.

*Never mind. Just found a hot one. Burned my mouth.