Loving my "inheritance"

Here is the URL for an article telling about a bit of the history of the Metlox California Poppy Trail "California Ivy".

http://www.deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,660203519,00.html

I found a way to love my dishes, the ones I grew up with in California. Dorothy gave them to me, along with the silver before she died. These dishes and silver and crystal are part of the really good memories I have of Dorothy. She loved to entertain and set a beautiful table. We were on the very low side of middle class for that era, probably would be considered poor in this day and age, but we had sterling and crystal and knew how to have a truly fine dinner. Thanksgiving wasn't the only time. The dishes are special, but I couldn't figure out how to make them really look wonderful on the table, but today I did it. Bamboo chargers that match the painted vines on the plates, and a tropical tablecloth. So much fun. Now I have to have a dinner for someone!

random

Today I am doing what we call "lab sampling". It means lots of walking and digging and carrying lots of very heavy bags of soil, labeling them, dipping clods of soil in liquid saran, hanging them on clothes lines that have been strung between whatever tree or bush is available and usually a spade jammed into the ground. It means lots of other things as well, and it's actually pretty satisfying work. real.

This afternoon, the review team leader from Davis and I went to a sample location without the rest of the crew to sample a soil in a politically sensitive site. Beautiful day actually, breezy, not too hot, brilliant skies, grass still green, shade of an oak tree to work in. Many miles from any kind of civilization. Not bad at all.

The two Sue's we call ourselves, Valley Sue and I am Sierra Sue. So Valley Sue is writing something down on a label and I am digging away at the pit when, silently, the Easter bunny drops in. No, not a rabbit, not a real bunny. An Easter Bunny Balloon. It just glides in from nowhere and gently lands on the knoll about 10 feet from where we are working. And looks at us. The bunny is grinning and his ears are upside down because he seems to have lost some of his oomph. So he laughs at us. For about five minutes he laughs at us, resting on his little knoll. We look at each other and laugh and say, "Gee, maybe we should take him home". And just as quietly and gently the bunny leaves, lifted into the air by a gust of a breeze, and off he goes.

Now that's just plain random. and weird. and very very funny. We laughed the rest of the day. We never did find the bunny, either.

too busy to even write to myself!

So I am working on a major lab sampling event coming up here in the mother lode with all those bigshot smarties coming from UCDavis to check out my paralithics. I have a really difficult employee who is totally dedicated and makes me want to kill him because he is seriously and completely nuts, and isn't getting his work done at all. I have a totally smart and wonderful employee who is like a sponge and needs my continuous teaching, I have two great guys detailed in from out of my area who are smart and really good soil scientists but need to understand the Mother Lode in order to map a lot of it in a very short time and in the midst of this I am supposed to be finalizing all that stuff I wrote last year for my Basic Soil Survey teaching assignment, coming up way too quickly in May, only again, one more time, in some kind of new format devised by Marc Crouch the Grouch who is the head of training. The man is on a mission. We have to do teacher plans, and student plans, and convert them all to jpegs and then back to ppts, and then, of course, we aren't supposed to use too many ppt's because that isn't really teaching. and for pete's sake, I'm just trying to get a soil survey done for my area and get some lab data to document it! Nuts! I am going slowly or quickly maybe crazy!!! There's my rant for the day. Happy Easter everyone. I'm running off to Oroville to help Maryruth hide eggs for her 13, yes 13 grandchildren. geez. Then next week I am off to meet my own great granddaughter in Wenatchee for the first time finally. Then killer sampling week, and then off to Lincoln to teach the class, traveling there in the MOHO with MO gee, maybe I can call her MIMOtheHO. oops, of course I didn't say that, and taking Shera along in the gourd where she is currently resting. Will finally after more than a year spread her ashes in the canyons on the way home from Nebraska. Have I said all this before somewhere? This is how my life feels at the moment. All one big paragraph with no breaks and no real sentences.