Back to School for Bob

Bob is on his second week of school at Sac City College. He is taking classes to be a Mechanical Electrical Technician. We have lots of electrical problems around this old house that he can practice on, and a fairly new freezer that conked a couple of years ago. I've been using it to store things in the garage. Things like my drip system parts, my hammer, and other things that would otherwise be hard to find in a garage full of John's junk. (It's been at least a week since I complained about that, had to get it in.)

When he has his schedule stabilized, Bob plans to be look for a part time job. Until then he has a small unemployment check. Because he's very frugal and saved most of his money the past year, he's doing OK.

I envy him for having somewhere to go 3 days a week. But I wouldn't go back to school for anything. I love to read and do research and learn things, but I don't like someone else telling me to do it. I WILL do it, in fact I'd probably do twice as much work as they asked, because I'm an overachiever, but I'd be grumpy about it.

I perused an online list of volunteer jobs this morning. These days some non-profits are passing off work that requires quite a few hours and a lot of responsibility..."be in charge of all our fund-raising activities." Sure, lots of people want to do THAT for free. There were several openings for homework enforcers, volunteers who will work one-on-one with kids and force them to complete their homework. Once I saw how well the Waldorf school and Visions worked without it, I've been against homework. I'm afraid I'd be tempted to write on the top of a child's homework paper: "The student and I won't be doing this assignment, we're out learning REAL stuff. Ta da!"

Wildlife Care has some openings. Bob and I worked there for 3 years when he was small. We learned a lot, and I still enjoy taking care of an injured bird or two. But not dozens at a time. When you're working the intake desk and the choice at the end of the day is to either euthanize everything you can't place with a volunteer or take it home yourself, you can imagine how stressful that is. I don't want to work at cat or dog rescue places for the same reason. We'd soon have a houseful.

One thing that did tickle my fancy was library assistant in Kaiser's medical library. I would love reading that stuff myself. So much of what's on the internet is only available if you pay big bucks for it. As a side benefit maybe I could drive my podiatrist nuts with new questions.

What I should probably do is leave the poor people in the working world alone and find a way to stay busy at home. It's just so hard when there's no one around to annoy once in a while.

Meetup on Saturday

Something new (to me) on the internet is meetup groups. You belong to a topic group that communicates online and occasionally has a face-to-face meeting.

A friend from poultry show days, Cherie, organized a meetup yesterday for the Delta Backyard Poultry Group at a pizza place in Linden. Even if you live in California, even if you live in Northern California, you may not know where Linden is. I didn't.

First I took the back road through Wilton to US Hwy 99. For those of you in other places, there are two main highways that provide access from Northern to Southern California. On the east side of the Central Valley is Hwy. 99. It is the older route. On the west side is the newer Interstate 5.

This is what a lot of Hwy. 99 looks like.

Forty years ago Hwy 99 was a lively place. There were unique restaurants along the way and much of the highway was lined with oleanders. They were planted along both sides and also in the middle as a divider between the north and south lanes. Today there aren't many oleanders left. Where they've been cared for they still thrive and they're beautiful, but Caltrans isn't into taking care of landscaping. Also, oleanders don't stop runaway trucks.

Hwy. 99 is now bordered, for the most part, by boarded-up restaurants and other relics of its heyday. All of the major offramps have the same 4 or 5 fast food places and gas stations. But fine dining is hard to find. We used Hwy. 99 a lot when we went to poultry shows up and down the valley. Heading to Bakersfield on a rainy Friday evening was very stressful because the road is always full of trucks. When they pass you, they blow water all over the windshield and blow the car around as well. Traffic still goes at the maximum speed. Multi-car pileups are not uncommon.

Some people prefer Interstate 5. Hwy. 99 had many businesses along the roadsides, and even stoplights going through some of the towns. This held up traffic (heaven forbid!). So I-5 was built through the totally uninhabited coastal hills on the west side of the valley, and access was limited to a very few centers, where junk food abounds. You can go really, really fast on I-5. So can the trucks. You want to go fast because it's dry and nasty and there's nothing to see.

Even though it's old and bumpy and there's always construction going on (nothing ever seems to improve much, however) I prefer Hwy. 99. I-5 was on the wrong side of the valley for this trip anyway.

One thing about the Central Valley that I love is that no matter how ugly the freeway is, as soon as you're off it you're into cropland. This time I turned east on state Hwy. 26.

From Fresno all the way to Red Bluff, you will see orchards, vineyards, and other crops. Hwy. 26 passes lots of walnuts, cherries, and grapes. There were a few corn fields. All of these crops are irrigated, California does not rely on rainfall for anything because there just isn't enough of it and it mostly comes in the fall and winter when crops aren't growing.

Linden is a small town with a huge, lovely high school that must serve a large rural area. City people like to move to places like this and buy 3 acres for a pretend farm. They have big gardens and end up with at least 2 of every animal imaginable. In the meantime, their kids get to go to a decent school.

It took exactly 58 minutes to get from my front door to the pizza place in Linden.

It was good to see Cherie and to meet some of the people who are just beginning to enjoy raising chickens in their backyards. Most of these people live in the suburbs. They have to deal with neighbors who need to be educated, but they seem to be doing a good job and having fun.

On the way home I stayed off the freeway and took the back roads. It was a beautiful evening.

Fancy Farm Girl

No, that definitely would NOT be me. But here's a link to her blog. FFG.

I thought my new pen was pretty fancy, but I guess I'd have to describe it more as functional. I can't imagine ever needing to put on a formal dress to feed my chickens.

Miscellaneous Pix from Hawaii

The Big Island is big enough we got to do plenty of my favorite thing - car trips. Here are some scenes from our touristy adventures.

On the road near Waimea

Within an hour we left the tropical lushness of the Hilo side, ascended through pastures that were tall with green grass and cows, and reached Waimea. Just outside of Waimea there was dry grass and cactus.

Brent, Alex, Bob and John at Mauna Loa plantation

We passed the Mauna Loa macadamadia plantation every day on our way from Pahoa to Hilo, so we decided to stop. For some reason this headquarters facility didn't have as good a selection (or prices) as the local Long's Drugs. The only conflict we had on the trip: everyone else ate Alex's bag of milk chocolate coconut macadamias. When he woke the next morning expecting to have them for breakfast, they were gone.

On the Kona side they also grow macadamia nuts. Jon and I stopped at a place called Donkey Balls where they sell an interesting variety of them. The nuts are surrounded by a really thick layer of chocolate and other things. You only get 6 in a package, but they're yummy.

Across the street from Donkey Balls is a fabric store. You haven't lived until you've walked through a fabric store in Hawaii, the colors and patterns are all so bright and cheerful. I bought a few small pieces. Later I went to the Target in Kailua, expecting to see colorful clothes there, but it was the standard Target fare; you get a choice of 4 dull colors. Extremely dull now that "fall" is coming. I mean really, who wants to buy brown, gray, navy blue, or black in Hawaii? Who even wants it in California, where fall lasts a week or two? I really resent that some dork in an executive office, probably in Connecticut or some other dank place, chooses the colors we'll all wear every season. It's not just Target. And this is an ongoing gripe of mine. Dull clothes make you feel depressed. Do we really need that factor dragging us down too?

On an interesting tree at Richardson Beach in Hilo.

All the trees in Hilo are interesting. The banyans, of course, are supreme; the ultimate tree every kid would love in their backyard when they're growing up. But even the silk tree that grows everywhere, Albizia julibrissin, is a gorgeous mammoth in Hilo. I have 2 big ones in my own yard, but they can't compare. Probably because they have to lose and regrow their leaves seasonally in my area. Katherine and I saw them growing all through the forests of the south last year, too. Those were all small, fairly scrubby trees.

Don't know what these are, but they're gorgeous.

Don't pick the wildflowers.

There were several varieties of orchids growing out of a stump at a coffee plantation. They also had hibiscus and ginger hedges blooming and encouraged people to pick those for their hair. The flowers add so much to the environment on Hawaii, not only as a visual treat, but with their soft fragrance.

I hate it that you can't take plants home from Hawaii. They run all your luggage and your carryons through special machines to make sure you don't abscond with plant life. There are so many plants there that I really, really neeeeeeed. Not noni. Noni stinks.

Fake ABBA in Sutter Creek

I take pause from the Hawaii report today to take advantage of Katherine's post about the Waterloo concert in Sutter Creek last Saturday night (the day after I got home) that she and Lauren and I attended. Read about it here.

The Sutter Creek Theatre is a very small place, I think it only holds about 120 people. There are 12 seats across, I've been on airplanes that were bigger. If nothing else, I was curious to see how this band was going to manage in that little space with a light show and special effects. (It worked.)

These were the two "girl" singers. They don't look anything like Anni-Frid and Agnetha, nor did they try to, outside of wearing retro costumes and high white boots.

These were the two guys who played Bjorn and Bennie's musical parts.

Again, no resemblance. This was a good thing. I saw another Abba tribute band once that tried to look and sound exactly like the originals. It was a little distracting. I like Waterloo better.

For one thing, as Lauren pointed out, it's fun to see REAL people on stage. This band took the music I love, added things of their own, and really rocked. Sutter Creek Theater is a great place for audience participation, the musicians can easily see everyone's face from the stage. I don't know where you can have that much fun for $20.

Next time Katherine and I are going to call you when someone promising is playing there. Don't hesitate, just drop what you're doing and come along.

Target?

This ship, the Pride of America, was in the harbor outside Kailua one day. I don't think I'd be comfortable on it. To me it just screams, "sink me" to terrorists. They might as well paint a target on it. Judging by the ship's tourists who rode the Atlantis with us, there were people from all over the world on it. That probably makes it safer.

Am I just being paranoid?

Motorcycles

I know, I didn't write much for most of this month and now I'm flooding you with stuff. You might attribute that to my trip to Hawaii, where I found things to write about. But this is not true. I tried a new product made by the (in)famous blogger Yorkshire Pudding. He says:

Remember penicillin? Aspirin? Viagra? Well there is a new wonderdrug on the market, specially devised for bloggers who encounter a kind of creative constipation. Perhaps you have had the feeling? You have been blogging away happily for months and then suddenly you hit a wall. Nothing to say. Out of ideas. You have said it all before. Sounds familiar? Well very probably you need to give new "Blogolax" a try. Complete the course and within days you will be back blogging again like a lunatic.

Normally I avoid drugs, but sometimes there is a need. Luckily I haven't observed any side effects.

The title of today's blog is "Motorcycles." And for good reason. You didn't think that just because I went to Hawaii I wouldn't be looking for motorcycles and the dudes who ride them, did you? Ta da! Here are lots of them.

We found them unexpectedly in Hawi, at the northern tip of the island. We stopped to see the statue of King Kamehameha I and they had just arrived.

I thought it was neat that King K was wearing the colors too. You probably can't see in this photo, but a couple of these fellows strongly resembled the statue, they could have been descendants of the King. There were a lot of biker babes and biker babies in the group. This seemed to be a family activity.

Fish

There are lots of touristy activities on Hawaii. You can fly in a helicopter over the volcano, ride a zipline over the rainforest, go out on a diving boat, ride horses with the paniolos, have dinner with dolphins or a midnight snack with mantas. The common denominator is all these activities cost a lot of money. So we didn't do them.

Alex, Jonathan and I decided to part with a wad of our money, however, to ride the Atlantis submarine in the bay. Bob and Brent stayed home and watched a movie, I think. Here we are getting ready to board a boat that will take us out to the submarine.

Alex   Jon    Jan

The submarine holds 48 people at a time. Most of the other tourists had come from a big cruise ship that was parked in the harbor. I don't think more than 6 of us spoke the same language, we were a very diverse group. Here is the Atlantis.

The sub awaits. (Atlantis photo)

This is the inside of the submarine, Jon took the photo on his iPhone. The photos I took with my camera were awful.

None of these are my pictures. Once we were underwater, everything was blue. Like this.

Most of the fish were a darker blue. The yellow fish were puce. Atlantis sold us each a DVD with pictures on it so we could see what the fish would look like in the sunlight. I think the photos were taken by divers with good underwater cameras and a light source. Here are a bunch of fish photos for you, compliments of Atlantis.

Do fish have better eyes than we do? Can they see each other in color? What would be the point of wearing colorful clothes if blue was the only color anyone could see? We did most of the cruising at 25 feet, they took us to 100 feet maximum. This is what we looked like to the fish.

I don't know if I'd have climbed into this thing if I'd seen how ratty it looked underwater.

Here are more fish pix. I don't know what their names are, the pictures were not labeled.

The picture above is of dolphins. We didn't see any of those on our dive.

More fish.

Didn't see any of these (above) either. At least I don't think so...it's pretty well camouflaged.

Here are a couple of starfish. I love the first one. It looks like a Christmas cookie.

In other places of the world there are probably a few colorful fish interspersed with the gray ones. In Hawaii all the fish seem to be colorful, very few of them are gray. (Even though they ALL looked blue.) I applaud Hawaii's efforts to preserve their coral reefs and the fish on them.

The next day the guys went snorkeling. The water at the snorkel site was only about 10 feet deep, so they got to see the fish in color. I'd recommend that over the submarine ride.

Birds

Aside from the white bird sitting on top of the white cow, this was the most interesting bird I saw on Hawaii.

I think it's an African Crane. It was at the Hilton Waikoloa on a small island, I imagine its wings were pinioned so it couldn't fly off the island. There were ornamental pheasants on other little islands.

My favorite birds are still the doves. On Oahu they hung around restaurants and picked up crumbs. On Hawaii I saw them mostly picking up crumbs on the beach. Someone had left this loaf of bread for them.

When they were full, one of the doves came over and perched on a rock about 3 feet from me, where she promptly fell asleep.

Bob caught one of these (he's very good at catching birds) and scratched its head for a while before he turned it loose. The bird didn't seem to mind at all. There were other birds eating the bread on the beach. Sparrows, mynahs, and this bird, which I think is a sandpiper.

I saw some interesting sparrows at the Hilton Waikoloa. The large building where the buffet breakfast was held has a very high roof, with open windows at the top. The sparrows come through those windows and land on light sconces in the dining room.

When someone leaves their table to go back through the buffet line, the sparrows sweep down, grab some crumbs, and fly back out through the windows on the roof. They often flew within inches of seated diners who didn't even notice them.

Beach Boys for Katherine and Gwynessa

Oahu is the place to observe guys on the beach, that's because the long white beach in Waikiki is mostly just for show. Good looking guys stroll up and down the beach just to be appreciated by the babes.

I looked and looked on the Big Island, and this is what I found for Katherine and Gwynessa, who are in the market for beach boys. This fellow appeared to me to be a native Hawaiian.

This young man was a lifeguard at Richardson Park. He was very good at posing when the camera was turned in his direction.

This fellow was pretty typical of the ones we saw near the beaches on the Hilo side of the island.

The four guys I was with were actually some of the best-looking on the beach on the Kona side, but you girls grew up with them. Most of the people out there were just plain folks enjoying some time on a beach towel, maybe watching their kids or grandkids playing. Like these three.

The fellow on the left was developing an awesome sunburn, you could almost hear him sizzle.

I think if you really want to see muscles at a beach you have to go to Southern California. Let me know when you're ready to go. I'll drive.

The Seahorse Farm

Jonathan and I toured the Ocean Rider seahorse farm near the Kona airport. It's in an area where there is an abundant supply of fresh seawater and there are lots of innovative businesses – places that grow fish, algae, shrimp, and other oceany things.

This farm was started 14 years ago to help preserve seahorses, which are becoming more rare all over the world. A side benefit to their intensive study has been to produce seahorses for home aquariums that can actually thrive in that environment. Previously, seahorses were caught in the wild. They are carnivores that prefer live food, and could not adapt.

This is a large tank of juvenile seahorses (seafoals?). They have a net at the bottom of the tank that they can wrap their tails around, but they are very social and prefer to hang onto each other. When they are mature, they will pair up and stay with the same mate. At the juvenile stage they're still dating.

This is a pregnant adult seahorse, a male. In one tank I saw a female with her tail wrapped around the male's neck. She was dragging him behind her like Daisy Mae and Lil' Abner.

The guides at the seahorse farm are scientists who are also good speakers. The tours are very informative, the guides can answer any question you throw at them because they're very knowledgeable. At the end of the tour, they help you "hold" a seahorse. Below, Jonathan has his hands in the water. The guide has herded a small seahorse onto his fingers, where it wrapped its tail and is happily perched.

See the close-up below. The horse Jon is holding is named "Lava."

Each guide has his or her own tank of demo horses that they're familiar with. Our guide said Lava is a really friendly horse that comes swimming right over to people. Obviously this wouldn't be an asset in the wild. The farm horses are not released into the wild, their goal is to stop the collection of wild born animals so those populations can recover. Horses are not sold to Hawaiians because they want to prevent people from releasing foreign animals into Hawaiian waters. The farm raises 25 species, including the native Hawaiian species.

The farm is also home to 4 Australian Leafy Sea Dragons. This is not my picture, we were only allowed to peek at the Sea Dragons for a few seconds, and could not take pictures of them. I found this one on the internet.

The farm had a large donation and was able to purchase 4 of these. They're $10,000 each. The prices for regular seahorses are between $75 and $400.

We enjoyed the tour at the seahorse farm. The facilities are made for the seahorses, NOT for the tourists. Tourism, I think, was an afterthought to help provide some income for this small, privately-owned business.