May 17th
As time went on my writing came at longer intervals. There was just too much to keep up with. It had been a whole month since I’d last written. The trip to Santa Rosa was very tiring. I left here at 8:30 a.m., got a rental car in Redding, a little Plymouth Valiant (?). Arrived at Candie and Jim’s in Willows about 12:00 and left at 1:30. Didn’t get to Santa Rosa until about 5:30. Stayed in the Los Robles motel which, although near the freeway, was quiet. The Clear Lake area was even worse than I’d imagined, very built up with lots of shacky houses, very crowded. I’d thought it was at a higher elevation also. Went through there once when I was in college—some other students and I were on our way to Crescent City to our family homes from Berkeley and dropping a student off. My father picked me up to go home to Jedediah Smith State Park.
That Thursday I drove around Coddington Center until I found the Water Quality Control office and, after dropping my car off, hitched a ride with the secretaries downtown to Rohnert Park where our meeting was being held. That afternoon we ate with the Farm Bureau and some of us went on a bus tour to look at dairy problems.
!Friday morning I got to the airport at 7:00 and was informed that Air West hadn’t confirmed my flight with Stohl so I couldn’t get on the first plane. I sent my luggage and took the next plane out, which had a female pilot! Got to S.F. about 10 minutes before they started loading passengers. Got home around 1:00.
Last Monday I took the boys and drove to Redding. Left the VW at the garage and took a cab to Cypress Square. Got new tennis shoes for both boys, ate pizza for lunch. To fill in time we visited the pet shop, floating gardens (a nursery), hobby hut, etc. went back to the car around 2:15 and then home. Then had to take some stuff down to Riker’s for Bob and pick Rebecca up from piano lessons.
One day we took the nursery school kids down to Caterson’s. They saw rabbits, cows, ducks and geese. Milked a goat.
Wednesday I tried to get stuff caught up at the house. Kim Hykas came over Wednesday evening and stayed with us until Sunday evening. Her parents were going to Monterey. They were back Saturday but she wanted to go out to the ranch and Rebecca wanted her to go out so she went with us. Bob left for Bakersfield Monday morning, and got back Thursday night. He came over to the CD Hall where the elementary school band was playing and met us there just before the program started. Rebecca was in the band, chorus and square dancing.
Friday morning I tried walking up East Weaver Creek. The creek was running across the road so I went up this side. Finally crossed over on a high log but, of course, there was another crossing to be made. I could have gone up on the original side through the tangles but hadn’t been feeling well and didn’t feel like fighting it. Went back and ate my lunch near the crossing log. As I was finishing, a young couple came up the other side. I went back on the same side as I came, finding a good deer trail, which contoured around nearly back to where I’d left the car.
Didn’t do much out at the ranch. Rested. Mowed part of the lawn and Bob finished it. He worked down at the creek a lot. Lots of stuff coming up in the garden.
Nursery school had a workday on Saturday. I didn’t do anything except go over a couple of times. Took Rebecca and Kim over to babysit. The mothers really did a good job.
Bob killed our first rattlesnake of the year; under the boom truck by the generator shed, and Jeff got bitten by an alligator lizard. The weather has been quite warm, sometimes up to 80 or 90 degrees.
Kinnik-Kinnick got hit by Mildred Giovanetti’s pick-up on Tuesday Morning. I dropped her off at the vet’s to have some cuts sewn up and picked her up late that afternoon. One cut is healing nicely but the bigger one she’s been licking a lot and seems to be opening up. I may have to take her to Redding as our vet won’t be here this weekend. While we were picking her up Elaine Livengood and her family were there. A female goat had gotten mauled by a bear and since they couldn’t save her, they were trying to save the unborn kids.
May 30th, 8:30 p.m. We’re out at the ranch and it’s raining. We came out yesterday afternoon. This morning, after a big breakfast of French toast, two eggs, bacon, milk and orange juice for all of us, we drove down to Big French Creek. I’d fixed a lunch and Bob brought his fishing pole. We got a late start but still it was a good day. Met a lot of people on the trail, most of them on their way out. It’s a beautiful trail, winds along above the creek. Lots of madrones, big Douglas Fir, vine maple, dogwood; two kinds of pyrolas, lots of Bachniakias—clusters of them– some delicate sprays of small white flowers of some kind, ginger in bloom. I’ve never seen so much poison oak—we couldn’t walk without being in it. Lots of big ferns (deer ferns?). Great, big pools in the creek, big mossy boulders and waterfalls. Looked like a water ouzel’s paradise.
We stopped for lunch near Oak Flat where the trail crosses the creek and eventually ends up at the Upper Ranch. Rebecca and Jeffrey and Bob walked across a log to the other side many times. I struggled across one log once and sat and hitched my way across another coming back. Oak Flat is filled with oaks and poison oak. Bob took the boys up the creek a way to fish while Rebecca and I stayed there to guard our stuff and the packs of two other people who had gone on up the trail (I did go look at Oak Flat for a few minutes). They didn’t catch any fish but had fun trying. We walked about four miles round trip. A good trip for Clarke. Cloudy but no rain until we got back to the ranch.
I did have to take the dog to Redding. She was there for almost a week. The vet discovered that she has heart-lung worms and they gave her injections twice a day for three days. I picked her up Monday. She is supposed to stay quiet for a month and we’re keeping her tied up and giving her tranquilizers. The heart-lung worms are a dog parasite transmitted by mosquitoes. If the parasites degrade locally it’s ok but if she gets excited they can create a blood clot and kill her.
Last Wednesday afternoon I left the children with Florence and Leonard and drove to Eureka. Stayed at a motel between northbound and southbound traffic. Very noisy. It was pretty on the way over—poppies and lupine on all the road cuts. Three other board members and I were supposed to fly to Ft. Bragg for our meeting. It was so foggy in the morning that the plane couldn’t leave and by then was too late to drive down so I came home and drove up to the ranch and changed a sprinkler–gave the garden a dampening. The mice have eaten the tops off all my pea plants. Ate lunch in Big Bar and went back to Weaverville, arriving about 2 o’clock. There was lots of traffic on the road—many logging trucks barreling along and empty lumber trucks. That road has been improved, just enough so that they go much faster than is safe.
Last Thursday was the last day of nursery school for the year. We had a picnic but fewer people than the previous year came. The mothers gave me a $15 gift certificate to Greenwood’s. I used most of it to pay for framing my bee picture.
Thursday night I had to take Jeff to Scouts. Bob had left Wednesday morning and didn’t get back until Friday noon so it was my job this time.
Rebecca had her 11th birthday in early June. Our 13th anniversary was a few days later. The children and I were out at the ranch. Bob was in Victorville and would get back the next night.
Rebecca was supposed to go to a Girl Scout camp Monday (although she’s not a scout) with Robin Meyer. We had bought the necessary clothes, made phone calls, she’d had a physical, marked all her clothes, etc. I’d even fixed little packages of things to be opened, one each day. It was to be for 12 days. Jeannie and I went together in the Meyer’s car all the way up to Medford with them. We drove up a winding road to Tomlin Forest—pines, oaks and lots of green grass, came around a turn and there was a burned building with a fire truck beside it. I hoped we’d taken a wrong turn but no, we were in the right place. The cookhouse had burned down the night before. There was nothing to do but head for home. We stopped in Medford and had a good lunch, then picked up a welding rod for Bob, which he’d phoned ahead about; then stopped at a park for a few minutes so the girls could get a little exercise and a snow cone. We got back to town around 7:00.
Rebecca’s sniffles had become rapidly worse so I had made her go lie down (combined with disappointment, relief and whatever else). Gave her dinner in bed and talked a little. Bob and the boys were still at Florence and Leonard’s and Bob made sure they stayed until we had a chance to unwind a little.
Tuesday did some ironing, some housecleaning, bought groceries, and went out to the ranch. We got there around 5:00 and Bob around 7:30 which was when we ate. Wednesday, after fixing breakfast, I hung out the clothes I’d washed the night before, washed dishes, planted the tomato plants, with Clarke’s help. Cut a lot of tall grass around the edge of the lawn, etc.
A day or two later Bob was in Victorville with a bad cold. The kids and I still at the ranch and planning to go to Patrick’s Point. We slept later than planned but I was awakened by the birds around 5:00 and went back to sleep for awhile. Rebecca and Jeff hung out the laundry. I made a lunch but left the breakfast dishes and we were at Patrick’s Point before noon. Ate lunch in a picnic area, which we had all to ourselves, then walked down a pretty, green- roofed trail to Mussel Rocks. The tide was in so we didn’t get to look at tide pools but we sat and watched the waves breaking, falling in big spouts of foam over the rocks. From there we walked about ½ mile up the Rim Trail to the trail that goes down to Agate Beach and spent a couple of hours down there. The children played in the water, the sand and the driftwood. It was clear and warm. The surf was high and rolled sand up with every wave, stinging our legs. By the time we got back to the car it was 4 o’clock. We had lemonade, iced tea for me, celery sticks and the boys had raisins. Then we drove down to Trinidad, planning to visit the Marine Biology Lab but it was closed. We drove down to the bay and walked out on the dock to look at the fishing boats. We ate dinner in Willow Creek and got home around 8 o’clock.
Lots of flowers in bloom—poppies still along the highway, azaleas, rhododendrons, purple asters and lupine along the coast. Skunk cabbage along a little creek on the Agate Beach Trail looked as if it would bloom soon. The children didn’t fight too much and seemed to think the long drive was worth it.
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The next series will probably include a backpacking Bicentennial hike.