4/20 Anderson

Very nice Spring  week end minus any sight of rain.  The temperature today is about 80 with a steady breeze.  It has been blowing all week no break at all for that wind.  We really do need some rain - the yard and pasture are starting to turn without any water.  I hand watered the trees each day by pouring 3 five gallon buckets on each tree.  Hope they survive the next two weeks without water.   I am concerned about the 20 sweet gum trees that are adjacent to the driveway.  I did give them a good soaking but that may not last for 2 weeks.  I suspect our irrigation water will be coming in a week or so - that will certainly help the trees and the pasture.  We don't have any animals on the pasture at this time so it looks pretty lush. 

They had the Kool April Night Cruise last night in Redding.  They had thousands of people lining the streets to watch the classics.  They had about 1400 vehicles this year - in years past the number was greater than 2000 vehicles.  The whole week is devoted to car show events and it will all be over on Sunday.  This event does bring in some good business for the locals and lots of fun for the old and young.   Here is a URL for some video showing the some of the cars on the cruise last night
http://www.redding.com/videos/detail/2013-kool-april-nites

Two weeks ago we had a couple of new calves from the cows in the adjoining pasture.  We now have 4 little ones to join the herd.  One of the other cows lost her calf and is still down.  People have provided the cow with water and food but she has not stood up in the 2 days that we have been here.  The vaulters are picking on the dead calf so they moved it to the berry patch nearby.  We speculate that the cow  had some kind of complications with the birth and was not able to tend to the calf.   Sometimes nature it is not very nice?

Kathy is busy creating art for her Journal - I think it has 30 pages or so and she is determined to fill it up with artwork.  In the interim she has created another Journal to work on after she finished this one.  This artwork sure keeps her busy and she enjoys the creativity and feedback from her artist community.  She continues to learn and grow with the class she is taking. 

Several weeks ago we got a letter from our HOA advising us that our pepper trees in the back yard at too big.  I did some trimming on the trees after that letter and last week we got our second notice - they acknowledged that some trimming was done but the tree canopy and root balls are much to big for the area and the branches are hanging over the neighbors fence.  We have had  issues with those neighbors for many years over those pepper trees - they have asked us many times to cut them down as the trees are very dirty and debris falls into their pool.  This issue is not going away so we will likely be forced to remove them in the future - expensive propotion at 2 K or more...  If  the truth were know, I would much prefer removing the two large trees in the front yard instead of the back yard.  Our lot is really not that large and we have a grand total of 32 trees last count.  Watch this space - - more to come on the fate of the pepper trees for sure!!

Finally got some golf ball sales last week, I was supposed to have a sale here in Redding yesterday but that did not work out.  I messed that sale up for sure - - request came in from Craigs list from a person named Stacey. I went back and forth with this person and at one point I suggested that she may like Noodles or Precept golf balls, those are favorites for the ladies.  I got a reply back announcing that this person was a male and his mother named it Stacey.  I did not respond back to the flub up - sure messed up that order, learned a lesson though.  I did play golf with some friends last Saturday at Los Positas in Livermore - we had a great time and it was nice to see them again. 

Not much else for news - - hope you have a nice week end and a great week.

More later.

Ron, Kathy, Tessie and Sammie ( the cat)