tree

We see this pine tree on our neighborhood walks. Note that most of the holes are filled with acorns, probably from the oak tree next to it. The woodpeckers have really been busy this year storing for winter. And there's still room for more years.

Thought For Today

"To us, as to Peter, the word is spoken, 'Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not.' Luke 22:31, 32. Thank God, we are not left alone...Live in contact with the living Christ, and He will hold you firmly by a hand that will never let go." MB p. 119

Oleanders

The oleander flower bushes are everywhere and come in shades of pinks, reds and white. They almost grow like weeds and are common in borders. They have a very faint pleasant smell. They can grow to be quite tall--I'm guessing 15'. Just thought I'd give you a taste of the vegetation here. More will come.

Another beautiful day

The weather is just amazing here--too perfect! This morning we hit the farmer's market again. I bought a beautiful bunch of fresh cut flowers for $5. I don't even remember the name of them because I've never seen them before. I just liked the multi-colors.

Playing tourist

Today we went up the valley a little ways to the touristy town of Calistoga. We walked up and down main street checking out the shops and also found out that next week is the Napa County Fair held there. We're going on senior's day Monday. We'll also go to the fireworks on Wed. night.

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Rock Mine

"But if you call God your Father you acknowledge yourselves His children, to be guided by His wisdom and to be obedient in all things, knowing that His love is changeless." MB p. 105

Wendy is going to post a photo of me and my pet rock that I spend hours with each day. It's beginning to look like a huge exclamation point without the dot. I think I'm half done exposing it. This morning I decided to make a rock pathway to the pump house too--not hard considering rock is just a few inches from the surface and grass hardly grows on it anyway.

Al is dealing with rock under the house too as he makes his trench. This house is built on solid rock so it's going to "stand firm" if and when it ever rains!

Meditation Thought

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth." Matthew 6:19 "This is the treasure for which Christ bids us labor. Character is the great harvest of life." MB p. 90

I'm reading the book Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing and am finding so many gems that I just have to share.

A rock

This area in our front yard has rock near the surface and in the past former renters have tried to grow grass on it. I decided to scrape the dirt off exposing the rock and then landscape around it. It is a very tedious job so I only work on it about an hour a day.

PUC

I was pleased to see Union College represented on the campus--set in stone no less. These blocks are on a walkway in front of the student center.

Communion

This morning we had communion at church which was nice since we've missed it at Countryside the last 2 times they've had it. We went to Elmshaven Church today. We're beginning to hear that the reason so many of the churches have lost members is because of the high cost of living here. The younger families with kids just can't afford it. For some reason all us old fogies can.

This afternoon we walked around the PUC campus which is all on the side of a mountain so lots of ups and downs. It is very well landscaped. I took many photos so maybe I'll get Wendy to post one of them. I can't seem to do it myself.

Farmer's Market

There is a farmer's market here in St. Helena (bottom of our hill)in a park every Friday morning so today we checked it out. Some of you would love it! There's a long row of booths selling fresh fruits, veggies, beautiful bunches of cut flowers and plants, food (like Mexican)to eat or or take home, bakery items, unique clothes/ tablecloths and jams just to name a few items. Lots of people were there so it must be a popular place. I know I'll be going back next week.

El auto nuevo

This is our new Prius. It is pine green mica. We're happy the gas dial has hardly moved down since we got it. Since we live on Howell Mountain we do a lot of up and down driving. Going down it gets 99.9 mpg. Going up, both electric and gas is used.

Unique experience

Yesterday Al and I were walking on the sidewalk in St. Helena and I was admiring the agapanthas flowers along the way. Then Al saw a hummingbird right next to us gathering nectar. I went up close to him and he never even showed the least concern. I put my finger up to him and he just kept going from flower to flower. His wings brushed my fingers something like a butterfly kiss. I could have grabbed and held him. Won't it be great in heaven to play with little creatures like that?!

Father's Day

It was in the low 90's here today but it's already cooling down since the sun set. We spent the day with my brother Larry and his family here. We had haystacks and birthday cake for Megan's 25th. It was a nice afternoon with them. We also went to a couple state parks near here to see what they were like.

Work around here has slowed down a bit and now we're coasting. If we can accomplish a little each day and also have some other activities I think more will get accomplished.

The car started today without much difficulty. Maybe we'll keep it. There seem to be hundreds of Priuses on the road so they can't be all that bad.

We went for a walk tonight and it appears things are getting a little dusty--plants, cars, etc. It's hard to believe there won't be anymore rain until fall. Our ground is very porous so watering just runs right through. We have a little greeen grass in the front lawn and that's it.

New car?

Al went out to get the Prius from the garage to go to church and it wouldn't start. I tried and it still wouldn't so we went in the truck.

When we came home I tried again and it started right up. It's a mystery if it is us or the car. With "smart key" and "push button starter" so much is new and different. Maybe we have to hold our mouth a certain way like "smile" because you're a new owner of a hybrid.

Now we think we're off to a piano concert in St. Helena but time will tell which vehicle we'll be in.

Another scorching day

It's been consistently hot here and hasn't cooled down much at night until now. At 9 p.m. it's 68 and that's good. There's a breeze too. This weekend it's supposed to get even cooler. It'll be a welcome break.

I'm glad it's Sabbath and I don't have to do another thing but rest and enjoy the day off. We're going to early service at the PUC church to hear Don Schneider. He'll be giving the baccalaureate sermon at 11 too.

In the afternoon there's a piano concert by author Joe Wheeler's brother at the St. Helena church so we'll go there too. That's one nice thing about being near our college, hospital and many SDA churches. There's always special events going on.

Al's sister and husband are off to visit her son in Las Vegas for the coming week. My brother Larry's family is coming to spend the day Sun. We're looking forward to seeing them. It'll be a treat to see them more often now.

A BIG DAY

Today we went to the Toyota dealer in Napa and bought a 2007 Prius. Al had driven one before and was sold on it. Today I got to drive the one we ended up buying. I still don't have my digital camera fixed so can't put up a photo. It's Toyota's shade of pine green. It drives well and hopefully we'll save a lot on gas.

While in Napa we went to Home Depot again, a regular stop these days, WalMart and a grocery store. All of them here have "preferred cards" to get their sale prices. It's kind of a pain. Nothing got done at the house except Al is stripping the limbs off a cedar tree he cut down yesterday. It was too close to the house. There's a couple others will will also go in time.

We're seeing many new birds here in our yard. The most common are crows, acorn woodpeckers, plain titmouse, scrub jay and western bluebird. It was another very hot day but it's supposed to cool down again over the weekend.

Well, it's time to go for our evening walk now that it's starting to cool down.

More fun?

My project was to organize my desk stuff without a desk. It's all in a dresser and plastic file cabinet. My greatest challenge was finding a big box of paper clips and discovering that the majority were corroded. So I sat on the floor and sorted out the good ones for quite some time. I can't remember the last time I used a clip either.

I also made bread first thing before it got hot. It's around 90 and probably was 80 in the house before Al decided to turn on the air conditioning. It's been running constantly ever since trying to bring the temp down. It feels a little better. In the midst of paper clipping I remembered that I left a load of clothes in the dryer yesterday. It's hard to stick to one project. I hung more pictures up and still have more to go.

I think we need to have a tie party for Al because none of them have shown up and everything is unpacked. We had our first garbage pick up at 5 a.m. and still have enough to fill on can again. We tried putting some in a box but they didn't take it.

Next I'm going to venture outside and scrub the mailbox which is covered with mold.
That should be "more fun."

Decisions, decisions

I hung some pictures today but can't do them all since we don't have living room furniture and they don't all look like they'll match anything. This morning I went to 2 of our community service centers which aren't far from us. I saw lots of stuff but not much of anything we could use. I did buy another hot air popper since mine hasn't been working well. I also found a tie for Al because we still haven't found his supply.

We herded the third lizard out of the house. In the process of using my foot to guide him, he crawled under my toes in my sandals. Yes, I did some jumping and squealing. I think they've been getting in through the cat door to the garage where there's a gap. I plugged it. Until we hooked up the clothes dryer, they were able to come through the open vent too.

Al still has a toilet leak since replacing it with a new one. He's found the problem but needs the parts. He replaced the faucet on the tub but when the shower is on it still leaks around the faucet against the wall. That remains a mystery. Then there are the torn screens. Fortunately there aren't many bugs here.

It was in the upper 80's today but it's finally starting to cool down tonight at 10 p.m. I'm sitting here sweating.

Shopping

This afternoon we went to the bank for a couple quick transactions which ended up taking over an hour. Then on to a Honda car dealer in Napa to check out the Civic Hybrid. There were many features we liked but others we like better in the Prius. Decisions, decisions. I don't know how we'll decide what to buy. It may be a Corolla. Then we went to Home Depot and bought a new toilet because one old one was leaking. We got a fancy toilet seat which lowers the cover slowly so it doesn't slam. The whole thing is supposed to lift off for cleaning too. We'll see. We also got a new tub faucet because that was leaking too. We're full of leaks. That's what happens with age. I bought a few other items like new drain plugs for the kitchen sinks, a dust pan and picture hooks. Then we went to a grocery store we hadn't been to before. It was very big and has a great supply of bulk foods and non dairy products. I still haven't found a store that sells rye flour. Can't figure out why.

We have a very healthy, tall row of poison oak along one side of our property. This morning I got on the phone to track down some county office that would order it removed. I talked to people in 3 different offices and they all passed the buck. The fourth person hasn't called me back. We're sure it's going to be up to us to remove it so we'll wait till fall when the leaves are gone, cut it down and then use Roundup to kill the roots when it leafs in the spring. It's going to be a long drawn out process. About a year ago when we were here we were cleaning up branches in the yard and I got a bad case then. I never want to go through that again.

Getting settled

I've been too busy to blog--haven't even thought about it. Today my project was shelving books, CD's and videos. That's done. Tomorrow we're going car shopping and to get numerous other things we need at Home Depot and WalMart. Al has been working in the garage organizing his tools on peg board and working at the beginnings of a garden. Next will be pounding nails in the walls to put up pictures. My digital camera has a problem so I can't post any photos.

I'm back again!

It's been a long time since I've written on my own blog. We're starting to come up for air as the settling in continues. My goal tomorrow is to clear the living room--not that we have any furniture to put in it except lamps and a couple lawn chairs. At some point we've got to look at the want ads. We also need to car shop. So much to do yet but it'll all take place in good time.

It's been another full, long day and I'm too tired to go on tonight so until next time, do keep in touch with us.

The latest

They are unpacking. Phone got turned on today, computer isn't hooked up yet though, so they aren't getting emails.

Their new # is: 707 965-9591

Home Sweet Home

They are home. They are unloaded, the rental truck returned, and their backs are sore from heavy boxes.

Tomorrow they get a phone, figure out what is going on with mail that they aren't receiving, and put stuff away.

They don't get good cell reception at all, so if you need to talk to them, good luck.

Auburn, CA

They are a few hours out, but couldn't make it before sundown, so are staying at a campground in Auburn. The camp is directly next to the SDA church.