The Great Outdoors

Carrie called around 9am and asked if I'd like to do a short ride.  Yes. 
I groomed and saddled Firefly, putting her bridle on over her halter, then moving the reins to the halter, not the bit.  We walked out a little way to meet Carrie and I got on.   For the first few yards Firefly was a tiny bit fussy.  We were headed back toward home and she DID NOT want to go home.  The minute it was clear we were going somewhere else she perked up.  Honestly, for most of the ride I felt like I was on an old experienced trail horse.  She was as good as gold.  She looked carefully at the bank we had to walk down and then went down quietly.  She looked carefully at the rather steep stream crossing and then walked quietly and carefully across, no jumping, no trying to move fast, just perfect.  At one point she did spook a bit at a particularly black and suspicious cow pat.  When I say "spook" I mean she stopped, looked at the cow pat , tensed up a tiny bit, looked at it again, put her head around to my boot to ask me if everything was ok, and when I said it was and encouraged her; she sniffed it, relaxed and walked on.  That is the first time she has clearly asked for reassurance from me while I was mounted.  Perfect.  We rode through the herd of cows, passing several within a few feet with no incident.  We watched the flock of turkeys without a spook or moving away, or any drama except stopping and looking. I never for an instant felt I needed to move the reins to the bit for more control, in fact quite the opposite. She accepted light contact with the reins and went where I directed her.  
I'm thrilled.   Maybe we will have issues next time, but for the mile we rode she was delightful.  Very slow when we turned for home, but that was enough for one day. 

Firefly was being obstinate this morning.  I called her to come in from the field and she turned her back on me.  We had words.  So I marched her into the corral and hurried around the shop to get some alfalfa for her.*  I was about 8 feet from the hay pile, which is covered with a blue tarp, when I spotted the snake lying along the front of the tarp.  I screamed, because snakes are what I'm scared of, and left the area.  Dave gave us a shotgun a couple of days ago, but we didn't have shells for it yet; so I called Michael.  Perhaps 25 minutes later Michael and his girlfriend showed up armed with a shotgun, shovel and metal rake.  The snake hadn't moved.  Michael carefully uncovered the snake's head, and shot it.  Poor snake, it was never aggressive, even at the end.  It had 10 rattles and was really fat.  I fetched a bucket and they took the body with them.   While I am quite relieved, I'm also still wary.  Snakes often have a mate somewhere around, so caution is still warranted. 

* Grass looses most of its protein when it dries.  We feed alfalfa, which is a legume and very high in protein, as a supplement.  Firefly had lost some muscle, which means she was protein deficient and her body was breaking down muscle to provide needed protein.  I should have started a couple of weeks ago. 

Picture a two car carport with a fully enclosed room (my shop) at the end of it.  The roof over the top of this building extends out toward the garden about 4 1/2 feet on the south side.  The carport hasn't been used for cars for years, though I do park the Gator in it most of the time.  These days there is a tarp across the south facing side of the carport (but not the shop) and another tarp that goes halfway across the east facing side of the carport.  This keeps the carport fairly dry except in the most violent storms.  I've struggled to keep things tidy, especially as more and more stuff arrives from San Francisco. Here is a picture of the garden path leading to the door of the shop. 

I got a call a few days ago that my friend Phoebe needed a hand-truck, did I have one.  I do, or at least M does.   Phoebe and her daughter (Luna) are moving out of a two bedroom apartment.  Luna is moving to Humboldt State University, into a dorm room. Phoebe is moving to Oakland (CA) into a studio apartment, so there is a lot of sorting out of stuff and getting rid of things.  Phoebe is not the kind of person who is comfortable loading a truck so she asked if I could come down today. Donald and I went down this morning.  Luna was good help. We talked about weight distribution and keeping fragile things safe  I packed things very tightly and showed Luna how to attach and work a ratchet strap.  We put two of them on the load.  I don't really think both were absolutely necessary, but they will keep things together a bit better.  The whole thing only took about an hour and a half.  Phoebe was happy and Luna very grateful that she didn't have to do most of it by herself. 

The garden is starting, slowly to produce summer's abundance.  We have had the first two yellow summer squash.  Various cucumbers have set fruit, but nothing is even near harvest size.  That is because I got most things planted so late.  I've picked the first two larger tomatoes, Tim's Black Ruffles {Edit: I'm not at all convinced that this tomato is actual Black Ruffles, looks too smooth.  It was a pack of complimentary seed so who knows}.  The plant is in a 5 gallon bucket.  Cherry tomatoes have started to produce.  The first flowers are visible on Moon & Stars watermelon, though nothing has set yet. 

Did a little cleanup in the shop today.  There is a steady stream of stuff coming from SF to Ukiah that needs to be put away -- somewhere. 

Some of you may remember that I have been at odds with the PG&E (Pacific Gas & Electric) company over PG&E's "vegetative management" program.  My Ranch is full of thick stands of young blue oak trees who are competing to outgrow their neighbors.  PG&E has no less than three power lines that cross my property. Two lines are high voltage transmission lines (one comes out of "The Geysers" hydrothermal power plant about 30 miles south of here).  In general the people working on those transmission lines are: actual PG&E employees or reputable companies.  The third line on my property is a distribution line that services houses, including mine.  Apparently some idiot in management decided to sign an exclusive contract with a slimy, unprofessional vegetative management contractor that is 100% all about trimming trees for the maximum profit possible.  This is NOT a good overall strategy for actually keeping the power lines clear.  For years I have demanded that any tree in need of a trim be cut down entirely, and for many years that company ignored both my Ranch policies and their own guidelines, trimming trees so that they would grow back quickly and need a new trim within a year or two.  I finally said they were not welcome on my Ranch, and I have really good reasons to deny them entrance; such as last time they were here they left the main gait to the highway open and unattended.  We were lucky that no cows or horses got out on the road.  Under California law it doesn't matter who leaves the gate open, I am liable for any damages caused by a car hitting an animal.  
The folks at PG&E and I have gone back and forth about this, they claim I am denying them access to do "vital" work, I say I'm not denying access at all, I'm ONLY denying one contractor access.  Any other contractor is acceptable.   A week ago  I was sent a letter saying they were going to come do the tree work and I couldn't stop them.  Which you shouldn't say to me.
Now, two of the trees in question were already cut down and on the ground.  That left four trees still standing.  All four trees were, in fact, leaning toward the wires and big enough to hit them.  All four had been "trimmed" in the past.  One of them had been trimmed for decades and was a grotesque 1/2 a tree about 40 feet tall.  Jose and Mark O came to help me. We all eyeballed the trees and discussed where the weight of the tree was,  which way was it leaning, and how do we pull it so it doesn't get near the wires as it falls? Jose did most of the cutting,  Mark wrangled the tractor.  I climbed trees with the help of an extension ladder for the first little way, and then shinnied up and tied my rope to a limb very high up.    Then the tractor would get into position with the other end of the rope attached to the bucket. The tractor backed up till there was no slack, Jose would start to cut the tree, making a good notch on the side we wanted it to fall toward.  When he was finished with the notch the tractor would back some more so there was tension on the rope.  I directed the tractor to back up further as the tree began to fall.  Nothing even got close to the wires.  We were lucky today, all the trees were oaks. Oak tells you when they are starting to fall.  You can see the tree start to tremble and sway, and you usually have a couple of seconds to act.  Two seconds is a long time.  Madrone isn't so nice.  One moment it is standing, the next it is falling. 
The last tree was the big one almost 3 feet in diameter.  It was crawling with red ants.  I climbed anyway.  Before cutting the whole tree down Jose and I dropped some minor branches to get them out of the way.  Once I was up the tree and had the rope tied  to an upper limb, I cut it and then tied to a second limb.  One limb was almost a foot in diameter, the other a little smaller.  The larger limb was actually leaning out over the wires.   Thank goodness for the tractor!   Even though that tree was pretty mutilated, it has been part of the landscape of around the house for decades. I'm sad to have cut it, but the tree wasn't healthy, limbs had started dying,  and that is the beginning of the end. 
We got all four trees down, now comes the hard work of cleaning up. Cutting the trunk and limbs up, and disposing of the brush.  It will be winter again before I'm done, I can't burn brush until at least November.  I'm very thankful that there were three of us, and that we could do this job safely.
Since PG&E, despite all their public posturing, doesn't want to actually communicate about issues, they have not actually provided a viable mailing address only a phone number that goes to voicemail;  I have a letter ready to go to the Public Utilities Commission.  The Commission needs to hear from people like me.