Workday

Hops came to work with me for the first time last week.  We packed her backpack up with her stuff and off we went in the mini.  She slept the whole way there!

She was so good all day.  She either slept by my desk or next to me when I was in meetings. Everyone loved her.  We had repeat visitors for belly scratches and loving!

Off to work!

Springtime

Took the dogs out for a hike this morning near the cabin.  The wildflowers were unbelievable!

Cousin Henry

Doggie Rescue

G was on a bike ride on Wednesday afternoon and noticed this dog hiding under a truck.  When she went to try to get the dog it ran under another car.  She called Jim to come with a harness and a leash and crawled under the car and talked her out.  Poor little thing had been running around the neighborhood for at least 4 hours and people were trying to catch her.

G brought her home and she was terrified.  She sat in the crate and shook.  G took her to the vet to see if she was chipped - she was not.  We posted her pic on nextdoor and facebook hoping that when someone got home from work noticed her missing, we would hear from them.

But we heard nothing.

G and I took her out in the neighborhood on a long leash hoping she would lead us to her house.

But she didn't.

So I put her pic on paw boost which is a lost dog app.  In the middle of the night I got a message from someone saying the dog look like a lost dog out of Fremont, which was about 25 miles from where G found her.  I sent a message to the person who posted the pic and she said she was certain it was her dog.

I asked for pictures and asked her questions to obtain information about the dog that only the owner would (i.e. she had 5 bumps on her skin).  The answers and pics made us 99.9% certain she was the owner.   She told me that the dog was named Daisy and had gotten out with her others dogs.  She had found the other two but not Daisy.

I set up a time for her to come and see the dog that night.  While Drew sat in the window anxious to see if the dog would act like she knew the "owner", Grace and I waited outside.

When the "owner" got out of the car and called her, the dog looked and then ran behind us.  The "owner" came closer, talked to Daisy some more and Daisy ran to her and jumped up on her, clearly happy to see her.  The owner, Alicia cried and thanked us over and over.  She gave us a little gift and said she didn't have the words to thank us enough.  Her son, who was about 8, leaned in for a hug when I asked if Daisy was his dog!

That has got to be one of the luckiest dogs in the world.  She got out of her house, then someone likely picked her up and dumped her in or neighborhood.  Multiple people tried to catch her.  Then G, who has the patience of a saint, came along and laid under a car and talked to her until she could calm her and grab her.   Then we did all we could do to find the owner.

My personal belief is our beloved Daisy Mae brought this little Daisy to us because she knew we would help her.  Daisy Mae, you are such a good girlie!

Bathing Beauties

You would think that we posed these two Labradors with Tre.  But we did not and these pics were taken 5 minutes apart.  The Labs lay down to sun themselves and then Tre runs over and climbs up to get in on the sunbathing!

Happy 11th Birthday

We have had this little weener for 11 years now....we should get a medal for sticking with her for that long!  She has brought us thousands of dollars in vet bills, endless worries and a lot of laughs due to her nasty personality.

We celebrated with a 5 mile hike, a pumpkin applesauce cake and she received as stuffed trout you which was immediately stolen by Oakley.  In fact, Oakley carried it off to bed with her!

Happy birthday Ahi Wasabi, you cranky old girlie!

Friends

Inter-species friendship:  Tre and Oak.  Both sunning themselves.

Beardie Stats

Grace decided we needed to measure the beardies.  I didn't really realize how different they were - in size - until we did this exercise and put them right next to each other.

Tre is 18 3/4 inches and Grendel is 6 3/4 inches.  It will be cool to see how fast Grendel grows.

Mountain Day 2019

At the end of my third week at my new job, I volunteered to lead a hike for Mountain Day.  Mountain Day features three different hikes for the employees to participate in.  There are snacks before you leave and then a meal when you get back.  We hiked the Pleasanton Preserve Trail.  I led about 30 employees.

The best part was my coworker, Allison, and I did a test hike a few days before and got lost!  Not really lost but we took a wrong turn.   I am super glad I did the test hike before I had 30 people behind me and went the wrong way.

My former Yahoo colleagues who are now my new colleagues!

Welcome Grendel

We have a new family member:  Grendel, a 2 month old, 3 legged bearded dragon!  Grace heard about him being up for adoption (for free) and rushed off to rescue him.  He apparently got into a beef with another beardie and lost his front left leg.  His name is Grendel which is the name of a monster in the Old English epic poem, Beowulf.  In the poem, Grendel loses an arm in a fight with Beowulf.  We also call him Lefty and Lenny after my Grandpa who lost his left arm in the war.  He came to us with the name Stumpy so we call him that too!

We need another beardie like we need a whole in our heads but he is pretty darn cute!

1st week of work

I survived my first week at my new job!  And I have decided to give it another week. Honestly it was harder that I expected and I thought it would be really hard!  I had an incredibly warm welcome from the folks I knew there already and from my new team.   I hope this will be my new work home for many years.  

Fremont Older

Did a hike with our Sunday Hiking Club at Fremont Older - a place I have never been.  It was an awesome trail with stunning views of the valley.  Cousin Lisa joined us.

Hops and her coworkers

These are all of Hops’ coworkers!  Clockwise starting with Hops, Maya, Hank, Amber and Oreo. Good dogs!

Cherry Boondoggle

We decided to do a winter boondoggle out to Cherry to see what we could see!  The first thing we see is a water plane tootling around the lake.  It floated around for awhile and then took off!

Jim spent some time flying the drone while G and I hiked around with the dogs.  Then we had a little picnic and soaked up the sun.

Cottonwood road to Sonora was completely covered with snow

I wanted a new rock for the front yard, so we went on a hunt!  We found this cool piece of broken granite with red coloring.

This is one of the hardest hit areas from the Rim Fire - you can still see how completely devastated it is almost 6 years later.

We stopped at the river to do some more drone flying.  It will be cool to see the footage because he flew it way up the river.

This was an interesting find - at Early Intake there was a pile of old scrap.  We figured it was for some old pully or flume system.  I wonder where it came from.

All in all, a good boondoggle!

Ruh Roh

Just was we were getting ready to leave the cabin to come home, I noticed a drip coming from the faucet to the washing machine.  Ruh Roh!

I went out to the driveway to get G, who was already loaded up and we went to investigate further.

We pulled out the washer and dryer and found that there had been a slow leak for some time.   So we shut off the water to the house, drained the water from the pipes and left a bucket under the faucet - just in case.  Glad I did one last check before we left!

Puffy Faced Weener

Looks like Ahi had another allergic reaction to something.  She threw up at 2 am and then at 8:30 am she looked like this!  We quickly started benadryl but it continued to get worse until it finally started to subside around 2 pm.  At about 1 pm she got a new dime sized bump on the top of her head!  A hive???

Last time we attributed it to a tick bite but this time we couldnt find any ticks although we had been hiking ealier in the week and we had picked some ticks off of Hops.

Look at the swelling on the top of her snoot!  Looks like a beak.

San Francisco Staycation

Succulent crab - I want one in my front yard!

The day after my last day of work at Yahoo G and I took a short trip to SF.  We went to Alcatraz, rented bikes and rode them across the Golden Gate Bridge, saw Beach Blanket Babylon and wandered around Chinatown.

We got dessert at Ghiradelli!

Alcatraz

We really enjoyed the Alcatraz tour.  We happened upon a talk by a Ranger about the first 3 escape attempts and loved listening to the details and thinking about what it must have been like out there.

Alcatraz

We stayed at the Argonaut Hotel and it was very nice, very comfortable and a really convenient location.   In fact, we walked everywhere except to the train station.

Speaking of the train, we took the train up to the city and had to get off early and take a "bus bridge" the rest of the way because they were working on the tracks.  That was an adventure in itself because we sat across from a young gal who talked really loud on her cell phone the whole trip and talked about "hooking up", setting up her friend with a nice Christian boy and porn!  The bus was packed with people and she flapped her gums the whole time for everyone to hear!

Found a new yummy candy - gummy pineapples

Chrissy Field

Coit Tower

We really enjoyed Beach Blanket Babylon - it had long been on my bucket list and I am really glad we made the time to see it.  I will definitely go back in a couple of years.

Overall it was a great staycation in a city that is so close but that we don't usually make the time to see.