A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Paris

The other day, a week or so ago, my lovely wife and I found ourselves transported, as if by magic, or a Boeing 787, to Paris, France.  Imagine our surprise.

Actually, as the story goes, back in February my lovely wife was lamenting about turning 60 this year.

And so I ask, "What would make it better dear?"

And she says, "Paris."

I suppose Paris might make any birthday just a little bit better.  Unless you're a big fan of Uganda.  Then Uganda would be better.

But if I asked my lovely wife, "What would make it better dear?"

And then she said, "Uganda", then I would have thought she was beginning to lose her mind.  Too soon.  Paris made much better sense.

Who can afford to go to Paris?  Certainly not us.  We thought about it a bit, and then the next day my brother in law the ER Doc sent me an email about something silly.   Or stocks.  Maybe both.  And then he ended it by asking, "When are we going to Paris?"

Let me back up a bit.  Back in 2007 or so, my lovely wife was an Escrow Goddess on the Central Coast of California.  She went to a benefit auction one night put on by the real estate industry. She won the bid for a week at a home on a canal in Amsterdam, which was owned by a local realtor.  Since we had an entire three bedroom house at our disposal for a week, my lovely wife asked her lovely sister, who lives in Florida with her husband the ER Doc, if they would like to join us.  So we spent a lovely week in Amsterdam with them and found that we really travel well together.  We all enjoy a good mix of exploration and relaxation, and everybody's a trooper.  That helps, cause even the best laid plans can go awry.  My lovely wife and I also went out to visit them a couple years back when they first moved from Tennessee to Florida.  You can read all about that here: Florida, Ann Curry and the Big's Midlife Crisis.

While in Amsterdam, exploring the museums and cafes, we decided, apparently, that our next European gambit would be to Paris.  I, quite frankly, did not recall that conversation.  It must have happened on a cafe afternoon.

And then that very same weekend a friend of ours, a few years younger than us, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor.  Fortunately our friend is doing well at the moment, for which we are very thankful.  She is a bright shining star and the world is a much better place with her in it.  But her event brought it all home.  Shit howdy, this sort of thing could happen to us at any moment as well.  We're of that certain age, you know...old.  What if?

So, we sold my old rusty trombone and some lawn furniture and started to make plans.  I'm an avid travel researcher and generally use a number of sites to search for the best deals for our destination.  Our closest international airport is at the California state capital, Sacramento.  As an airport, it's great.  As an international airport, it lacks a bit.  You always have to go somewhere else before you get to go where you really want to go.  Unless you're going to Uganda.  So, for the flight out, we were going to go from Sacramento to Chicago to Montreal to Paris on United.  It was the best deal out there.

We could have driven to San Francisco, about three hours away, to their fabulous international airport.  And for several hundred dollars more per ticket we could have flown direct to Paris.  Hmmm, let's see.  Drive for 2 hours more each way and spend another $800 bucks?  Maybe we could spend that on some souvenirs instead.  Considering drive time the overall travel time would end up being about the same.

With flight booked, it was then time to look for a place to stay.  Again I searched through a plethora of travel sites and wasn't really finding anything that truly fired my rockets as far as hotels go.  And there were no deals, not in July.  So then I started to look into renting an apartment for a week.

Obviously price was a concern, as was the location.  And my only other major had to have was two bathrooms.  I mean, we're all aging folks.  There is no time, let alone vacation time, that four adults our age should share one bathroom.  I mean, I peel paint some mornings.  Who wants to follow that act?

Armed with our must haves, I started in with Vrbo.com and Airbnb.com.   Both are really great sites when looking for vacation rentals all over the planet, but I wasn't finding anything that tripped my trigger.  Or fit the bill.  The two bath thing I discovered was not that easy to find within our price range.  And then I stumbled upon Rentavilla.com.  They had a plethora of Paris apartments and I found one therein with two baths in a great location within our price range.

Rentavilla's site is very easy to navigate and their on-line follow-up is timely and thorough.  We booked the apartment for $390 per night, which was less than the $200 each per night MINIMUM we were looking at for a hotel in a decent location.  Plus tax.  Less party down room.  Yeah, the apartment saved a lot of dough.  You can also spend a lot more for an apartment, but we weren't planning on spending a lot of time in the apartment, ya know?

Once the airlines and accommodations were taken care of it was research time to figure out what the heck to do while we were there.  Paris is a very big world class city with a shit house howdy bunch of new and old stuff to see and do.  Of course there were the obvious; like the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Arc de Triomph and Notre Dame.  Some cheese.  Wine.  Pastry.  You know, a little foreign decadence.  But what else?

My lovely wife went out and  purchased Rick Steves' "Paris 2014" travel guide, which I found to be a fantastic resource.  If you aren't familiar with his travel style and work, do check him out.  He has a "back door" travel philosophy which is smart and usually saves money.  Good website too. 

Like Amsterdam, Paris has a gob smacking ton of museums.  Besides the Louvre, Paris hosts the Orsay, the Orangerie, the Rodin, and a Picasso to name a few.  Plus some more.  We found out later you could spend two or three days ALONE at the Louvre and still probably not see all of it.

Another nice aspect of the Steves' travel book was the various walks he recommended.  These walks would take you to various spots in the city which contained a myriad of shops and sights.  We managed to take a couple of them, found his descriptions to be quite accurate and enjoyed them immensely.

Being somewhat compulsive, sometimes obsessively so, I actually made up an Excel spread sheet for what we could do while we were there.  I looked at the list of MUST do's and had to pare that down.  I mean exploring is great, but it is a vacation.  A little down time is necessary as well, especially at our afternoon nap time age.  I intermingled museums in the morning with casual walks in the afternoon, bringing some down time recreation into the incredible barrage of world famous art saturation we would be experiencing.  I also noted Steves' optimum and not so optimum visit times for museums and locations and plugged all that into the equation.

And while I researched, I started to think about getting from the airport to the apartment.  I certainly did not want to replicate our arrival in Amsterdam seven years earlier.

Since my brother in law the ER Doc and my lovely sister in law lived in Tennessee at the time, on the opposite side of the country, we met at the Rembrandt restaurant at Schipol, Amsterdam's airport.  They got in about an hour before us and were having an on vacation glass of wine for breakfast when we hooked up.  We then rolled our old people fifty pound big fat suitcases around the airport for a while until we found the train station.

We rolled and wandered, trying to figure out schedules and platform locations and finally landed on the wrong platform.  We discovered this when we saw our train leave about four platforms away.  There was no way to catch it, are you kidding?   Four fifty somethings, including two lovely females, dashing down the lane with  fifty pounders in tow?  It was easily a hundred yards away with several turns and twists.  And a lot of people in between.  One of them (or us) would have surely died.  So we rolled back around at a reasonable pace and were on the correct platform when the next train to town took off thirty minutes later.

After a reasonably enjoyable twenty minute ride to the main train station in town, we then, per the apartment owner's instructions, looked for the correct bus to take us to the closest stop to the house.  Another thirty minutes of  figuring and finagling, gesturing and wrangling and we lugged our Big Fat Luggage (BFL) up the narrow steps of the bus.  And then chug chug chugged along until we got to the correct stop.  And then we lugged our BFL back down the way too narrow bus steps and proceeded to roll along the crowded streets of Amsterdam looking for the correct street.  And so on.  And so forth.  It was a massive pain in the patoot.

We finally got there, a quarter mile later.  Otherwise I probably wouldn't be here.  I'd still be on the streets of Amsterdam.  Lost, but probably happy.

At any rate, we're all now seven years older.  Like, we wanna do that again?  You wanna blow another hole in my what?

So, as I was doing my research, I stumbled upon another fantabulous site, Ihatetaxis.com.  This site was developed by a couple of Canadian brothers, as their website says, who were tired of the assault and barrage of taxi drivers and would be taxi drivers when they first arrived at an international airport, like Des Moines for instance.  Even more so when they arrived at an international airport in a real foreign country, like Kansas, where language could really be a barrier. 

Now I don't know about you, but I have been assaulted by would be taxi drivers and have ended up paying way too much for a cab ride into town in several foreign countries and island nations.  I've also ended up
in the back of a jeep for a long ride in the jungle looking for zebras and melons.  Or shiny things.   Maybe both.  Maybe this is a flashback.  Boy am I getting confused.   

I love this site!  First of all, Ihatetaxis.com posts the going taxi rates at an incredible amount of domestic and international airports.  From Algeria to Zambia with many places in between. So you KNOW what the taxis should be charging.  Then they also have contracted with a number of drivers and agencies all over the universe to offer airport transfer services, both private and shared.

I ended up booking a private transfer through them from De Gaulle airport directly to our apartment.  The price was about $20 more than a cab ride would have been without any traffic.  If there was any traffic heading into the city, which there usually is on a week day morning, then a cab ride could easily eclipse the transfer cost.  Boom.  Done.  That was sure gonna be better than lugging our BFL a mile or two around the streets of Paris, arduously seeking our sanctum.  Or sanity.

We left the 15th, with the hopes of arriving at Charles De Gaulle airport around 10:00 AM on the 16th.  The paramount concern of this whole excursion was that my lovely wife BE in Paris on the 18th, her birthday, so that she can now forever say, "I was in Paris on my 60th birthday."  Nothing more, nothing less.  Everything else was butter.

The morning of the 15th came early.  Really early.  I mean, why the hell go to bed kinda early.  At 3:15 AM our son's fabulous girlfriend came by for the ride to the airport.  She graciously offered at dinner one night and how could we refuse?  Besides, she paid it forward.  When next my son and her are off to some exotic location, the old man here will most certainly reciprocate.

Our flight to Chicago left at 6:05 AM, and we figured a 4:30 arrival time would be sufficient.  It's an hour ride to the airport from the old homestead here, so we needed to charge out of here around 3:30.  Fully caffeinated, we hit the road.

Even though amazingly there are a number of humans up at that ridiculous hour, we breezed through check in and security.  The United flight to Chicago was uneventful, I might have even slept a couple hours.  The next hitch to Montreal was short and uneventful, except, of course, for the Sky Mall magazine.  You know, that fabulous catalog that contains a ton of far fetched notions and faldoral that nobody in their right mind needs.  Especially at their prices.  Nevertheless, it's always entertaining for me.

I mean, there's butt enhancing briefs in there.  For men!  There's raincoats for your dog.  Birdhouses for your cat.  There's a motorized gondola to turn your back yard swimming pool into an enchanting Venetian canal.  Seriously.  Even I can't make this crap up.  I'm gonna keep it as a point of reference for crazy.

We had a three hour layover in Montreal, departing there around 9:30 PM EST.  We had a casual dinner at the airport, looked around for a few folks to say "Eh" to and then began boarding about 8:30 PM EST.

The 787 Dreamliner is a wide body jet, seating ten folks across almost all the way down the plane.  Naturally there's the first class, but even those sat six across.  We were fortunate, getting an aisle seat and then the middle seat on one of the sides.  The window seat was occupied by this petite, lovely little twenty something female creature who huddled up next to the window and slept almost the entire flight.  This allowed me, the old middle guy, to stretch and belch pretty much at my leisure.

We had our usual materials to keep us busy, books, newspapers, crosswords and the Sky Mall Mag.  But did I mention we flipped over to Air Canada at Montreal, and that they have now become our favorite airline?   They have also been voted the best North American airline for five years in a row.  I think I know why.

Even though the rows sat ten across, and there were about sixty rows on the plane, the leg room was very accommodating.  And then their entertainment system was off the hook.  There was a nine inch screen on the back of everybody's seat, with hundreds of hours of movies, TV shows and music.  It was there I first heard Philemon Cimon, a decidedly French musician.  You can check out his sound here: Soleil Blanc.  I have no idea what he's singing, but the melody sure is snappy and sweet.

Try though I might, I have serious difficulty sleeping unless I am prone.  Or deathly tired.  I might have dozed off for an hour or two, but definitely no more than that.  No sense arriving in Europe with all my bells intact.  I watched a couple old movies set in Europe, "The Ipcress File" and "How To Steal A Million."  My lovely wife, on the other hand, can sleep just about any time and any place.  I think she dozed about half the way there.

Air Canada also served a fairly decent meal on the flight.  Food is kind of fun when everything, including individual peas, are all prepackaged.  It gives all us fliers lots of stuff to do even if we aren't really hungry.

It was about half way over the Atlantic that I realized by flipping over to Air Canada in mid stream I may have put our well plotted meeting spot with our fellow travelers from Florida in jeopardy.  Holy Cream of Corn Soup Batman, we had a problem, and it probably was not going to be very funny!

I don't know if any of you have ever flown into CDG in France, but it's a big dang airport.  It has three terminals, and I think Terminal One is bigger than the entire airport.  In doing my pre-flight research, I learned that Delta, our fellow travelers airline, flew into Terminal Two.  United, our carrier, flew into Terminal One.  Of course I neglected to learn that we would be switching to Air Canada in Montreal, which also flew into Terminal Two, which notice was clearly stated on our itinerary.

Oops.

Since our fellow travelers would be arriving an hour earlier than us, I instructed them to make their way to Terminal One.  Remember, I'm compulsive, obsessively so?  This was where our driver would be meeting me, the contact.  I figured our fellow travelers had to be there too. 

Upon arrival at CDG, which was right on time by the way, we fired up my lovely wife's smart phone.  She had made all the proper arrangements with her carrier to handle the foreign situation.  Good thing too.  While wading through the very informal and easy customs process, I contacted the local property manager.  She informed me that our apartment would be ready at 12:30 PM instead of 5:00 PM, which, of course, made us quite happy.  My lovely wife then contacted our fellow travelers, and informed them we were actually at Terminal Two, the one they just spent the last hour leaving.

We told them to sit tight until we made contact with our driver.  Once we rolled through customs, I was a little dismayed.  There was no driver waiting with my name on a sign.  Dang!  I've always wanted to roll into an international city with a driver waiting for me with my name on a sign,.  You know, a guy in suit and sunglasses holding the sign, which, of course, says, "Bond".

A little concerned, I called the company on the voucher I had printed from Ihatetaxis.com.  I learned our driver had been hung up in traffic but was then at the airport and minutes away from us.  This turned out to be true, and within a minute a fine gentleman was walking up with my name misspelled on a sign.  I laughed, he apologized.  Two very trivial hiccups in a very BIG foreign connection.  We were in the car in a minute.

Then it was time to explain to the nice driver that our fellow travelers had left Terminal Two upon my stupid  instruction and labored for the last hour to get to Terminal One.  The driver, a very congenial fellow and a navigation expert of CDG, instructed our fellow travelers to go to a specific gate on a specific level and that we would be there in five minutes to collect them. 

When we arrived at the specific gate and specific level, they were no where to be found.  Undeterred and wildly buzzing like a screaming banshee from lack of sleep, I hopped out of the car and entered the crowded foreign jabbering labyrinth.

"I got this," I said to my lovely wife and the driver, or maybe to myself.

A glance or two around and within seconds I honed in on the two of them.  I was apparently experiencing that ephemeral lack of sleep time space continuum thing where the crowd slows down and your awareness slides up and you can observe vast segments of your encompassing surroundings within seconds.  Or maybe that was the cookie.  Or a flashback.  Maybe both.

I saw them beyond the crowd, just inside the gate and politely seeking guidance from half English speaking information officers.  I snuck up behind them and  grabbed them both in an all encompassing bear hug.  Within minutes we were all in the car with our big fat luggage and on our way.  It had taken our fellow travelers an hour carrying their big fat luggage to get to Terminal 1.  It took our driver five minutes to fetch 'em.

Oops.  Travel stories.

While jovial visitation began in the back, I strapped in at shotgun for the lively ride into Paris.  Car movement and traffic on the way to and in Paris is truly an art form.  It is, apparently, a very artistic town!  There appeared to be no real rules of the road as far as I could see.  They did stop at red lights for the most part, and moved forward on green.  Other than that, just about everything went.

Lots of two wheelers, mostly smaller motorcycles and scooters.  Lots of 'em.  Lots of cars, mostly smaller sedans.  But a number of Mercedes, vans, trucks and buses.  And they all want to be at the same place at the same time.  If there was grid lock, which there was quite often, the bikes scooted around and wound through the idling cars.  Hell, even our driver, in a van, did an almost complete lateral across three lanes to get around a stall.  It was insane!!

It took about an hour to get to our Rue, or street, arriving there around 11:30 AM.  I called the property manager to say we had arrived, and she said she'd be there in about an hour to let us in, which she was.

While we waited, we explored the block, more or less.  Two doors down on one side was a bar, and several doors down on the other side was another bar.  At the end of the street, about three blocks down was a brassiere, or bistro, essentially a bar with food.  We had landed, apparently, right smack dab in the middle of the Bar-muda Triangle.  Sorry.


We hung out in the 200 year old apartment's small courtyard, about the size of a single car garage.  We entered the courtyard through these two massive twelve foot high doors, which were open at the time.  I learned later they were closed around 6:00 PM and were accessed via an electronic punched in code.  The doors were about three feet wide and three inches thick.  Most all the outer doors we saw around the city were similar to this.  They opened wide enough for a vehicle to enter the courtyard, essentially. And they were strong enough to stave off  a battering ram attack by a wild horde of insurgents, or a small car.  Or some ducks.

Once the PM arrived, we entered the stair well through a keyed glass door. Then it was a three story hike up the stairs to our apartment.  Two hundred year old buildings usually don't have elevators.  At least the stairs were wide and we would only be carting our big fat luggage up once.

The apartment looked very much like the photos Rent a villa had posted on their site, Bourse.  Sometimes one can wonder at what they are seeing and ordering online, but this was all coming to a good conclusion.  The only negative part was the second bathroom, the one our fellow travelers graciously took, was kind of upstairs.  I say kind of because it was just off a loft, which was accessible by a wide stepped ladder, of sorts.  But it was a lovely bathroom, with a sink, toilet, bidet and bathtub.

Look, this was an old, refurbished building.  In Europe.  You should have seen the house we rented in Amsterdam.  It was a lovely three story building (with a basement) right on one of the city's lovely canals.  And the building was also leaning.  It was about a foot off on the top, and just about every tourist boat that floated by on the canal stopped and everyone took pictures.  We waved.  They thought we were Dutch.  We played the part.

The house was three stories and it had, essentially, one room per story.  Our fellow travelers slept in the basement, where a bathroom was located.  The first story contained the kitchen and dining area, the second story was a family/living room, and the 3rd story was our bedroom, and another bath.  And the stairs, the stairs to get from one floor to the next?  Ever been on a tug boat?

Narrow, winding stairs about a foot and a half wide, almost impossible to get a fully loaded large suitcase up.  Seriously.  It was a challenge, as you can see.

Paris, except for the loft, which also contained a sofa and TV, was fortunately all on one story.  Both bedrooms, our bath and the kitchen dining area were all on the main level.  No tug boat stairs.  Just tree house stairs for our fellow travelers to hit the bidet, a standard in most French bathrooms.

There was a large glass dining room table in the large dining room, with tall, ten foot high double windows opening out into a small courtyard.  There were about twelve other apartments facing the courtyard, some with balconies and some with windows.  For certain, this had the makings for some very lively interaction.

We unpacked our massive suitcases, and armed with a little bit of locational knowledge from our property manager, we ventured out into the bustling city to find a grocery store.   We knew it was going to be an early night for all us weary travelers, so we wanted to get some goodies, dine in and get a good nights rest.

The secret to managing Europe's time zone change for me is not to nap and blaze through the first day, hitting the sack around 9-10 PM Europe time.  I'll be delirious by then, but then I'm usually good for the duration of the stay.  It does, however, take me about a week to get back to normal when I return to reality and PST.

I took the city map with us that our property manager left, but the more complete and detailed Moon Paris Map Guide the Doc brought was left at the apartment.  That was a mistake, and this would prove to be one of those travel times that all traveling companions be fabulous troopers.

Barrister, Banister, Baluster, Bermuda-A Spelling Bee Soliliquy

OK, admittedly, I have a word problem.  It's not near as bad as some other proclivities I have entertained myself with in the past, and it really isn't harmful to my health.  My mind maybe, but not my physical well being.  Well, up until the point I annoy someone enough that they hit me upside the head with a plastic pink flamingo.  Or a 2x4.  Whichever was handiest I suppose.

A barrister, I see, is an attorney, primarily with chops in the Grand Marquee.  That would be the Courtroom, you see.  There are attorneys who are very knowledgeable, but they lack that certain chutzpah and vernacular that allows them to roam with the greatest of ease through the parables and pitfalls of the courtroom.  Their strength is in legal knowledge, not courtroom theatrics.  In another life, I knew both.  More intimately than I would have liked, probably.

In this life, I still know a few.  Fortunately I have not had to utilize their expertise, but good to know they are there, just in case.  If anyone out there in Northern California has suffered a personal injury and needs a true barrister, let me know.  He is an old, dear friend and does not advertise his services.  All his clients are from word of mouth.  His prowess is legend.  Denny Crane has nothing on this litigating lion.

I also know someone fairly high up in the County Public Defenders office.  His criminal defense jabberwocky is also legendary and he definitely does not fit the the typical inept public defender mold.  You could pay a criminal defense lawyer thousands of dollars and not come anywhere close to his legal acumen.  The riff raff he defends on a daily basis have no idea they're in the presence of Perry Mason's mentor.

While I'm on a roll, if you're in need of an estate planning attorney you can't go wrong with Lenhart Legal Services.  Gabriel is a fine young man who is quite knowledgeable in his chosen legal field.  If you are anywhere near my age and you don't have a will or estate plan, YOU NEED TO DO THIS, especially if you have anything to pass on to heirs.  Otherwise the government's gonna get half.  Don't they get enough already? If you lost all your money in the 2008 crash, don't bother.  But if you've got five figures and more in assets and don't have a will then you need to call Lenhart Legal Services NOW!!!

OK, now that I've plugged my buddies and have a small credit just in case, let's move on to Bermuda.

Ah, Bermuda.  My first thought is the island with warm turquoise water and white sandy beaches.  Resort wear everywhere and tropical rum drinks.  But then my mind tends to wander a bit.  Words.  What about the Bermuda Triangle?  Bermuda shorts?  Bermuda onions?  Bermuda grass?   It's never ending.  What's wrong with me?

Bermuda, the island, was first settled in 1609 by shipwrecked English colonists headed for Virginia.  Self-governing since 1620, Bermuda is the oldest and most populous of the British overseas territories. Vacationing to the island to escape North American winters first developed in Victorian times. Tourism continues to be important to the island's economy, although international business has overtaken it in recent years. Bermuda has also developed into a highly successful offshore financial center. A referendum on independence from the UK was soundly defeated in 1995.

I got that little tidbit off the CIA website.  They've got lots information on just about every country and island there is out there.  They've probably got lots of information on just about every person there is out there too, especially you.  And me.  Probably me more than you, but, you know, hopefully you more than me.      

Bermuda, the triangle, has never really been  figured out or discovered.  It's just sorta out there.  Or not.  If people knew what it was all about then they would have probably figured out where all them things went to.   It's not even noted on the CIA website, and they have information on everybody, every place and everything for crying out loud.


Bermuda, the shorts, are a clothing item named for the place where they first became a popular fashion. They are a style of trouser shorts that are cut to just above the knee. Being short pants, they are considered semi-casual and are usually neatly tailored with cleanly cut lines and a clean hem. 

I did not get that little tidbit from the CIA website.  If they have become concerned about short styles then I think we've taken the term "fashion police" to a whole new level.  The next thing we'll know is they'll be locking up people like Richard Simmons and Lady Gaga at Guantanamo.   

Bermuda, the onion, can be, apparently, just about any gosh darn color it wants to be according to the thousands of so called knowledgeable sites out there.  What is distinguishing though is that it is round and flat.  And sweetish.  NOT Swedish.  Otherwise it'd be called a Swedish Onion.

Bermuda, the grass, apparently can be a troublesome weed or an excellent lawn grass. I suppose it depends on whether you water it or not.  Mow.  Fertilize.  Stuff like that. 

Now let's mosey on to Banister, which is essentially a handrail with supporting posts.  It can run along a porch or down a staircase.  It can also be called a Balustrade.  Which brings us to our next conundrum, Baluster, which is a decorative type of spindle or stair stick that sits underneath the handrail and in between the supporting posts.

And now you know. 

So one day not so long ago while I was enjoying the sunset view, I happened to look down and noticed a little wear and tear on the banister balusters.  The entire balustrade was looking war torn and weary.   Not only was paint flaking, but cracks were starting to appear in the wood.  Dry rot was also beginning to show where  many of the balusters met the lower rail.

See, aren't we glad we had our earlier lesson?  Otherwise you would have had no idea of what I was talking about, and neither would I more than likely.   Whatzit and thingy work just fine for me.

Our front covered porch, of which I prefer to refer to as Veranda, faces West.  It is wide open to the setting sun, and also wide open to those wayfaring westerlies that blow on nigh from time to time.  Even with a two foot overhang, the entire balustrade gets wet quite often.  I mean, rain certainly doesn't always fall vertically.  And every once in a while we get a storm that soaks the entire porch and really belligerently blusters over our balustrade.  Yeah, real fast-ten times.

The overall exterior paint job, while entirely the wrong shade of yellow, is actually in fairly decent shape.  And Lord knows, there's enough stuff to do around here without entertaining the thought of an entire exterior paint job.  We did the entire interior before we moved in, the outer can wait.  Except for the balustrade.  I'd much rather scrape, sand, caulk and paint than replace.  Anyday.

Dammit.

So that's what I've been doing these last couple weeks.  I've been scraping, sanding, caulking and painting. 

Have you bought a gallon of good exterior paint lately?  Holy Schmoley.  Almost $50 for a gallon of nice, white semi-gloss.  I mean, what are they putting in paint these days?  Unicorn urine?
 

 
So I've been doing that as well as bucking firewood.  Yeah, this 'ol dude carried down off the hill a couple cords of logs and sticks that I cut down in My Gym...  That got stacked and now I'm working through it, bucking it down to 18-20" lengths.  I typically switch days, just like the gym.  One day is back and knuckles, the next forehead and chin.  Hey, what can I say?  Somehow it all works for me.  

We recently had our first harvest of peaches off a 2nd year tree, which you can read all about at Eat a Peach.  More recently we just harvested a bounty of apricots off a more established grafted tree.  The first 3 years we were here both sides of the tree blossomed abundantly.  And then snow lightly fell upon all the dainty little blossoms and froze their naked little hearts.  We never saw any fruit.  I plumb forgot what kind of tree(s) it was.

This year they both blossomed abundantly again, and they were alive with happy little buzzing bees.  I was hopeful they would go to fruition so that not only would we get some fruit, but I could remember what the heck kind of tree(s) it is.

I did meet with the previous owner before we bought the place, but he went over about six thousand things in the forty minutes we spent together.  So pardon me if I forgot a few of them.

At any rate, look at this sweet little bucket we got from the apricot side of branch town:

That was the first one.  We pulled another about twice that size.  They're pitted and in the freezer right now.  I'm thinking Apricot Pie ala mode for the 4th.  Mmmmmm.

And just so's you get an idea of what I'm talking about as far as the graft is concerned, here's what the trunk looks like.  By the way, that's one of the outdoor watering holes for the animals, not some weird, whacked out watering scheme for the tree.

To the left is the apricot side of the equation, whose top looks like this:

To the right is the plum, whose top looks like this:

I've pulled about 6 plums so far this year, but in the next week or so it looks like we'll be picking about 60 more.

And the apple tree, well, the apple tree is off the hook.  The first year we were here there were a few apples that we harvested.  But then the next two years I worked on getting the tree down to a manageable size and pruned the heck out of it, limiting the amount of apples to just about zero.

But this last year I barely trimmed it, and we have  a couple hundred on the dang thing.  And that's after I thinned the herd, dropping off at least 50-60.  This year we'll be making some applesauce and apple pie to be sure, and maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to figure out what kind of apple tree she be.

Have a safe and happy 4th!

Eat a Peach

Besides being one of my absolutely most favorite albums by one of my absolutely most favorite bands and which album contains one my absolutely most favorite songs, which I dedicate here to my lovely wife, because, well, she is my Blue Sky, besides all that, the peach is one of my absolutely most favorite fruits.

It would only stand to reason then that given ample room to grow a few fruit trees, a peach tree just might be one of them.  We currently only have four trees in our fledgling orchard, which is on hold for the moment until we get a little more sustained water from the sky, but one of them just so happens to be a peach, in more ways than one.

Three of the trees were purchased in late summer of 2012 and wintered over in 5 gallon pots.  They were finally put in the ground with a fourth tree after extensive clearing in February of 2013.

This spring, a year later, our Santa Rosa plum tree is bare and there is but one Honey Crisp on the apple tree.  That's sort of what I expected from fruit trees in their second year in the ground. 

On the other hand, the Perez white nectarine, which is actually a year older than the other 3 trees, has a bounty upon it.  We were blessed with 3 nectarines last year, this year looks like it'll be about 30.

And the peach tree, only in it's second year, well, the peach tree looked a lot like this:

And the first bucket off that tree looked a lot like this:

A second bucket with a good dozen was picked a few days ago.  And there's about 15 more on the tree.  Hot damn!  Fresh, home grown organic peaches.  Love them peaches.  Which reminds me of another song, since  peaches really are quite lovable.

As a dessert ingredient, peaches are famous and quite fabulous.  Peach Cobbler, Peach Melba, Peach Crisp, Peach Flambe, Peach Puddin, Peach Pie!  To name a few.

Mmmmm, peaches.

Here's a Peach Cobbler tip: Double the sugar in the dough.
Here's a Peach Melba tip: DON'T ever name a child this.  Maybe a parrot, or a llama, or maybe your toast.  But definitely NOT a child.
Here's a Peach Crisp tip: Double the topping.
Here's a Peach Flambe tip: Use decent brandy.
Here's a Peach Puddin tip: There is no such thing.  I dare you to try.
Here's a Peach Pie tip: Add 1 T sugar, 1 t Cinnamon, a pinch of Nutmeg and 1/2 T Apple Cider Vinegar to your crust.  (Add the vinegar when you're incorporating the ice water.)  Besides holding in the actual pie body, I think a pie crust should also be a flavor festival and compliment the main pie ingredients.

I am really quite surprised and amazed at our peach bounty this year.  I mean, the tree is only in its second year.  I definitely babied them last summer, maybe it all paid off.  They were watered extensively, and I also put wood chips to a depth of about 4 inches in a radius of about 5 feet all around the trees.  Besides breaking down and adding nourishment to the soil, wood chips also add a nice FAT layer between the soil and the sun.  That definitely helps the surrounding ground retain moisture, especially helpful in a drought year.

Since I have a little worm bin and manufacture worms and worm compost on a small time homestead type scale, I have also added some compost AND a few worms around the base of all four trees.  One of our neighbors, a very knowledgeable organic gardener, swears that earth worms go together with wood chips like potato chips do with Escargot.

Or something like that.

I have also added about a half cup of chicken manure (each year) around the base of each tree.  That naturally recurring phenomenon around here is packed with nitrogen, among many other beneficial nutrients.  It can be "hot" right out the gate, so I have a naturally recurring aging poop pile by the naturally recurring compost bin.  Yeah, a lot of things seem to naturally recur around here.

This year I will not be watering the fruit trees near as much as I did last because of the drought.  As babies, they easily averaged about 20-25 gallons a week.  

In doing some drought research, I found that trees should get at least 5 gallons per week per inch of trunk diameter.  Since my trees are yet youngsters with trunk diameters between 1 and 2 inches, they'll need between 5 to 10 gallons per week.  That's easy.

But how much water do established fruit trees need?  An old chum who owns a fruit tree nursery in Arizona sez,

" Your watering is real simple; get water to the "Root Zone"!  

Sounds simple right?

Well, it is once you know where that root zone is.  Most people know to water near the drip line of a tree or bush, but with fruit trees it's different.  You prune them each year (or should prune them), but you don't prune the roots.  The root system keeps growing but the foliage people see is smaller than where the roots are. 

If your area is  flat/level like it is here, I tell people to build a water retention ring about 8 feet around the tree and about 4 inches deep.  Then flood the ring every 5 to 8 days depending on how fast your soil drains.  

If you're on a slope and can't flood, use sprinklers, but run them on a low volume.  Run for a longer time to allow the water to soak in deep.  Keeping a low volume will reduce any problems of run off.
  
Depending on the rootstock your trees are grafted on, you need to visualize the root system as being a mirror image of what you see above  ground, or what it should be if it wasn't pruned.  Most times that system is about 10 feet deep and about 15 feet around where the tree is planted.  That's where you want the water to migrate to.

We could write books on keeping fruit trees, that's why I have the Forum on RSIGrowers.com"

Thanks Turtleman!  

By the way, RSIGrowers has a fantastic array of fruit trees at great prices and will drop ship all the way to Borneo, or at least the continental United States. 

Animal Update

Our little Rhody, who was the surviving victim of the vicious Ringtail attack we suffered last month, is doing fine.  She's just as active and boisterous as the other two pullets, which is what adolescent chicks are called..  Her neck wound, while looking rather inhospitable for quite a while, has scabbed over quite nicely.  I'm not sure though if feathers will ever grow back.  She may be destined to look like Clint Eastwood in "Hang 'em High" for the rest of her days.

I may have to rename her "Clint".  Or maybe "Josie", for Josie Wales, another Clint movie.  It's a little more feminine.  Although shoot howdy, she's a pretty tough bird to have survived that attack.  Maybe I should rename her "Willis", for Patrick Willis of the SF 49ers.  Or "Beatrix" after Uma Thurman's character in Kill Bill. 

OR, how about Beatrix Josie Willis.  There, I think we have it, we have just renamed a hen!  

I have also noticed that Myrna, the Black Sex Link hen that experienced the vicious hawk attack last autumn, still retains a bald spot on the top of her head right behind her comb.  She got ground into the dirt pretty seriously by that rapacious predator, it's no wonder.  I may have to rename her Ralph.  I have no idea why.

Having the water spigot up at the Chicken Lollapalooza makes it easier to fill up Lake Capon on these hot summer days.  Yes, mid-afternoon when I go up to collect eggs I also fill up their lake.  It's a puddle to us, a lake to them.  It's an oval about the size of a big kitchen sink.  I can fill it about 5 inches deep, and because of the clay in the soil here, or the hard pan in the dirt pan, or a bed pan in a hard place, the lake slowly dwindles down over the course of 4 to 5 hours.

In that time frame the girls will head on in from time to time, stand around and gossip.  Probably about the bald spot on Myrna's head or the ugly bit of roughage on Beatrix's neck.  Just like we humans like to cool down and stick our toes in the water and maybe gossip a bit, so, too, do chickens it would seem.    

And the kitties?  The KITTIES?  Well, they're doing just fine.
 

Stay cool y'all.  It looks like Summer is upon us.

Weed Whack Attack/Raider in the Night

We've been experiencing a heck of a spring here in the Sierra Nevada Foothills of Northern California.  A few weeks back we had a minor heat wave, experiencing temperatures at least ten degrees above normal.  That was right after a light rain when the temps were about twenty degrees colder than normal.  And then the temps fell again and we got a little light rain.  And now we're warming up for the duration I believe.  Kind of makes me feel like dancing to some Psychedelic Furs. Or maybe a little String Cheese.  Or Joe Cocker.

See how confusing this all is?

I have a number of absolutely wonderful summertime projects that will make excellent fodder for upcoming posts, but I'm kind of in a routine ritual right now of basic annual chores that must be done.  Boring, but necessary, and still keeping me insanely active.  Whose idea was this anyway, to start a homestead approaching 60 years of age?

With an extreme drought at hand and the summer wild fire season upon us, I feel purdy darn good that I have "brushed" about 90% of the property here.  This last winter I hacked and hewed and got rid of most of the dead under growth and thinned it all out.  You can read about some of those exploits here at Taming Our North West Territory.

Fortunately, now that the main part is done, I will only have to do minimal work to maintain that aspect of the property.  A couple days worth of work annually instead of several weeks.  And much lighter weight work for this rapidly aging light weight worker.

One thing I MUST do every year, while I still can, is weed whack about an acre of the ground here.  Fortunately, a little over half the property has good tree coverage which limits the amount of small growth underneath.   But that one plus acre gets about waist high if you're me, head high if your a grand kid.

So I gots to get me out my weed whack attack orange bucket and fire up my trusty Stihl FS45.

I always make sure I've got an ample amount of string.  One of those $12.00 rounds below I bought at a garage sale for a buck.

So far I've found the grey string (in the middle) to survive the best.  I typically measure out 11 feet, cut it in half and string 5 1/2 feet on each side.  Typically that will last for two tanks of gas, sometimes a little more if I haven't been tearing up pine cones or barracudas.  The grey string usually lasts for 3 tanks of gas.  I'll definitely buy more of that if I'm paying retail.  If I'm paying a buck for an almost a full roll I'll buy anything as long as it's the right size.

About three quarters of the way through the job my trusty Stihl 45 started giving me problems.  I figgered it was the trimmer head, so I ordered me a new one.  When that didn't work I took the darn machine up to SPD Saw Shop in Nevada City.

There's a number of saw shops between here and there for me, but I take all my stuff to them.  They're in their second or third generation and have been at the same location for decades.  They've been sharpening my chains for centuries it would seem and are a great couple of guys.

Well, after fiddling with it for a couple minutes it was ascertained the inner shaft had bit the bullet.  It would cost about $100 for the part, and an additional $20 for the work.  It would take about a week.  So I ponied up about $30 more for a new Stihl fs40 which I took home that same day.  It has several better features and a shorter shaft, which works better for this shrinking shorter person.

How could that be?  That one after market part costs almost as much as the whole?  That for $30 bucks more I get a new, better machine than if I repaired the old?

Sigh.  Movin on.

What is my weed whack attire, you may inquire?

Well, besides ear and eye protection I put on my trusty steel toed boots, basic levis and at least a Tshirt.  That provides enough protection for me.  If you're smart, like I learned, you will only wear shorts once while weed whacking.

Especially if you have hairy legs.

I did it about 30 years ago.  30 minutes into the job half of what I had cut and dusted up was attached to my legs.  I had to shave them to get all the particles out. 

It probably takes me about 25-30 hours every year to weed whack the property.  That's at about 4-5 hours a whack, spread out over 5 to 6 days, not necessarily laced together.  It has been getting a little easier every year since trees and brush have been thinned.  I've cleared out many of the small (and large) obstacles that would help shorten the string.

Another minor project I completed this spring was making the rose walk look nice nice.  The project has been in que, along with a thousand other things, but hosting Mother's Day festivities always makes for a concerted aesthetic push.  So I turned the weed patch underneath the roses that looked like this:

  into this:
 

Oh, yeah, I also planted about 5 more roses!

I pulled most of those luscious, supple greens and tossed them into the chicken coop.  Those girls love their salads!  Then I put down a layer of weed paper, for lack of a better term, and then I tossed in some bark.  Yap, yap, yap.  About a yard and a half of it.  Now it looks nice nice.  Plus the bark will really help the soil retain water and we'll be able to use less water.  A good thought in a drought.

The roses have been stunning this spring.  Here's our Queen Elizabeth, AARS winner in 1955:

The roses, of course, must be behind fencing until the entire property fencing project has been completed.  We're about 3/4 of the way there.  Without the temporary protection they would be decimated by Bambi and her ilk.  Roses draw deer like Robitussin draws Ozzy.

Rose Land began back in 2012, when I built this rose arbor my lovely wife's birthday in July of that year:

You can barely make out the 8 inch high Cecil Brunner roses planted on either side of the arbor in the photo above.  I purchased them on EBay from an old dude in Florida.  I got 3 of them for less than $15, including shipping.  That's a heck of a deal considering how much roses cost at a nursery, and considering what we paid for most of the other roses we have.  If you're concerned about the length of time to substantial bloom, consider this.  Here's our Cecil's not quite 2 years later:

Here's the roses along the picket fence:

They were but little stubs until I built for them that wondrous cage of protection.  Prior to that those pesky damn deer would ravage and pillage them to near extinction.  We believe there is one Peace rose in the bundle above.  But it appears that the other two have reverted back to their wild rose origins.  As you may or may not know, most all roses are grafted from wild rose stock.

Grafted roses, commonly referred to as budded plants, are plants where the desired rose is grafted or budded onto a rootstock of a different type. If a grafted rose dies back (OR IS EATEN) to the ground, what will come up the next Spring is the rootstock variety.  Eighty percent of the roses grown in the US come from the Wasco, CA area and are grafted onto red climbing Rosa's, or 'Dr. Huey'. 

How about that.

Another several phase project I began this spring was my upper irrigation program.  For the last 3 years I've just had a hose running up to Chicken Fantasia Land.

This was, apparently, the year to begin that several phase project.  It all started with tapping into one of the lines running out of the pump house, the one that runs alongside the south side of the property all the way down to the orchard, about 700 feet away.  The other line runs into the house, and I don't want to tap into that if I can help it!

Prior to tapping into the line below, I had to move all the crap I have stored behind the pump house.  Wood, PVC, planters, buckets and all sorts of lopsided, and otherworldly but really useful crap.  And then I trenched a little.

And then I made the tap:

I cut about an inch out of the line (after, of course, turning the water off) to allow for the "T" above.  There was enough flex on either side to allow the "T" to slide right on in.

From there it was a 90 degree turn to the left, or the right, depending on where you were standing, and then I ran out another ten feet or so of PVC. 

And then I put in a shut off valve, so that when and if I have to work on the upper irrigation I can just shut off that section rather than the whole line.  I'm big on valves, apparently.

Next I ran about 6 inches out to a "T" and then stubbed out the mid section for later use.  That will eventually be the main line in for the back yard sprinkler system.

With that done, it was time to do my Geometry thing and take that PVC on up the hill to Chicken Fantasia Land.  But before I could do that I had to do a little cardio, you know, break out my trusty little trenching shovel and get to it.

Once it was all put together and tested, the final product looks a lot like this:

And one more project can be checked off my infinite list.

Ringtail Raider in the Night

Well, it almost certainly had to happen.  Maintaining fowl in the country is certainly NOT without it's hazards.  And the aroma of lovely, docile fowl in the middle of the country no doubt just begs night time marauders to stop on by to see what they might get a slice of for dinner.

The main coop where the main flock sleeps has never yet been breached.   They've been sleeping in there for over two years now, and considering the companion cage has been raided twice one would think if the coop was penetrable it would have been penetrated by now.  It has not.

But last year the companion cage door was breached and we lost Ginnie, the Guinea, to some night time invader.  Before moving our new chicks out there this year I made major improvements to the cage door, and it is now just as strong as the main coop door.

But I did not take into account the width of the space in the rectangular wire that the cage was essentially made of.  Strong?  No doubt.  Keeping the predators out?  Sure.  So what the heck then?

Well, as I have alluded to in many previous posts, when the night shade falls a chicken's metabolism falls too.  Just like Nick huffing some Krylon or Ozzy slopping down a pint of carbonated cough syrup, a chicken's brain turns to mush in the dark.

So the other morning, like around 1:30, my lovely wife and I were waken by some abnormal chicken noises.  Not a frantic holler, but a sustained low chicken chatter.  That's typically not good.  The dang rooster may occasionally crow, but the chickens are usually very quiet at night.  They can be noisy during the day, quite noisy sometimes, but after imbibing some of that dark evening night they're as quiet as little church mice.

So to speak.

Unless there's a threat.  I was up in an instant and hit the perimeter floods, 2 bright lights on all 4 sides of the house.  If you were out there sneaking around and I hit those lights you'd look a lot like James Coburn on the Band on the Run album cover.  The two floods on the East side of the house light up Chicken Fantasia Land like a Roman Candle would your hall closet.

We both saw a pair of bright eyes right by the companion cage door.  I quickly grabbed the always loaded 22 rifle and a bright flashlight and dashed down the stairs and out the side door.  Oh yeah, before I went out to tussle with the bad guy I did throw on a pair of sweat pants.  No sense in having that thing flapping around in the midnight breeze when engaging a wild beast. I also have a pair of sandals by every exterior door, which makes emergency dirt and gravel stomping tolerable.

The coop is only fifty feet from the house, I was there in an instant.  During this instant my lovely wife, doing recon from the master bedroom deck, watched the invader frantically scampering back and forth inside the exterior pen trying to figure out how to get out.  He was, apparently, not a big fan of bright lights in the night.  They seemed to agitate him. 

As I approached the front gate, I saw him perched on the top of a wooden gate post at the back exterior coop fence.  He sat there for an instant and then bounded down the other side and into the night. 

I then started an assessment.  The main coop door was locked and the main flock OK.  Upon looking into the companion cage, I noticed two of the birds were on the perch, one was sitting up in the garbage can (shelter) and one was laying down on the ground.  Not moving.  That was probably not good.

And then, about 20 feet away, Mr. Bad Ass's eyes and then full form appeared from behind a tree.  Two big, bright golden orbs in the night upon a cat like looking body, but with abnormally long legs.  With flash light in one hand and rifle in the other, I got off a shot.  A bad shot.  It was a miss, but Mr. Bad Ass, his form imprinted in my cranium, dashed off into the night.

Then I went into the what I thought secure companion cage.  The one bird laying down was headless.  How it got into the middle of the cage I don't know, unless, of course, it experienced one of those things similar to running around like a chicken with its head cut off. 

And then I noticed the Rhode Island Red in the garbage can had no feathers on her neck as well as a pretty severe wound.  Blood was not flowing, or dripping, but it was open into her second layer of skin.  Other than that she was moving OK.  I sprayed the wound with a spray on bandage, and (later that same day) she seemed to be doing OK.

Obviously I had to figure out the breach, and fortunately, with a couple tell tale signs I think I did.  The two other girls were still a perch, unfazed by the nights commotion.  They were both slumbering inches from the outer rectangular wire.  If I hadn't intervened they would have been headless and probably not even noticed until they were running around too.


It would be simple for a night time marauder to waltz up, possibly singing belligerently loudly, stand on it's back haunches and pull a chicken's neck through the rectangle.  Then a couple swift gnaws and wallah, a headless bird.  I am certain that happened to Jewell. 

Here's some blood evidence right on the gate, after my wire intervention, where I think the Rhody was accosted:

Most of my morning was spent adding small dimension chicken wire all around the bottom 2-3 feet of the companion cage, paying special attention to the areas close to the perch.   Actually, I ended up putting some wire up very early that same morning, like about 2.  I couldn't sleep knowing Punch Drunk and Judy were  sleeping inches from certain death, just like sitting ducks.

So to speak.

It all looks impenetrable and safe now, much more than before.  I think if something tries to get a paw in there it's gonna look a lot like Steve McQueen did after he wrecked his bike in "The Great Escape".  But then, I thought the cage was safe before.

As soon as I got back in the house I went straight away to my "Laws Field Guide to the Sierra Nevada" and ascertained the invader was a Ringtail cat, with about 90% certainty.  The Ringtail is not really related to the cat family, they are actually members of the Raccoon family.  Which makes sense.  This varmint looked like a raccoon but was much smaller, just like the rascal below.

By the way, if you live in the Sierras you really need to buy the Laws Field Guide.  It is packed with every bit of information about these mountains regarding flora, fauna, varmints and poop.  There's a link for it somewhere around here.

There have been no further attempts in the week or so since the initial attack.  The reinforced fortifications seem to be sound.  The Rhody is looking good.  Her wound has scabbed over nicely and should start to feather in before too long.

It looks like the 3 remaining babies will have to stay in the companion cage a few more weeks.  I briefly let them in with the main flock the day after the raid and the big girls were very much less than hospitable.  The babies are still pretty small compared to the 2 year olds, so I think they will need to grow a little bit more for their own protection before full integration with the main flock.

Next big projects coming up this summer will be the picket fence refurbishment excursion program thing and the front deck rail rain intervention Bossa Nova.  Who said owning a house in the country can't be fun?

Stay tuned.