The Hollosphere

Conal’s granddaughter, Audrey, is visiting us at Murray Creek this week with her mom, Charlotte. Audrey is two. Audrey likes rice. A lot.

When you’re really chowing down hard on the rice, like, straight from the pan with your fingers, it’s important to protect your eyes.

Cats have been on my mind lately. Firstly, I’m completely addicted to lolcats. Srsly. I mean, come on! Also, people keep sending me pointers to assorted ridiculously adorable cats online. Check out this delightful video of Nora, the piano playing cat.

All this inescapable feline cuteness has me missing our family kitteh, Tess. Full name, Tessa Leone Croydon. I didn’t think she’d long survive country life. There are plenty of predators in these foothills who might make a quick snack of a city cat. So Tess went to live with my daughter, Tasha, when I moved to California. This picture was taken by Tasha in the spring of 2007 just after Tess had moved in with her.

Tess came unexpectedly into our family as a teensy kitten. It was an accident, on my part. A coworker brought her into the office to find a home for her. I had already been asked if I wanted a kitten and declined. However, when I opened the door to the office where she was visiting with a crowd of admirers (hey, I was trying to get work done!), Tess immediately dashed over to me and climbed me like a tree in about a half a second. I didn’t even have time to squeak. Once she’d made it to my shoulder, she proceeded to purr loudly while nosing around my ear with her cold wet nose. There was a general chorus of “Ooooh, she’s found her new mama!” and “Sold!” and things like that. I was pretty much sunk. She’d claimed me. Needless to say, she came home with me that day and became a full-fledged family member, growing up side-by-side with Tasha. My memory is filled with moments of excruciating cuteness between them, the little monsters.

Now she’s getting to be an elderly lady (Tess, not Tasha), hanging out with the kids and having a relaxing life free of cougars and rattlesnakes, lounging around on pillows or warm laundry, getting underfoot in the kitchen, and begging to be swept.

I enjoy the freedom that comes with not having responsibility for a pet. Heck, we don’t even have a houseplant. We can decide to hit the road anytime, lock the house behind us, and have no worries about leaving the place uninhabited.

But le sigh. I sure miss having a purr-baby around.

Conal and I began fixing up our home office. We spent a day painting it a couple of shades of gold with white trim and a white ceiling.

Then our friend Bill came out and laid down a wonderful new floor. We choose super durable Pergo flooring so that we can zoom around in our office chairs without worrying about scratching it up. Here is Bill laying the first board.

And here is the floor all laid down. Purty, eh? I’m very impressed with the new Pergo products. They have managed to make the texture line up with the wood pattern, making for a very realistic look. We love it.

Tasks remaining to complete the project include more coats of gold on the walls, touching up boo boos, repairing the moldings (which had to be removed to lay the floor), filling nail holes, and figuring out what kind of lighting to put in. We are looking forward to setting up our new L-shaped desks from Ikea, hanging pictures, and making it a lovely, cozy work space. For comparison’s sake, here’s what it looked like before.

Calaveras Big Trees State Park is about an hour’s drive from our place further up into the Sierra Nevada mountains. Where the snow is, this time of year. When my mom visited earlier this month, we took a trek on up to see the “vegetable monsters,” as the early 1800’s advertisers of the park called these living giants. Words and pictures certainly can’t do them the slightest justice, but here’s a couple of pictures anyway.

Here’s me with one of the little ones:

And my mom with a truly ginormous one:

Mom came to stay with us at Murray Creek earlier this month. I enjoyed her visit very much. Among the highlights were a labyrinth walk (including playing and toning with the family temple bowl when we reached the center), a trip to Angels Camp and Big Trees, Christmas tree decorating, and general merriment. From here, Mom flew to San Diego to visit her new grandboy, Graham. Mom is the first of my family to visit.

Here’s me, my mom, Conal’s mom, and Conal:

Labyrinth walkers:

Mom and Ann walking along Murraydale Lane near the labyrinth:

My brother and sister-in-law, Scott and Kimberly, had their first child on December 4th. I’m an Auntie, for reals! Baby Croydon’s name is Graham Scott, and he weighed 6 lb, 14 oz, at birth. All is well with Graham and his adoring parents.

Here is me. I am smiling, you can see. Why am I smiling? I am smiling because I so much enjoy our new washer and dryer. Aren’t we all lovely?

Over the last couple of weeks, Dave Bayette’s Tree Service has been working at our property as well as Ann’s property next door, and the Conklin place further down Murraydale Lane. Dave’s got some serious equipment including a monster chipper, a fleet of chainsaws, and a large truck to haul the chipped material, which also features a crane/bucket arrangement for high work in the trees.  This photo shows the truck parked in the valley bottom down by the creek at the old Chinese dam (the wall seen to the left of the truck).

Dave’s crew varies based on what needs to be done. At our place, he brought along four workers, one of whom was an experienced climber. The climber is the rather amazing person who goes up in the bucket to get the high limbs, or even crazier, scampers manually up trees with a chainsaw swinging from his belt. I’m completely impressed with the skill of the climbers. I can’t even imagine being up that high in a tree without hyperventilating, let alone hanging by one arm, operating a screeching chainsaw with the other, while at the same time managing how the cut pieces fall so that the process proceeds safely and without damaging the ground too much. Or the noggins of the ground crew working below. Talk about multi-tasking… I also enjoyed their knowledge of how trees grow and how best to trim them to encourage healthy growth.

The ground crew works like a well-oiled machine, clearing brush and downed limbs as they accumulate and putting it all through the chipper.  They worked very hard on the hillside below our house. We were able to do some clearing there this year, but these guys really gave us a wonderful jump on our vision of park-like landscaping all through the area. Here is a before shot taken in the morning:

And following is the same area that afternoon after they had cleared and chipped a huge amount of material, which they spread around the meadows as chips and mulch that will eventually disappear as it decomposes into lovely dirt. Sweet. Now the cleared areas will be easy to weed-eat and keep tidy and — wait for it — fire safe!!!!

Conal and I variously pitched in hauling and dragging branches and brush, sawing, and sitting around appreciatively watching the guys work. At one point, we were watching admiringly as Dave skillfully maneuvered the bucket up and around in the high canopy of a giant oak, working the crane’s angles to put himself in just the right spot for his next cut. It’s motion reminded me of the gut-clenching swing of a ferris wheel, only going in all directions instead of a nice, predictable circle. The other climber walked by us and I exclaimed to him, “You could charge admission for this show!” He grinned and replied, “Yep. The tree circus,” and headed off to refill his saw with fuel.

Dave works as hard if not harder than any of his crew. Here he is sawing away at an uprooted oak near our house that partially burned in the fire this past spring:

I think we made friends. The crew seemed to enjoy our company and help, chatting and cheerfully answering our endless questions about trees and saws and what have you. The chocolate chip cookies I baked for them were also a big hit. We’re looking forward to having them back again soon.

Well, it happened. My baby got married. Here she is with her new husband, Luke.

I have never seen a tarantula outside a zoo. Until today, that is! Conal said he’d never seen one at Murray Creek. When this one strolled across the driveway today, I was initially horrified. Then I saw how slowly and deliberately it moved, how its body looked fuzzy and kind of soft rather than icky, and I got more fascinated than scared. Having recovered from my initial wiggins, I followed it for awhile. I put my foot near it and took a photo. It sort of reared up in a weary “Oh for pity’s sake, now what?” kind of way, but didn’t seem too upset. As soon as I backed off, it continued ambling along, moving purposefully toward the northeast. It reached the edge of the driveway, climbed laboriously over the curb, then went scrambling and clawing its way up the steep hillside. A couple of times it chose routes that proved too precipitous, and would tumble back down and have to find another way around. It’s clumsiness lessened my fear still further.

Then a yellow jacket buzzed suddenly near it and it JUMPED, like, totally leaped sideways several inches in a split second. Since it obviously knew some wicked karate moves, after that I regained some respect and a bit more distance. It didn’t seem agressive at all, though, just careful in a defensive way. I mean, a yellow jacket sting would probably suck if you were that small, wouldn’t it? I’d jump out of range, too.

Back in the house, I could still see the spider from the window above my desk, making its way further and further up the hill in a more or less straight northeasterly line. Where in the world was it off too? A convention? A dental appointment? Those were some mighty big mandibles. I hope s/he has good insurance. I read that spiders eat all kinds of pesky bugs. Whatever its destination, I’m over my heebie jeebies and I wish this particular spider well.