THE BIG “Disneyland” ATTITUDE

 

People want to come and play in the snow, but don’t want to put chains on or go 25 miles per hour or leave even a car’s length between their bumper and yours.

 

People want snow for their children to play in, but you had better have cleared parking for their four cars (when only two are even supposed to have parking spaces next to the cabin) even if they arrive in the snow storm that put more than a foot of snow on the ground, plus the snow that slid off the roofs!!

People bring their BBQs and set up a family party on the side of the State Highway and walk with babes in arms across the road slowing the 25 miles per hour to 5 miles per hour for fear of someone nonchalantly walking out right in front of you!

People are kind and considerate of others even under the above circumstances.  Truly amazing how helpful and giving some folks are under these long-prayed-for snowy conditions!!  Strangers helping others put their chains on tighter so they don’t run askew.  Homeowners letting babies use their bathroom since “none are provided” by WHO? 

If you are playing on the side of the Hiway, parked in the unplowed lot of an “out of business”  business entity, who is the person / business that is supposed to provide a Porta-Potty service?  The USFS maintains THREE heated bathrooms, nice new ones paid for by PG&E as part of their FERC – Federal Energy Regulatory Commission - contract to use the water from Pinecrest Lake to generate power.  The heated restrooms are just TWO miles away on plowed roads!!  When people are told that tidbit of information, they walk away - and not to go to Pinecrest to use the facilities – muttering about the “inhospitality” of us Mountain Folk!   I just saw a Rent-a-RV parked in the Inn Parking Lot – now that is a great idea, bring your own Porta-Potty, refrigerator, stove and a place for the baby to take a NAP!

When we are traveling we use the “facilities” of fast food restaurants or gas stations but ALWAYS as customers.  A cup of coffee each, a pastry, a batch of tator tots/French fries, or even an ice cream or milk shake makes us a customer and is a small price to pay for a clean “facility” when you need one!! 

The business of business is STAYING in business!!  EVEN Disneyland is not FREE, so get a clue and plan accordingly!

THE ORGANIST wore “Sorels”...

 and played the piano!

Christmas Eve 2015 was the beginning of our WHITE CHRISTMAS!  We had received 8 inches of snow when the church decided on only ONE Christmas Eve Service at 3 PM, canceling the 6 PM service to get people home before dark.  The brave and hardy dozen enjoyed the candlelight and all of the traditional Christmas Carols, a lovely solo by Carl Rudolph and some Christmas snacks after the last candle was extinguished.

My husband did his traditional Christmas Eve shopping and we headed home to The Resort to help two guests park, I shoveled a path to their cabin as their chains were askew and the road too icy for them to actually drive to the cabin.  Then we attempted a quick and easy fix on the furnace in another cabin to no avail.  A light supper served as an appetizer to a two-hour crawl under the cabin to repair the faulty furnace.  Praise GOD for the offer by the young-adult son of the guests to shovel out the access to “the furnace room.”  Our total accumulation of snow was over a foot plus what the plow had pushed toward the access doors!  All is well that ends well!  Cabin is now “toasty”, and so was the shower to remove the dust and decay from laying in the dirt under the Cabin where the Raiders actually WON the football game on the TV above us!

Our Granddaughter’s boyfriend was at the Raiders game; having a Raiders fan in a 49er family is a bit of a stretch!!  Otherwise, he is a nice young man!  She and her family were going to attend the 6 PM service that was cancelled.  Our son said that was an excellent idea as it took him six tries to get up the hill going to their house on the ice. This is the winter we have been waiting for since the last “good one” five years ago!   That was the last snowy winter we had here in the central Sierras!  The Christmas Eve Storm was a day after the RAIN to 7000 feet storm – nearly 7 inches of rain!  We were so thankful for the ski area and snow play area to receive the needed white covering!!   It looks so pretty and with a morning temperature of 9 degrees today, it will stay pretty!!

A Merry Christmas was had by all and the packet of Christmas gifts from Grandpa is being picked up TODAY from the Sonora Post Office where it finally STOPPED its rotation to West Sacramento, thanks to alerting the staff that doing the same routine procedure more than twice didn’t seem like the correct way to solve a delivery problem.  It was simply a wrong zip code requiring, at best, a phone call to the correct Post Office for pickup, especially since the addressee IS the Post Office in Strawberry!!  If the system is broken, be creative and find a solution, don’t wait for the customer to find out that the system is broken!!    Happy New Year to all the Postal Service, UPS, and FedEx employees who work their hardest the last two weeks of December!!   We can add the vacation industry people who solve problems even on Holidays when the snow is falling from the sky and piling up in their parking spaces!

CROSS TRAINING

I had a short conversation with my "universal associate" at the local bank the other day, and she claimed to know all the tasks in the Banking Universe - the reason for her title!  I was joking when I asked if she also worked a branch, or store, on some other planet!!   But she was fast with an answer for me!!

I have always felt that NO ONE is irreplaceable and everyone should have someone who can do their job.  Life is short; life is unpredictable; life is precious.  We never know when someone will need to "step up to the plate" and do a task that they have been trained for but is not their normal job.   

Then tonight we were at the local High School for a JV football game which our team won by an outrageous score, with the opposing team making a 6 point touchdown in the final seconds.  There was not even enough time for the extra point!  The coach could have easily played the multiple "bench warmers" in that second half and not have LOST the game!  But the coaches must FEAR DEFEAT more than they wish to build NEXT YEAR's team!

In your life I hope you do NOT feel that no one can cover for you!  There will be a time when we all need to accept the fact that we need HELP!  God is gracious, HE will supply what is needed when we need it!  Afterall, Jesus took our place, paid the price and broke the bondage of death for us.  That is the true "Cross Training!"

The Summer of Thundershowers – 2015 – PRAISE GOD!!

While it is hard to work with power tools in a wet atmosphere, we are certainly thrilled to get rain at our altitude in greater downtown Strawberry – the mile-hi hamlet with population of under 100 except in the “summer” - where the women are strong, the weather unpredictable, and the children have to go elsewhere to school!!  THANK YOU Twain Harte Unified School District!!

The POOL PROJECT continues despite the weather – the building permit arrived in late November when work had been closed down for the “winter!”  Winter arrived in April, May and June with thundershowers nearly every afternoon, which is nice when the owner is also the contractor and needs a nap on occasion.  There have been 10 to 12 hour days, however!  Not bad for “an old guy!”  He used to do 48 hour days in the computer business – if it is broke you work til it does, fueled by the vending machine candy bars and chips, and LOTS of coffee!! 

Just prior to the pouring of the 36 yards of 3 sack slurry one of the 3 baby robins decided to inspect our rebar in the deep end of the pool.  He hopped from intersection to intersection chirping away, sometimes within a foot of each of us.  We put a 2x6 ramp up and he found it, but hopped off before reaching the side of the pool.  Finally, the guest in #4 came with his fishing net and helped Tom capture and release the infamous “Inspector BIRD” to get a good scolding / welcome from his robin family!!

The shallowing allowed safe working for the last of the staples in the upper reaches of the walls – staples necessitated by weak spots in the walls, especially on the concrete deck side of the pool.  I have been lamenting those cedar trees for blocking the sunlight and dropping their pricklies for 20 years now!!  They also pushed on the 12-inch concrete wall looking for water, even chlorine-infused water!! 

The staples will keep the epoxy-filled cracks from cracking again, at least that is the theory.  We pray that it is at least a 30-year fix!!  The rebar and dobies for tying them a prescribed distance from the shallowing or the shallow end where the new floor will be atop the old mended floor are on site and ready to be done by the Team of Mountain Martha and the contractor.  We are a good team – 56 years of practice!!  So far the guests have not “tarred and feathered us” for not having the pool done, especially when they see us down there each morning at 8:30 and with a thunderstorm break, working again until 7 PM!!

With the black clouds forming the pool gate is locked, no sun bathing in a thunderstorm anyway.  The lounges from the pool area are scattered in the sunniest locations on the property so folks can catch some rays early in the day!  I do pity the Pinecrest Theater – wet is not conducive to high attendance at the nightly first-run MOVIES outdoors under the stars (when you can see them!)

The Places You'll Go and the Things you will SEE!

Three graduations in the past three days - 1 8th grader - Brandon, and 2 High Schoolers - Cassidy and Amy!!  It has been a BUSY few days!  We enjoyed a party for all three today and the afternoon thundershower waited until we were all cleaned up and ready to go home.

One of the Moms bought THREE of the Dr. Suess books by the above title and we all wrote thoughts and good wishes in them for the three young people off to new places, new challenges.  I had forgotten in the past 25 years all the great lines in that book!!  A lot of wisdom.  If you have not read it, look it up.  Kathleen reminded me that I gave her that book when SHE graduated from High School.  And the places she has been and the things that she has seen!!  

GOOD FOOD, good friends and relatives, and no supper necessary.  I will always vote for NOT COOKING!  Just a cup of Sweet Dreams and this Grandma will be counting sheep - maybe 6 of them!!  It has been a lot of late nights, hugs and kisses and even tears!!

The speeches don't change a whole lot over the years and each of the High Schools had a young scholar heading for a military academy!  Pretty amazing for the small schools here in the foothills!!  Lots of AP classes adding up to GPA above 4.0 and even the three or four graduates from our corner of the county are heading off to the four points of the compass - Oregon, So Carolina, Virginia, and THE WORLD!  The three exchange students were heading home to Norway, Italy, and Sweden in last nights graduating class of 113.  The Sonora High School had more with 225 graduates and they too were off to amazing places.  

The Senior Project Expo the week before at Sonora High offered an amazing snapshot of the varied interests and talents in that Senior Class - several restorations of cars and pickups, transmissions replaced, a dog house built by a young lady that would work for several Dobermans!  But she built it with her own hands and learned to saw, hammer, drill and use a battery powered screwdriver!!  Guitars, a large drum, dresses, fund raisers for all manner of organizations - the band, the soccer team, veterans, rescued animals, the handicapped.  The principal said that over $94,000 had been raised by those senior project fund-raisers!!  AMAZING!!

The Country is going to be in even better shape when these young people become the leaders - the movers and shakers of our national economy and our world civilization.  Go Class of 2015 - you will accomplish MUCH!!   

 

Roadkill Buffet

I saw something so unusual that I have to comment on it.  We are used to seeing the big, black ravens feasting on the occasional squirrel on the highway.  They will eat until they feel the vibrations of a vehicle and then just hop out of the way until it is past and go back to their meal.

In Sierra Village just a few days ago I noticed that a vulture had lifted a carcass off the highway and was enjoying his "breakfast" BUT standing in line were another vulture and TWO ravens, just waiting their turn at the Roadkill Buffet.  In my nearly 40 years on this mountain I have never seen this community effort, this "there is enough here for all of us" attitude. 

At the Strawberry Inn we used to have a BIRD FEEDER TRAY - mounted on a post - which we kept  stocked with uneaten toast, heels of bread, half eaten sandwiches, etc.  for the viewing enjoyment of the guests in the dining room.  The birds that availed themselves of this repast were not nearly so accommodating!!  In fact the blue jays would chase off any other birds who dared to try to partake!

April Showers

Our April Showers were SNOW!  Thank you GOD!  Easter afternoon we received a whole two inches!  Then on Tuesday it was amazing to watch a grand total of 14 inches accumulate on our porch railing!  Very much like sitting in a snow globe! We love living in beautiful downtown Strawberry, elevation 5,280 feet with a population of less than 100 - except during the summer when we enjoy LOTS of visitors!

The storm gave my hard working husband a day off from his labors in the POOL Renovation.  The pool was built in 1957 and two years ago suffered severe leakage!!
With the drought last year, it was TIME to fix it and not just patch it AGAIN!  The fact that Governor Brown declared mandatory water rationing just two days before the snow began to fall is not deterring our efforts to have it ready for water this summer.  We are praying that GOD will show us all who controls the water in our lovely state by sending a weekly rain to fill our very dry reservoirs.  We are doing our part to conserve this valuable resource; as we hope all of you are!

I am also praying that the cold did not nip my lilacs in the bud.  The marigolds were NOT happy with the 24 degree night time temperatures.  The daffodils in the neighborhood had already bloomed as well as the flowering plum in front of the Post Office.  The dogwoods in Sierra Village, just down the highway 15 miles are in full bloom, nearly two months early and they seemed to have survived the snow fall nicely!  It seems to always snow on them at least once say the old timers in the Mi-Wuk / Sierra Village area!

The docks are floating at Pinecrest Lake and the Marina is open on weekends until the last weekend of April - opening of Fishing Season on the rivers! - then the Marina will be open daily.

So if you know any fishermen, we still have a couple of vacancies for April 24 and 25.
Just call 1800.514.6777 -  the phone rings in my pocket wherever I am, except Doctors offices and Church on Sunday!  Leave a message and I will get right back to you.

Have an awesome Spring!

The HAPPY MEDIUM

I first heard the expression "there must be a happy medium" from my mother!   She had a LOT of expressions/ proverbs!  We had been invited for a family dinner at their house, Tom and I arrived with our two boys and the baby, a couple of diapers and a change of clothes for the baby (burp ups happen even when nursing!)  My brother and his wife with their FIRST son arrived with enough baby stuff to stay a couple of days, and they lived nearby!  Mom told me that there had to be a "happy medium" somewhere between too prepared and un-prepared!  I didn't feel insulted since I was a third-time mom!

I have found in 54 years of marriage that being prepared isn't really necessary, and certainly prevents spontaneity, but the "happy medium" does require some preparation.  How different our world would be if that was the goal - a happy medium.  Perhaps we should consider Churchill's famous remark "talk softly, but carry a big stick" - would that be a good "medium" between WAR and PEACE.  No totalitarian regimes, but no anarchy either;  keep the bullies at bay and encourage kindness on a GLOBAL SCALE.  The Bible says, "love one another as I have loved you."

The "happy medium" between lifestyles of the "rich and famous" and living in a government subsidized apartment project.  Between being an acquisitive person having to have the newest, nicest "whatever" and using the same pot or pan for multiple purposes.  I remember getting a microwave (back when they were the "newest thing") as an anniversary present and feeling less than thankful; now I don't know what I would do without that appliance!!  I even thanked husband Tom multiple times for installing a hood over the range in our apartment as a birthday present!! (that is what happens when you burn the cheese sandwiches and have to boil cinnamon and an orange to kill the odor! I also purchased some unstinky neutralizer spray!)

We recently "downsized" from a 3 bedroom house to a 1 bedroom apartment and the hardest part was downsizing to a single bathroom!!  We still have stuff in storage "in case" we get another house some day or as one adult son said, "that's our history too!"  So they will have lots of laughs when we are dead and gone saying, "what did they keep all this STUFF for!"  Happens to all of us if we live long enough to be a problem to our kids!!

Applying the "happy medium" to other aspects of life is walking a tightrope like the GREAT WALLENDES family of circus fame.  You must keep your focus on the goal, your feet moving forward surely, and your hands firmly gripping the balance beam of GRATITUDE, your only "safety net" God's love and care.  The "happy medium"... interesting thought!

TEACHING

Seems I have been teaching a lot lately,  a new piano student yesterday and a lesson in knitting a scarf - the ruffly kind - today!!   LOVE IT!!

Who would have ever thought that my little Post Office contract station would offer piano lessons after hours!!  I am not a "REAL" Post Office but do nearly everything that a real one does except put those little lines on the bottom of the letters.  I don't have the official computer with that capability.  

I have Post Office customers who wait around the corner to hear the end of my occasional practicing, with smiles on their faces!  Many of my customers actually pickup their mail "after hours" on their way home from work.  The Post Office is only open two hours 8 months of the year!!  Leaves a bit of time for my practicing!! 

We have had employees with small children; a box of blocks and coffee can of crayons are here to keep them occupied.  We also deliver mail to shut-ins, Christmas Boxes after hours, and take mail down the hill for speedier delivery to its destination should the customer have missed the pickup time and I just happen to be going to the next major stop on the mail route!!

I was just telling my brother this afternoon that rolling that Everett piano into my little office / Post Office was one of the happier days of my life.  The piano was my 8th or 9th Birthday present and it has "lived" in a cabin in the mountains of Colorado at 9,600 feet where I gave lessons, traveled across the country to Poughkeepsie NY, wasn't there long enough to acquire any students!  To San Jose CA and seven years later to Strawberry CA where the piano tuner was able to give me its date of manufacture - by the serial number on the soundboard .  We had seen its TWIN at a church in Fairplay CO; the tales those two instruments could tell I am sure!!   

I manage to teach Sunday School at our little Methodist Church at least once a month.  My OH MY!  The roads I have traveled, and faces I have taught.  Facebook connected me with one of the Benson girls that I had given piano lessons to 25 years ago!!  She is now a teacher!  And the beat goes on...thanks MOM and DAD for those piano lessons!