May 2021

NEOS LOG May 2021 We hit the 40,000 mile mark on our hydrogen cell Mirai so it was time for scheduled maintenance. We called our local guy and he assured us that he could work on it. I don’t think he had ever seen a hydrogen car and it didn’t take long for him to realize he couldn’t touch it. He called and apologized and we took it to the local Toyota dealership. It only cost us $50 so I think we came out ahead. I guess I should have known when the local guy had a hard time finding what kind of oil it took. (No oil in the Mirai:) I bit the bullet and went to a chiropractor for my back. Eric has been going to this guy for 25 years so I felt pretty safe with his reputation. I went twice and feel like he really helped. Now I continue with my stretching and do a daily icing and massage. It will take a while to be back to total normal but I am well on my way. We took Karissa and Max to K1 Kart Racing. This was finishing up Karissa’s special day from last month and start up Max’s special day for this month. They had 2 races and I would say Karissa won the first half of race 1 but Max was overall first place. After a long discussion of why the first one over the finish line isn’t necessarily the winner (if they are a lap down), we headed back to Rocklin to drop Karissa off. Max had been sick the day before so he still wasn’t eating much, so instead of going for lunch, we had an ice cream snack and we will do our meal after school is out.

On Mother’s Day we headed over to the Bloom house for pulled pork and all the trimmings. All of the moms were there; Betty, Mary, Michelle and me (and Beth) so it was fun to catch up with everyone. We are all vaccinated and the end of the pandemic is in sight. So nice to be able to sit and enjoy the company of others. Ryan gave me a gorgeous bouquet and the Blooms gave me a hummingbird feeder.

The family took another hike together, this time up near Lake Spaulding. Karissa spent the day with me. We had our buttered popcorn and movie, played on the front swing and dissected a lily. But the main project of the day was to make Baked Alaska. We made individual ones, cutting the chocolate cake to size and freezing the ice cream in a muffin tin. The group let us know when they were about 30 minutes from getting home and we started the meringue. It worked out just right, with everyone arriving just after we took them out of the oven. We sang Happy Birthday to Eric and enjoyed our treat.

Rog has been working on the new buffet for under the TV and I am loving it. We have eaten out back a few of the milder afternoons and have enjoyed watching the local wildlife. We had a mother turkey with her 3 chicks for a few days, then we had a couple of possums wander through. Now we not only have the birds playing in the waterfall, but we have the hummingbirds who visit my new feeder.

I am still trying to get my aquaponic system going. I have lost the last group of plants and fish, discovering fatally high amounts of ammonia. It took all month but I am ready to restock both plants and fish. Meanwhile, I have trimmed and cleaned up the yards. The final job was to trim the rosemary. I find that the most challenging, crawling around the hill and reaching all of the bushes. I did manage to cut through Rog’s extension cord once, but I got the job done. Nice to sit back and enjoy the results. And we are enjoying our first ripe berries. Rog and I headed up to Awful Annies in Auburn to meet with a few of the SKA seniors who had come up for a wedding. Jay also joined us with his new girlfriend, Debbie. We chatted for a couple of hours before the group headed south to SF and LA and we headed over to a brewery in Newcastle to check it out. We ended up giving a trip to the brewery to Eric and Michelle for their birthdays.