NEOS LOG March 2015

Another dry California month. I don’t think we have had any substantial rain since December. And the weather has been about 10 degrees above normal. So….lots of gardening. I put in a few walkways in the backyard with wooly thyme between the steps. Then sedum on the hillside, mint along the rock wall. The grapes have leafed out, the apple and peach trees have blossoms and the mandarin orange is loving its space now that we have cleared away the nearby bushes. But with no rain or snowpack, no more plants this year. Maybe in the Fall.

We added to our fleet this month as well. I have been monitoring Craigslist for a high roof Sprinter van. We had almost given up on the idea and were looking at other options when a van popped up in Truckee. We headed up the hill, took it for a test run and bought it. It is a 2006 Mercedes Benz passenger van with about 130K miles. It was originally used by Tesla as a tour van for visitors to their plant in the Bay Area and has large Tesla stickers on the side windows. So we call her Tess. The guy we bought it from had used it as a camper and had installed 2 benches and table in the back that turns into a bed. So now we have to start our own conversion plans. We want to be able to take out the bench seats and use it as a camper, but retain the option of putting 2 rows of bench seats back in to be able to go places with other folks.

The following week, Rog left for a 17 day trip to Manjack Cay in the Bahamas for a working vacation. The Adamsons wanted some help putting tile on their kitchen, bathroom, and office counters. He has left for this kind of work vacation before, but it was before we were both retired. Without Sutter Health to distract me, I made a long list of tasks to complete in his absence. Spring cleaning, refinish grout, clean windows, make new placemats, make screens for the living room windows, clean out hydroponic system, paint touch-up, finish waterfall…..and I got almost all of it done. Michelle kept me busy with lots of school pickups during a week of minimum days, and my niece and her fiancé (Katie and Eddie) spent a day visiting from Rhode Island. Ryan, Beth and the Blooms got me up to the King’s house for a dinner and liquor exchange. Each couple brought their specialty. I made kahlua, the Blooms brought homemade beer, Ry/Beth made limoncello and the Kings made Iriquois Manhattan. We called it a Funraiser and planned for a rerun May 2. So the time did pass fairly quickly. Rog actually learned how to use his new smart phone to text me and kept up his blog and emails on the internet.

This was Max’s month for a date and he had his turn seeing Seussical Jr. We had fun on our Monday project afternoons making Thing 1 Thing 2 hats, rainbows for St. Patrick’s Day, ladybugs and leprechaun rocks that some silly leprechaun hid around the house for a St. Patrick’s day hunt.

We ended the month with a surprise Sunday brunch treat from Ryan and Beth. We headed over to Venita Rheas for a huge omelet that kept us full all day.