Homework

It's hard to believe we're several days into October. Although the days have shortened, whilst the sun is up we've been wilting through an ongoing heat wave. It's 99 degrees Fahrenheit at four in the afternoon, in my shady covered patio that serves as home office, entertaining space and general happy place.

This is how it looked before we move in, in July. We liked the house and its potential but wondered at the absence of birds and squirrels, that we're so used to having around.

A couple of months later and our jungle is softening the hard edges already. The cat and I just got a very rude talking to from a squirrel who was headed in to feast on the grains that fall from the bird feeder. Slinkie left her lounging post on the table, where she makes the most of the breeze, and took a step or two towards Mr. Squirrel. He found himself taking refuge in a tree that can't have been to his liking and was very clear about sharing his opinion.

I wish I could share the perfume of the Hawaiian Ginger with you. The flowers unfurl discreetly. I always discover a new blossoming by head-turning scent at first. They sometimes continue flowering into January, if we don't get a cold snap. The trellis behind the Ginger supports a Persian Jasmine, which has doubled in size since we've been here.

Although only a dozen, or so miles away from our last home, we've left the proximity to the coastal range, where Nature's air conditioner, Fog, rolls inland in the evenings and where clouds catch and break open in normal rainy seasons.

The heat is much more challenging when there's no respite as dark falls. Fans are our new found friends. If the air is moving, you can fool yourself into pretending it's cool.

We've christened our space with a get together of twenty two friends and family members. That maxed out the space. We'll have to set the tables on the lawn, if we increase our guest numbers next time.

I took TAO's daughter, who was visiting from France, on a trail ride in the tree shaded hills around the barn where I usually ride in the arena. She'd never met a Palomino horse before. It's a very Western Movie kind of thing. On the way back, galloping up to the top of the big pasture, there was a Bald Eagle flying low enough for us to clearly see his white head and enormous dark wingspan. I'm still in awe.

I'm putting my drafting skills to work to capture a design for a fireplace, for a designer/friend I met with yesterday. She's purchased a coastal getaway home in Cambria. I drove three and a half hours each way yesterday. We had planned to spend the weekend relaxing and sight seeing but TAO had eaten something that didn't agree with him and didn't feel he was safe to leave the house. "The Trots" was a term my Father used to use, and has nothing to do with equitation. Poor TAO!

I swooped along in freewheeling solitary pleasure. Much appreciated after all the carpooling we've been doing since we moved. Radio and air-conditioning set to my preferences and beautiful effects of sideways sun-shortening shadows, making the creases and canyons disappear from the landscape, as the day got up. It was a reverse-commute direction, both going and coming. (Thanks be to Heaven!). The one small slowdown was due to trucks having to navigate around an S model Tesla, limping along with it's hazard warning lights on. Someone must have miscalculated their battery life or forgot to charge up before heading out into the boonies. Maybe they thought there were charging stations scattered between here and Los Angeles. Same planet, different worlds. There were only old Spanish Missions, National Guard gun ranges and the slow nod of the wellheads, competing to suck the earth dry of crude oil.

South of Paso Robles, the road out to the Pacific winds past a multitude of wineries, each named and designed for a different fantasy. It was still early and the only vehicle in sight was an old pick-up truck, in my rear view mirror. Suddenly, the pastoral view gave way to a sweeping Ocean-scape and twenty minutes later I was at my appointment. It was fun to catch up with their goings on. We haven't seen one another for a while. We fit easily into our professional groove and it wasn't hard to pin down what they wanted and see how to make it happen. 

My clients took me to lunch at Indego Moon in Cambria. I had a leek and crusted goat cheese tart with a salad and a glass of white wine. Leeks are the secret weapon of flavoring. It was just right, crunchy over soft and tasty as can be. I then went off to show my face (and ID and credit card) at the little motel where we had reservations. It was too last minute to cancel our reservation and I'd called a friend who needed a break, knowing it was her favorite destination. She and her husband said "Yes" immediately and would be there to make use of the room, which I had to pay for anyway. I'd much rather see someone get some pleasure out of it than have it go to waste.

Back home by dinner time, I cooked rice and hard boiled eggs to get TAO back on track. I'd cancelled my riding for the weekend, thinking we'd be gone, and so have had some time on my hands today. I started the morning topping up the seeds for the finches and renewing the sugar water mix for the Humming birds. I've not had a Humming bird feeder before. I chose a deep red antique glass bottle design as I know they like red flowers. I measured out the powdered sucrose mix and used warm water this time to melt it together more easily. As soon as I hung it back up, there was the buzzing of wings and the flash of green-glinting neck plumage. A short aerial battle ensued as Hummers are quite territorial. One gained priority but the other wasn't far away and hovered until he had supped his share.

Do cats remember dogs visually?

I brought home a new foster dog a couple of days ago. Scout is a mature collie boy with no apparent behavioral issues. My first "normal" dog in a while. I'd forgotten how easy collies usually are. Low-key, gentle, accepting of people and other animals. He needs to lose a few pounds and his eyes are being treated with drops and ointment twice daily, but he's otherwise very low-maintenance.
Slinkie, our cat, was right by the front door when we arrived on Thursday. She was surprised to come face to face with a dog the minute the door cracked open, but the meeting was peaceful. We re-erected the customary barricade that allows Slinkie a safety zone in part of the house that includes our bedroom and access to her door out to the garden.
Slinkie has been unusually confident in seeking out nose to nose contact with Scout, through the barrier. She has slid into the common space, wound her way around Scout's legs and miaowed greetings. Scout is thrilled. Even though he's a chunky fuzz-ball version, with some shaved-off patches where his coat was heavily matted when he was picked up as a stray, Scout shares a striking likeness with Diva, our original collie girl who is no longer with us. It's very unusual for Slinkie to be so accepting of a new resident canine. I keep coming to the conclusion that Scout reminds her of her old friend Diva.
There aren't a lot of empty spaces in my life just now. I travelled south last weekend to hang out with a friend. I don't remember if we've ever had a couple of days which were just for us; neither husband in tow. We chose to see movies that we liked the sound of and not something of universal appeal, and ease of translation. To heck with the "greater good", we had a blast.
The day after my excursion, I had to return to the airport to pick up The Artistic One, who landed from France minus his suitcase. The luggage did catch up eventually, but not without several days of phone conversations with Air France, which eventually unearthed the fact that somehow TAO's pronunciation/or writing skills had misled the poor airline into spending a couple of days driving around trying to find Deep Cleefe Drive, Rather than Deep Cliff. TAO's bag was delivered to our door in dead of night, complete with his lap-top and his medications.
Re-opening our work-shop on Tuesday morning, we quickly discovered that a large number of tools had gone missing. There was no sign of a break-in and I had been there, working in my office all the prior week. Sometime between Friday and Tuesday someone, somehow, helped themselves to $10,000 worth of equipment.
We made a police report, had a locksmith change our locks and must put it behind us. There's no recourse, no insurance and no sure way of discerning what happened. We're almost more angry at our one "lead employee" who was supposedly the only key-holder. Although the key is imprinted with the words "do not duplicate", he chose to have an extra key cut and gave it to our second employee, presumably for his convenience, should he be late getting to work in the morning.
We don't pay them to be brain surgeons or rocket scientists but it's hard to imagine they didn't know this wasn't good employee behavior. If they thought we'd be O.K. with it, they could have asked us, right? My first instinct was that I'd rather fire both of them. TAO doesn't want to as it's taken a long time to train them to do the work we need them to do. It's all very distasteful.
On a lighter note, I've been helping a client with ideas to remodel her childhood home. Her father passed away a few months ago and the house, which was built in the 1940's has a labyrinthine floor-plan with bits that were added on over the years. The in-law unit above the garage has a toilet in one closet and a shower in another and there's a downstairs bedroom with a door through one end into the garage.
The garage-bedroom is a natural place to put washer and dryer (currently in the tool-shed). A sink and some cabinets turn that into a laundry/ mud-room and reducing the size by moving one wall creates a full-size guest bedroom with copious closet space on the other side.
The in-law unit will be accessed by a new straight staircase, which will pass through the toilet-closet. Changing the location of the stairs also adds space in the kitchen below, and now the kitchenette anteroom is perfect for a full bathroom. There's a deck off the bedroom that has a view over trees and a glimpse of San Francisco Bay. It's sunny, with windows on three sides. It's destined to be a fabulous suite.
I've brought the floor-plans home with me. I'm trying to work out the best layout for the kitchen. I've enlisted a designer friend who is really good at space-planning. Unfortunately she's not always reliable about deadlines, especially when it's a case of returning favors, which is why I'm trying to move forward in my own way, in case she lets me down.
"Little House" as we've been calling it, has the potential to be a sweet little home with character. It has personality and a large flat garden on a very quiet street. My client's Dad used to enjoy his garden, and feeding the birds. A Blue-Jay followed me, peering at me through different windows, from a variety of improvised perches, as I went from room to room. The garden is overgrown but I can see the magic, waiting to be brought back. It's a perfect candidate for a white picket fence and a wonderful outdoor entertaining area.
I'd be keen to help plan the rebirth of this Little House purely because I love this kind of problem-solving construction, and the client is a sweetheart, but this also has the potential to be a house we can rent and live in as part of our master-plan to reduce our overhead and our time driving back and forth every day.
Many a slip is possible before this comes to pass, so I won't jinx it by saying it's a sure thing. If it happens it will be several months away. The house has been gutted and will need to be put back together once design decisions and budgets are firmed up. Even if we don't end up living there, Little House has sparked so many dreams of decorating rooms and gardens to plant that I feel recompensed for my time. I could never resolve a Rubik's cube puzzle but I can move walls around in my head and visualize the results.

The view from down here

Late for Tulips, Early for Wisteria.

I sometimes reward myself with an escape to a place of private pleasure. I drive to a nearby National Trust property that has reliably beautiful gardens and look my fill. It's not a huge detour, I spend a half hour appreciating colours and perfumes and the contented resonance of happy bees. I feel restored and take my smile with me again to face the day.

My timing has been a little off this season. We had a warm spell that provoked the tulips. They don't last long in California, once they flower their glory is brief. By the time I got there last week the main spectacle was over and the next, wisteria-phase, was just beginning. I was a bit annoyed at myself and the fact that it was mid-afternoon so too busy for my liking. I was grumpy at all the white-haired ones who have no concept that someone might need to pass on the brick walkways as they dither forward, four abreast, totally unconcerned. The docents were haggered and worn and had lost all sense of humour as there were repeated infractions onto the precious lawns.

Not my best visit. I will have to return again.