Thursday, April 2, 2015
We are back home in Indiana
temporarily. We flew home from San Jose
on Tuesday. Obi is staying in a kennel
and the trailer is at an RV park. We’re
here for the family Easter gathering and doctor, dentist and hair appointments.
When I last wrote, we were
at Moss Landing north of Monterey. We
left there and moved to Pinnacles National Park. It’s the newest national park, although it
was designated as a national monument by Teddy Roosevelt. When we asked what the difference was, the
ranger responded that they were supposed to get more funding, but that wasn’t
happening, but they did have a bigger mandate to work on wildlife and natural
plants. Which may be why the entire
national park is surrounded by heavy fencing to keep out a wild pig species not
native to the area.
Although only about 2 hours
from Monterey and San Jose, Pinnacles is without cell service, so we had no
phone or internet for 2 days. But we had
electricity and satellite TV, so not completely cut off. Which was good, as when we were out, we
started seeing a lot of jet trails in the sky.
I think we saw about 10 in 15 minutes.
I turned on CNN immediately when we got back to the trailer, just to
make sure nothing momentous had happened.
Nothing had; there are just a lot of military facilities in California. But it’s a strange feeling sometimes to be
totally cut off these days.
The governor of California
recently declared a water emergency. As
you look around the scenery, you realize it’s a serious problem. While the hills right now are green from the
spring rain, most creeks are completely dry.
Some are bare dirt and rocks, while others have some weeds going
indicating they’ve had some water. While
California may provide most of our fruits and vegetables, almost all of it is
irrigated. And we’ve seen how low Lake
Mead in Nevada is; there’s not much water in reserve.
And basically, anything
green is being watered. Big changes will
need to happen.
We spent last Saturday with
Wes and Trent working on Wes and Leigh’s house.
They bought a house built in 1904 that has survived two major
earthquakes, without being firmly attached to the foundation. Wes has spent a lot of time getting
appropriate permits and engineering advice.
He’s disconnected of all the original knob and tube electricity and the
electric is up to code, where it exists.
He hasn’t finished rewiring yet.
Our job on Saturday was to
cut rebar and wire it into reinforcing forms to go into the concrete pillars
that will be poured in the basement. Wes
and Trent were finishing up the holes for the bases of the pillars. It was fun to work with the guys and see the
effort they are putting into the project.
It will be a lovely house in a lovely neighborhood (most neighboring
houses have been restored) when they are done.
Steve and I used to tackle
renovation projects, although nothing on this scale. But I looked at this house and realized I
just don’t have it in me anymore. We
made changes to the trailer and have a few more to do, but they are minor. I applaud Wes and Leigh for taking this on
and their family, especially Trent and their father, Tom, for all their
efforts. I hope we’ll be able to come
back next spring and help some more.
I apologize for the lack of
pictures today. I haven’t taken many
since my last post and my cord to connect my phone is upstairs, so I’ll just
get this posted as is.
Take care, everyone.
Deb
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