October 26th: Trying to ignore the news

 

Someday perhaps there will be good news, but so far everything seems out of control. Therefore, I decided, since I already voted, I'll try to ignore the news until after the election. I find riding my bike and walking the beach are great alternatives. The weather has cooled down a little, low 70's, so very pleasant for riding. I rode to the San Elijo Lagoon to see how the conservation restoration was going. Once I arrived I walked some of the paths. There has been significant progress. Thousands of little plants were planted and spaced out by all the colored flags in the picture. I figured out that a different plant was planted by color. They seem to be doing very well. Not surprisingly, they must have picked the correct plants. 

While walking the trails I spotted 3 White Egrets, 2 Kingfishers, a Marbled godwit, many Killdeer and a variety of birds I couldn't identify. It's great to see the area attracting birds again.

Marbled godwit

I couldn't get very close and my phone is not the best camera but here are a few pictures.

Same Marbled godwit taking flight

This Marbled Godwit is kind of bland colored walking but very pretty when flying.

Snowy Egret

This Snowy Egret was fun to see. We see a lot in Florida. Their legs are black but their feet are yellow. I understand they wiggle their yellow toes to attract lunch!

It was a nice cool day and the ride along the cliffs overlooking the ocean was very enjoyable and scenic.

In addition to riding my bike, I took on a new challenge. My landlady, Mara, said she had an extra Kitchen Aid mixer I could just keep at my place. I think I said it before but just to be sure, Scott and Mara are wonderful landlords. Got me thinking about anise cookies. They are fun to make because if done correctly they end up with a little cap on top. Tricky to make and require a good mixer because you have to beat eggs and sugar for 30 minutes. I had never made them but my Mom and sister Julie had. Mara gave me the mixer so what else could I do? Julie sent the recipe so I made the attempt.

Anise cookies the way
they are supposed to look

 I discovered there is an art to making anise cookies. The first batch turned out flat with no caps on them. (The caps always intrigued me.) The recipe calls for putting the cookie dough on a cookie sheet and letting the unbaked cookies sit over night. If all goes well, you put them in the oven the next morning to bake for 10 minutes and the little caps form. 

First failed batch

The first batch was clearly too liquid and flattened out. They did, however, taste good.

Rough Capped anise cookies

So I tried again. This time I cut the recipe by 1/3. Decided to do small batches until I got it correct. This time they turned out great. Okay, might as well make a full batch the next night. This time the batter seemed a little too thick. Not much I could do because the only liquid is eggs beaten for 30 minutes. Can't add more at this point. Forged ahead. Let them sit over night and they never got smooth on top. Put them in the oven to bake and they did get caps on them. Very rough, but caps. Again tasted very good. 

By now I had way too many anise cookies. Wendy likes them but there is a limit! I gave some of the flat ones to my landlords whom I told I was going to make anise cookies, and explained they weren't "right". They said they tasted great.  I promised to show them how they were supposed to be. I had to get it right. I wanted to give them some with caps, even though they said the flat ones tasted great. 

Success

Next attempt I erred on the side of too little flour. The batter seemed a little thin so I added two teaspoons of flour. It looked pretty good to me! Let them sit overnight and success. I had plenty to share with the landlords and enough to send a batch to Julie. I think I'm done with anise cookies for a while.

Pink Florida design

When nothing else is going on Wendy and I work on T Shirts. It's fun wearing the T shirts. I've needed some dental work and the staff at the dentist office waits to see what the latest design is. I have two new ones that were both a big hit.

Viking Ship

Our market has expanded. We made one for my sister Julie. The picture is a little washed out so I included one of just the shirt. We are working on one for Linda's brother Tom. He likes frogs and gecko's. 

Julie in her new T shirt

As I posted in an earlier blog, I put up an Ivy privacy fence on my balcony. It not only blocks the sun, but it provides privacy for me as well as the house across the alley. At least it doesn't look like I'm a peeping Tom when I'm looking out off of my balcony. That house gives a whole new meaning to "Open concept." When they open up it is really open. Obviously, they are not looking for privacy.

House across the alley across from my balcony

The picture on the box

Karen (San Juan Capistrano) noticed I had completed the two picture puzzles Wendy, Matt and Rebecca gave me. They were very challenging but fun to finish. Karen gave me one that she has had but never completed. It's not nearly as difficult as the blue ocean and brown sand but is a lot of fun. It is a picture of almost 100 Vintage candy wrappers. Talk about bringing back memories! There are only about 15 that I am not familiar with. The funny thing is, when working on the puzzle, my mind automatically recognizes the wrapper puzzle pieces. The puzzle is so detailed that it is taking longer than I thought to complete, but fun!

Progress to date

I have snorkeled a couple times at La Jolla. The conditions weren't great but I am working on stretching out my wet suit. I'm told it takes a while to stretch it out. I hope it stretches out soon! I feel like a stuffed sausage compared to swimming without it. The water temperature isn't too cold right now but is dropping dramatically so I'll need the wet suit if I want to keep swimming, which I do!

Steve in his new wet suit

I was sitting at my kitchen table and quite suddenly heard a loud "Caw, "Caw," "Caw," etc. I went to my balcony to see what was going on. I felt like I was in Alfred Hitchcock's thriller 'The Birds". There must have been 200 crows circling and landing in the big pine tree across from my balcony. After about 15 minutes they flew on to wherever they were going.

October 20th: Celebration date update

Steve & Linda, Dunn's River Falls, Jamaica circa 1975

As I started to make the arrangements for the Linda Franko Celebration of Life and investigated further,  we settled on May 22, 2021 at 12:00 PM. instead of May 1st. The Mohican Lodge on Pleasant Hill Lake is available and May 22nd will also give us an additional 3 weeks to hopefully cope with the virus. Here is the website for the Mohican Lodge. https://www.mohicanlodge.com/ Linda and our family spent a great deal of time enjoying Pleasant Hill Lake. Rooms will be set aside Friday and Saturday for the Linda Franko Celebration of Life at a group rate. Additional days can be added if someone wants to extend the stay. I will be sending more complete information later, but we have the date reserved at the lodge. As I said before, if the Coronavirus is still an issue, we'll move the date as needed, because safety is the highest priority.

October 16th: Back to Studio City and San Juan Capistrano

I have decided to schedule a Celebration of Linda's Life gathering May 22,2021 at 12:00 PM at the Mohican Lodge in Loudonville, Ohio (This blog has been updated to state the change from the previously stated May 1st Date). I have been wanting to get together with everyone as soon as it is safe. It has been on my mind a lot and I finally accepted that it is going to be months before that happens. I decided getting a date on the calendar would be helpful for those who wish to attend and I will stop laboring over when to do it. I am hopeful that by May 1st it will be safe for gatherings and travel. If not, I'll move the date back as needed. But in the mean time, you can put the date on your calendar. The Celebration will be in the Loudonville area. Details will follow as they are determined.


 Rebecca had some time to work on projects so I headed to her house Sunday morning. The first project was finalizing the big screen. I had purchased some stainless steel rings to hold the screen up instead of threading the cable through the grommets. Threading the cable back and forth between the grommets caused wrinkles. The steel rings worked great. That project is now very successfully completed. 

Improving the big screen

Jill's Halloween Cookies

Rebecca chose BBQ chicken for supper which sounded good to me. She has a big grill so I made extra chicken. Great leftovers. We invited Jill who is a lot of fun and often brings her famous (Or should I say infamous!) cookies. They are just too good to resist. The evening cooled off nicely so we ate outside. Once it got dark we played Mario Kart on the big screen. Jill claims she never played before but I'm skeptical. She was really good very quickly! But she did bring cookies!
 

The dogs know I will take them for a walk when I get up. I unlock the door when I wake up and climb back in bed, (I lock it because London can open the door.) London always hear me unlock the door, opens it, and she and Trevi come running into my bedroom, jump up on my bed and give me a very excited "Good Morning, Let's go". They are really funny. What happier way to start the day? This trip, while I walked the dogs, I got to see all the Halloween decorations. Many people really go all out. Of course it occurred to me that this is the land of Hollywood! I've included pictures of just some of the decorations. Every time I took the dogs on a different route I saw more great decorations. I should have gone after dark. Maybe I'll be back before Halloween.

There were a lot of dog skeletons

This is an inflated VW Van

My Favorite. A tiny Gnome Halloween Scene 

New trim boards

After walking the dogs Monday morning I was anxious to finish the new air conditioner installation. I needed to make and install some trim boards. The angle cuts were tricky but fortunately, I remembered to bring Matt's miter box and saw. Because the air conditioner wasn't next to wall studs I had to improvise some supports to hold the trim boards. Involved some guess work. Ended up with a few extra holes but Rebecca will take care of the finish work.

The gym

The next project was to clean up the wiring on the back of the garage. Rebecca, (after of course turning off the power at the circuit breaker), removed an old air conditioner. I suggested she leave the electrical wires clean up to me. I thought the power to the box could be usable at some later date. It was a pretty easy job. First I of course made certain the power to the box was turned off. Then I removed all the outgoing wires but left the incoming wires in tact. The power supply is fine so an outlet could be added if desired at some point.

Old air conditioner

Old wiring

Project Completed

Very old telephone wire box

While I was behind the garage I noticed a very old telephone line box. Might as well get rid of that also. I still need to patch some places where the old air conditioner was attached but it's not urgent, and who sees the back of the garage anyway! A little stucco, some paint and the back will look pretty good, and be safe!

The temperature climbed to 97 degrees so I decided it was time to quit outside. I went into the air conditioned house and researched Tuesday's projects. Rebecca had purchased a sun sail for shade and also a bike pully system to hoist her bike to the ceiling in the garage. Once again I thought, "This is Linda's job". But I am learning that it really is a good idea to read the directions. So I did and was glad I did. Ready for tomorrow. We relaxed the rest of the afternoon and I made salmon with dill sauce for supper. Always a winner. We were thinking about "Big screen movies". Avatar came to mind. Neither of us had seen it in quite a while. It was great on the big screen!

After walking the dogs Tuesday morning, I went to Jill's house to check out her roof. She said there was a leak and she wasn't comfortable getting up on the roof. I offered to check it out. Fortunately she has a very nice ladder. I discovered at least one place that I was certain was leaking. The caulking around a pipe had cracked and was pretty much wide open. There were a couple other spots that were suspicious so I caulked them also. I feel confident she should remain dry during the coming rainy season. It's fun to do a project where the solution is obvious!

Back to Rebecca's to work on the bike pulley system. Rebecca's garage has a pitched roof so the rafters are at an angle. I was going to cut some wedges so the pulleys would be horizontal once installed, but I  held the pulleys against an angled rafter and they seemed to work okay. So I proceeded to install them by working on the 8 foot step ladder. No need to go to the stairs at Swami's for exercise. It took a while, but I installed the system successfully. I told Rebecca to come and check it out. I cranked up the rope and the bike went to the ceiling. It seemed a little hard to pull up but whatever. We were both very happy! That night, as I was falling asleep the thought occurred to me that we never tried to let the bike down. Hmmmm. Plus, why was it so hard to pull it up? My subconscious was trying to tell me something!

The next morning I went out to try letting the bike down. Nothing! I knew what the problem was without looking. The pulleys were at too much of an angle and the rope slipped over the pulleys! Should have followed my first instinct. So I took the pulleys down, cut some wedges to put under the boards holding the pulleys, so the pulleys would pull straight up instead of at an angle. Now the system worked great. Very easy to hoist the bike to the ceiling and let it down. Another project successfully completed. It worked so well that Rebecca is going to get another pulley system to raise her pedal assist bike. (Next trip.)

We worked on the Sun Sail for shade for a while. We decided it was going to take more planning for where to put it and attaching it. Next trip.

Craig & Letter slot project

I was looking forward to my stop in San Juan Capistrano at Karen and Craig's. Instead of going for a short hike in the very hot weather, Craig offered to help me make a framework for Rebecca's new letter slot. Sounded great to me. Three days working on a ladder wore me out. The mail slot will go in her front door but needed some wooden spacers to fit properly. Craig has a nice work bench and a vice which helped a lot. He drove me to Home Depot to get the wood we needed and an amazing thing happened. I needed a piece of Poplar that I could cut to 5&1/2 inches wide. They actually had a piece 5&1/2 inches wide, a very good omen. We completed our work just in time for "Docktails". Then we had a very good Chinese food dinner from PF Chang's.

9 hole golf course (left) & Catalina Island top right

We got an early start for our hike the next morning because we knew the temperatures were headed into the mid 80's. Craig picked a beautiful trail. The views were amazing and the elevations were quite reasonable. From our starting point we could see Catalina Island, which is 22 miles from the mainland. Catalina is in the hazy area on the right, beyond the brown mountain. The picture below shows the same area, but closer. The green  is a 9 hole golf course. That gives you a perspective of how far we could see.

It was about a four mile hike that went along the top of the ridge. We could see the mountains and ocean on the left and valleys and homes on the right. One house in particular stood out. It was huge. It looked like it should be a hotel! I couldn't help wondering, "What were they thinking?"

Single private home along the trail

While continuing our walk Craig spotted a road runner! It blends in very well with the terrain. It's the first one I've seen in the wild. I said, "All we need now is Wiley Coyote!"

Road Runner

We made it back at 11:30 so beat most of the heat. Karen showed me some more of her art work and we decided to have an art session on my next visit. It was a very good 4 days and I headed back to my place a little tired but happy!

October 10th: Art projects and enjoying the area

As I was leaving Karen and Craig's house at my last visit, Karen showed me some of her art projects. She has set up a nice little studio in her garage. I was particularly impressed with the Halloween Cards she made. If I remember correctly, the cat is a stencil and the background she created somehow. 

Happy Halloween! by Karen Rahn

The skeleton is very cool. It's a picture from a magazine that she used an acid on to change what it looked like. She said she never knows what she'll get until she uncovers the picture after letting the acid sit on it and do its thing.

As I was doing this blog I thought, "I should have asked to see the original picture." But then it occurred to me that she probably didn't have two copies. Maybe she took a picture of it? Next visit I'll find out.

I am still enjoying getting exercise by exploring the area, walking and on my bike. The San Elijo Lagoon is a very nice place to visit and I can easily ride my bike there. The park is in the process of many improvements which is nice to see. The lagoon is formed by a river that empties into the ocean close by so the tides cause the water to rise and fall twice a day changing the views.

River leading to the ocean

One of many wooden walkways

The trails are very well maintained and there are a lot of wooden walkways to protect the undergrowth.

Yucca plants, one with
a very tall blossom stalk

There are also a lot of interesting plants. This particular Yucca plant has grown an impressive flowering stalk. I'll have to return to see it in bloom.

The park has a very informative brochure which you can see here. Park brochure

When I'm not out and about I invariably end up at Matt and Wendy's. It's always fun to spend time there. Not only do I get excellent technology help, but also projects to work on while hunkered down because of the Covid19. Wendy got me hooked on making fun t-shirts after wearing the frog shirts displayed in the last blog. Here are some of our most recent shirts.

Dolphins, of course!

I decided it's easier to see the T-shirt designs if I just show the shirts. The next two are Wendy's. I love her Halloween shirt

Wendy's Halloween shirt

Wendy's Medieval Gargoyle

Steve's mushrooms and snails shirt

It's a tough call, but I think I like the snails and mushroom shirt I designed the best. There are others to display in a future blog.

Canadian trip prime rib (2015)

I was talking with Tom, Linda's brother in Arizona, and he told me had just gone to an outdoor restaurant and had a great prime rib dinner. The first in a long time. He said it reminded him of our trip to Banff Canadian National Park in 2015 when we had an excellent prime rib dinner. He even had a picture. I asked him to send it and he sent some extras. I decided since we cannot do any current trips, we could virtually enjoy this trip again. 

Linda and Tom, Banff trip 2015

It's been fun remembering how much fun we had on that trip. There are some great pictures of Banff at this site. Banff National Park 

We drove through Banff and into Jasper. We weren't certain why Jasper is a separate park, because they are right next to each other. Linda Tom and I went horseback riding through beautiful country. I remember the guide telling us, "Don't let your horse eat the brush, it gives them gas." I was behind Tom and could see the horse was winning the eating battle. After the guide told Tom twice, "Don't let your horse eat the brush," the third time he finally said, "Look. You have to let your horse know who is the boss!" Typical Tom response was, "My horse knows who the boss is, it's him!"

Steve and Linda relaxing at
 our very comfortable cabin

Tom and Steve, Jasper
Canadian National Park

There are, of course, Brown bears in both parks. There is a lot of information about how to avoid them. There is a Kicking Horse Mountain Resort that is next to a grizzly bear refuge center. We were fortunate enough to meet Boo close up. He is very large and seemed friendly enough. Of course, the electric fence kept Tom safe as he got this great picture. You can see a lot more at this site. Grizzly Bear Refuge

Boo the grizzly bear

Boo ended up at the refuge because he was orphaned as a young cub. Being raised around people, he became too familiar with people to stay out in the wild. After a couple tries at releasing him they finally brought him to the reserve as a permanent resident. You can see at the above site that he has lots of room to roam around.

Bait dock, Oceanside Harbor

Back to Encinitas. I rode my bike around Oceanside harbor. It's fun to see all the boats and there are usually sea lions hanging around at the bait dock. The bait tank is in the harbor. Fishermen come up to the docks to buy live sardines for fishing. The sea lions  know some usually escape into the water. But talk about frying pan to the fire, the sardines never have a chance. 
 

I was disappointed when I found the bait dock was closed. I assume because of the Covid19. There were some sea gulls and pelicans, but no sea lions. I rode all the way around the harbor and heard what I was looking for. On an empty boat dock there was a group of sea lions hanging out, a few barking for no visible reason! Not much movement but a few were in the water.

Seals - Oceanside Harbor 

Massive trim job by Matt

One morning Wendy and I made a T-shirt run to Michael's. When we returned, Matt had completed a major trimming of the bushes on the back hill. He was cutting up all the little branches to maximize space in the green waste bins. It was good timing. I helped and we had everything cut up in time to have the green waste truck pick it up that afternoon. The hill looks great. Great job Matt!

Steve and Matt, cleaning up

Speaking of trimming, Linda's oldest brother, Warren, takes care of the family farm. He sent some pictures of the house after he did a fantastic job trimming the shrubs. They were in serious need. The house and grounds look fantastic. I do miss being able to get together with the Drouhard group at the farm. We always enjoy those visits. Hopefully this Spring.

Drouhard family farm,
Loudonville, Ohio

Back yard, very nicely trimmed by Warren

Sunrise from my balcony

It's been interesting to watch the sun move across the horizon now that it is Autumn. Of course it is coming up a lot later now. I actually am up and can see the sunrise most mornings from my balcony. The sun is now behind a huge pine tree that makes a beautiful view. And then, almost like the moon is competing, I can see the moon as it rises at night. Very pretty. 

Moon rising seen from my balcony

I have made the decision to remain here in California thru December. I had planned to go back to Florida in November and move the boat to Banana Bay, and then fly back to spend the holidays with the kids. The more I thought about it, even though I can fly free on Southwest, two trips doesn't make sense. And especially now that Covid19 is looking worse again, staying here sounded better all around. I miss living on Yesterday's Dream and being on the water, but I love being here also.