Happy 50th

SURPRISE!

My bro threw a surprise party for Auntie D's 50th and she was shocked!  She thought that they were going to Tahoe to celebrate her birthday but instead they came to the party.

It was super fun to see a bunch of her family and her friends who we had not seen in years.

50 years old!

And I got to meet this handsome guy - Louie!  He was the dog of the family who hosted the party and was a rescue from China.

Ouchee

Drama!  On Saturday morning we had the dogs out for exercise before heading up to EDH for Auntie D's surprise 50th.  I was going to throw the stick for Hops and reached down to grab it from her...at the same time she re-gripped the stick...and she bit right thru my finger nail!

I heard crunching and knew it was bad right away.  We had to walk home before I could clean it up and get a good look at it.

I sent a pic to Drew and he immediately sent back the pic below....which was his finger injury from the day before.  His finger got shut in a cooler!

Because we had to go to EDH, I cleaned it up and called the doc from the car.  They wanted to see it so I got an appointment at 8 pm that same nite.    Below is me soaking it at the doc.  The doc barely looked at it because I had gotten it all cleaned up already.  But she ordered xrays because if there was any bones broken I would need antibiotics.

The pic below is about 12 house after the bite and it looked pretty good!

Unfortunately there was a fractured bone, so I have to take antibiotics for a week.  It is now a day and a half later and it is MUCH better.  It is not throbbing at all.  I will keep the splint on for another day or so just to protect the tip of my finger.

Reunion

My favorite Washington backpacking partner is in the Bay Area for a visit!  So, I took the morning off of work and we went on a hike...in the pouring rain.  How strange that when I hiked with her in the Pacific Northwest it was dry but when she comes to California, we hike in the rain!

Sanborn - the lake is full!

Fire Starters

We made some new fire starters on our last trip to the cabin.  You remember the drill....lint stuffed in toilet paper rolls and covered with melted wax!

We ended up with a whole bucket of them which was great because we had just used our last one!

Rim Fire Reforestation

We went to the Rim Fire Reforestation meeting to learn about helping to plant trees in the area devastated by the Rim Fire.  They are looking to plant 7 million trees in the Rim Fire footprint in the next five to seven years.  Planting starts in mid February and goes thru March.  They have to wait until the soil temp is 45 degrees and the air temp stays about 40 degrees.   They are using volunteers and contractors to do the work and will be running volunteer groups 7 days a week.

We are planning to spend at least one weekend planting trees and more if we can fit it in.

There are no words...

Avery

William

Big Creek Crossing

When we were at the cabin last weekend we all took a hike at Big Creek to watch all the water!  Jeremy decided to cross the creek to climb a big rock.  We all watched and I got these hilarious pics of him setting up and jumping across.

Ahi seemed bored silly by the show!

Daisy seemed amused!

Form

Grace has the perfect crash form!  You can see the jump she just came off of to the right in the pic.  Jim was videoing her and Jeremy, who also crashed coming over it - along with an old man who went between them and crashed!

Unfornate Event with a Barbed Wire Fence

Yesterday while hiking at Big Creek, Hops had an unfortunate incident with a barbed wire fence.  The pic above is a puncture wound on her front left leg.  You could see right down into a tendon.  The pic below shows the area after I cut the hair away (because as my cousin Jess says, "hair is a great place for funk to grow").

The pic below is her back right leg after it is all cleaned up.  It is not as deep and gaping as the other one.

Now we just have to get her not to lick it.  So far she has been good about leaving it alone.

Geo-chaching

On Saturday, we needed to go into Sonora to attend a meeting about volunteeering to plant trees in the Rim fire area, so on the way we decided to boondoggle and do some geocaching.

The first place we started had a cache in a drainage that went under a road and shot out the other side with at least a 20 foot drop.  Jim and Jeremy went into the pipe searching for the cache.  Unfortunately we think it fell the way of El Nino and got dislodged and lost because we could never find it.

Right where we parked, G and J saw a plastic bag filled with "a possum".  So we all went to investigate and saw it was truly a bag full of something that looked like it had once been something alive!  First thought was...."what if it was a baby".  That led to action!  Jim grabbed a stick and started poking at it!  While Tina yelled, "Jim put that stick down"!   After poking awhile they decided it was the entrails of something.  Why it was in a bag on the side of the road, no one will ever know!

Our second cache was less exciting.  We found it in about 2 seconds and put a Trout Festival sticker in it.

Final destination was the Rim Fire Reforestation meeting.  More to come on that later!

Badger Snow Shoe

Marty and I went out for a snow shoe yesterday while Tina guarded our stuff and Jim, Jman and G all skied/snowboarded.

Real conversation:

MARTY:  Sorry I sent you that video that was so graphic.

ME:  Oh, the one about eating your hiking partner if needed?  It's ok I didn't watch very much of it.

MARTY:  Well, if you have to eat me, don't eat my face, I want to look good in my casket.

ME:  That's ok because I don't want to be picking whiskers out of my teeth.

Grey Days

We are redoing G's room.  The bedding is below - which looks a bit blue in the pic but it is really grey.

We have two grey paint colors chosen and one of the 3 walls already painted.  It will be a very elegant look.

New Boots

If you remember back to our Washington backpacking trip, you will remember that my boots started to blow out right before we left.  I had gone on an emergency search for boots and didn't find any that worked.  So I wore my old boots on the trip and the held up!  YAY!. 

But now that I am between trips, I need to find a new pair so I can get them broken in and spend the time finding something that fits just right.

So I ordered 3 pair of boots from REI and I am trying them out around the house.  This is a HUGE decision for me because a bad pair of boots will ruin a trip.  AND - I LOVE my old boots!  They are like an extension of myself.  They are so comfy that I could wear them every day.


So stay tuned for the drama of me making a decision. 

Steamboat

Drew is on a ski trip for this long weekend.  He joined the Ski and Snowboard club on a bus trip that includes 3 days of skiing!  Unfortunately it is a 14 hour bus ride there and a 14 hour bus ride home!  He will be arriving early this morning, so more pics will be coming thru the weekend.

Fungus Among Us!

I went for my morning walk yesterday and went in a different direction.  I found this mushroom growth on a tree right next to our house.  Pic below shows Ahi to show scale!  You would think we lived in a forest!

Welcome to Our Home

Jim got me a new welcome mat for xmas!  I love it!

Harvey Bear

G and W - good buddies

Jim, Grace and I met Kyle and William at Harvey Bear this morning.  The plan was for Kyle to get in a mountain bike ride while G, Jim and I hiked with William.  Unfortunately, the trails were closed to bikes and horses due to muddy conditions.  So Kyle decided to join us for a hike. 

The trails were pretty muddy but we didn't let that stop us.  We climbed to the top and checked out the view.  And we enjoyed the scenery along the way - including beautiful oaks andgiant black and white cows!

There pretty much isn't anything cuter than this!

G and W had countless conversations about the cows - which W summed up as "Cow, moo, happy".

If we had cairns this big in WA we never would have lost our way!

After our hike, we went back to Mari and Kyle's house where I got to snuggle the baby while G made flat bread for caprese piadines.  YUM!  It was such a great day hanging with our buddies!