Spring is here!

Brief news of the last few weeks: Amelia had her right knee replaced on March 15. She is having a good recovery, and working hard with her physical therapy and exercises to make it all work. Her sister, Becky, came on the 27th of March to stay with us and help out for two weeks. Thanks to Mark and Darla for bringing her down. Sorry, got no pictures of them. Good help it was, too. Don came a week or so later. Hailey came for Easter (on Good Friday) with our new Granddog, Tate. More on that later.

Daffodil Hill

By April 3rd, Amelia was stir crazy enough that we took a little trip up to Shady Cove to see the Daffodil Hill area. It was a little late for prime viewing, but we saw some fields of daffodils, some daffodils close up, and a couple of turkeys. We had lunch at the Two Pines Smokehouse in Shady Cove. Yummm! Then we drove on up to the Lost Creek Dam. Below the dam there is a nice area for walking along the Rogue River, but the visitor center was closed. People were fishing on the river. I got a "sort of" picture of a small blue butterfly. Well, it's the blue speck on the left side of the picture. I now confess that I got no pictures of Don and Becky. Next time I'll remember to correct that sad state of affairs. I hope.

Brief update to flower pictures. We have California poppies coming on pretty strong, and the lilacs are out all over the valley.

Hailey and Tate come for my birthday

As I mentioned, Hailey and the new granddog, Tate, came up from Palo Alto for a few days. She was hankering for a new hairdo, so she went in to Ashland looking normal ( I should have taken a "before" picture, but wasn't expecting the magnitue of change! - well, I went back and dredged up an old picture and cropped the other folks out of it - thanks to whoever took it a couple of months ago, and thanks to Hailey for sending it to me). Here is an "after" picture, and another with Tate. Hey! Matching hairdos. Here's another against the blue sky. Tate's not a one person dog, as here he seems pretty happy with me.

Birthdays, we have birthdays

My birthday was on Easter Sunday this year, the 4th time in the last 33 years! At eleven year intervals, by golly. Interesting to look at the sequence of years at which Easter is on certain (possible) dates. Possible means March 22 to April 25. For more information on the determination of the date for Easter, see the Astronomical Society of South Australia website on the matter. Or, Eric Weisstein has lots of information on these matters. The Paschal Full Moon is an artifical thing, and may or may not occur on the same day as the real full moon. Anyway, Easter is on the first Sunday after the Paschal Full Moon, which is always after the 20th of March (by definition, I reckon). But I digress. But one more digression. Eric Weisstein has lots of great information at Eric Weisstein's World of Science. Have a look.

Well, anyway, here's the happy birthday crew on the deck on Easter. Earlier, Tate had been getting a little training in the old cookie on the paw trick while Amelia looks on. Afterward he looks quite content.

The afternoon was gorgeous, so we took a ride out to Emigrant Lake. For the first time, on Easter Sunday, Tate really got into his Lab-ness. He went way out into the Lake to fetch a stick (or was that a log?). On shore, I got a little better shot of a (different) butterfly. But only slightly better. Finally after drying off, Tate and crew were ready to head for home.

And then, Tax time

Well, yes, but I finished up a day early this year, so today I had time to take a picture of Amelia's knee, the one behind which the new joint resides. Pretty nice looking scar, eh? I also had a little time after the SOLIR classes and before the rain to work on chipping up the old yard waste. I've got the pile to be chipped and shredded down pretty pretty small, with the chip pile from last fall (foreground, left), and last spring (background, left - the red pile is lava rock - no chipping there), and the current pile behind the shredder. Wish everything you can see was all that is left, but I've still got things to haul over, and more trimming to do, too. Ah, the life of a gentleman "farmer". One of the things this has in common with real farming is that I get no income from it.