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."