Scottie and Cocoa's Excellent Adventure

Take one husband anxious to go to San Diego to see his family and hang out with his buddies.


Add one car, the Scion, with fold-down seats in the back to accommodate the bike, the tools he wants to take, and all his various other gear.



Let the absent minded husband leave the car door open as he's loading a month's worth of crap - oh, make that gear - for a week's visit, and what do you have?


Well, at our house you have Cocoa deciding she really, no REALLY, needs to go along.



Picture the grown man trying to coax the dog out of the car, trying to get the wife to be the bad guy and drag Cocoa out of the car, finally giving in, calling his father for permission and taking the girl-dog along.

A good time was had by all.


Scottie had lots of family time including a cook out for which he did the tri-tip. He managed two eagle trips with Dr. Hannan, and a bike ride with the big boys - not sure what they are, maybe semi-pro - and a meal at his favorite Mexican dive.

Cocoa also had a great time. She even got to hang out in the den and watch TV with Grandpa Hughie.

Foxie, our grandpup, came over for the cookout, and the two girls had a chance for play time.


Cousin Bruce and his dad, Uncle Dougie (brother to Grandpa Hughie) made the party.

















As did Susie, Scottie's sister, and Bobby. . . now what do we call him. . . . I'm thinkin' the son-out-law. Can't be an in-law yet; still he's pretty much family. Yep, son-out-law it is.

Exhausted, Tired, Worn out, Pooped, Drained. . . .

Well, you get the idea.

Scottie has been gone since last Tuesday, and I've done nothing but work. No - no one made me. My bright idea.


After living in our house nearly a year some of our original ideas have changed. We now plan to attach a car port to the house rather than build a free standing structure. So, the area where that structure was to go - and which we had covered in road base and compacted - will now become plantable.

So, I've been digging up and moving gravel and road base. Scottie's shed was always surrounded by mud, the slippery, icky kind that comes from clay. So about half of what I've dug up has gone in front of and on around the side of the shed. That's where he washes his bike, so he can now do it without being ankle deep in mud.

To the front of the photo is a grass I planted 2 of, both on the berm that we do water, that will get 5 - 6 foot tall and stay green and fresh in the summer when much here turns brown.


I left a gravel path that runs essentially from the back door to the steps that go down to my shed, aka the garden shed. Although it doesn't look like much in the photo, the two lines on the sides of the path were dug and roto-tilled (thank you Mantis) through 4 - 6 inches of rock and dg, then planted with about 50 little plants from 6-packs. May not look like much now, but it will be quite pretty when they take off. The little sprig visible to the right of the path is a ceanothus, aka wild lilac.









This is the overview. Ceanothus and 2 lilacs on the left. Either Scottie or I will build a low fence with gate to hide the garbage cans and propane tank. At the back is a small triangular bed with flowers in it, and not visible are the sweet peas I planted some time ago now coming up on the fence. To the right are two blue fescues that essentially mark the front of the plantable area. The large triangle in back gets veggies, and there are small flowers planted along the top of the bank just before the small rose bushes that I planted a while back, and which, by the way, have buds!

And, I'm sure you are wondering about the topiary form in the center. . . . Well, I was given the form from a friend who used to grow a formal ivy on it. I don't do formal. In the pot are 3 tomatoes that will cover the first big globe. The intermediate globe now has screening material and soil planted with nasturtiums, which will cover it, vine up over the top globe and hang down. Pretty creative, huh?
I ran out of energy, and am waiting for Scottie to get back to help with the planting area between the topiary and the fescues, which is where I need to move my herb garden. I planted it before we changed our minds about the car port, and it's now in the way of where that structure will go. Lesson learned: I should slow down. Will I?? Don't count on it.

Of travels, visits and such

A couple of weeks back grandson Declan visited. I've been too busy - not getting the blog updated, not getting the web site updated. Got to get it under control.

Anyway, Scottie put Declan, a confirmed city boy, to work!

They did some trim work on my garden shed - which you may notice is STILL not painted - on Declan's first day.


The boy also got a major introduction to the weed eater! Poor kid didn't know what he was in for on this vacation. Since so many Californians have a gardener, usually Mexican, and rarely bother to learn their names, they all become "Juan". So, I've dubbed Declan "Two".

Yes, of course, I know it isn't politically correct, but here's the deal: PC stinks. It keeps us from communicating honestly and openly with one another. Last week Scottie and I ate at Colima's, my favorite local Mexican food haunt. The owners/managers - a super nice couple - along with the young guys who work there are trying to help me learn Spanish. The gentleman was talking about having insisted that his kids speak both Spanish and English, kids didn't want to, etc., but are now glad they do, can communicate easily with the grandparents. He commented something to the effect that all Mexicans should know Spanish. I commented on the fact that he said Mexican rather than Mexican-American, Hispanic, Latino, etc.

He feels, as I do, that it's become a big issue over nothing and said "we are Mexican". Yea! Go have that conversation when everyone is being PC.

Anyway, enough of my viewpoints, here's Declan hiking with Gumpy in the park. They had to hike 2 or 3 miles to get to Moro Rock (road is closed for repairs), then climb the rock, then hike back. I'm wondering if Two will want to visit again. . . .

Scottie is in San Diego visiting his Dad, gets back next week, then we have San Diego visitors arriving here for a few days, then Scottie starts his seasonal job in the park (in uniform no less). My friend Michelle will then fly up from SD, spend a couple of days and drive back down with me when I got visit my father-in-law. FIL will be alone for 2 weeks while my sister-in-law travels, so I'm going down about the middle to spend some time with him. FIL will be 97 in September. Wow.

I'll also visit Mae Lou, my friend in the nursing home. Meanwhile, I have enough projects to keep Two through Twenty busy for a month! Want to come help?

Busy, busy week just passed!

A week ago was my birthday - 61 - and we barely had time to celebrate.


The day after the B-D, Scottie fixed an amazing vegetarian dinner for me, with a souffle no less, homemade muffins, asparagus, salad - Wow!

The flowers are from a friend's garden.

But, we were in the midst of getting ready for the Studio Tour, so we had to immediately shift gears and get back into that.

Introduced at the Tour was "Fiona's Fairy Filosofy" (copyrighted words and images by the way). Fiona is a Fairy who will be traveling the world dropping off bits of wisdom and "filosofy".

This is one of her first:


I had prints of this one and two others available for sale and comment, and it appears that Fiona is off to a flying start - I couldn't help myself! Get it? "flying" start, fairy, wings, etc?

Tour volume was down 1/3 from the last tour 2 years ago, a result of economy, gas prices, etc., I'm sure, but we still had about 150-175 people in 2 days!

And, with my studio upstairs, I'm paying a price. The plan had been for a helper person - that would be Scottie - downstairs and me in the studio with much of the art in the stairwell. Most folks wanted to go up/down the stairs with me to talk about the art! These 61 year old legs, knees and feet took a beating but had great fun!


Scottie and I both forgot to take pictures, so I'm hoping to get some from others. This one photo is an entire family group. They have an amazing singing group, Faena Brava, involving almost the entire family and are even bringing in the kids. Quite cool that they chose to come.

Buck and Cocoa were boarded for the weekend, and Cocoa has been traumatized since coming home. Not only was she sent away, she came home to all the strange smells in HER house.

Lucy and Ellie were in their carriers during the day, but a surprising number of people wanted to go say hi to them. Lucy had a day of being mad at me and is now lounging to recover.

And, Scottie is back on his bike, I'm back to the rest of my world, and a return to some semblance of normal. Next Tour is in two years, the last weekend of March of 2010, this time THREE days, Fri, Sat, Sun. Mark you calendars!