Hey you in the plaid shorts!

My Midwestern, suburban, country club friend announced that she was going to play golf today.

In plaid shorts.

Oddly enough that sparked a memory...

(some of you are thinking "she's a little TOO odd")


A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away I was a teenager on California's Central Coast.

My friends & I spent a lot of time at the beach.

Our favorite beach was Avila. The last of the warm water beaches (the further north you go it gets considerably chillier).


Not far from our beach, the road made an almost 180* curve around a small, picturesque golf course.

Now, you must understand, when we went to the beach we inevitably had 8-10 people crammed into either my regular cab pickup or someones 4 seater Datsun (ahh, the days before mandatory seatbelt laws...). 


We were also, as we have established, teenagers. Which, by definition means we were obnoxious extremely witty.

As soon as that little golf course came into view everybody's head stuck out a window & we started to encourage the patrons. ;)

"Hey you in the plaid shorts!" (at least 5 old men & 1 little old lady would look up at this one)

"The 9 iron! The 9 iron!"

"FORE!"

"Putt!"

"Caddy!"

We would continue to yell all these helpful tidbits (which pretty muchly summed up our entire knowledge of the game) all the way around the curve until the golf course disappeared from sight. Effectively shattering the peace sought after by those poor people who simply wanted a nice quiet day on the green.

Sigh.

One of my all-time-absolute-with-out-a-doubt favorite memories.

:)

Blessings.

Daniel

The son of our dear friends is getting married next month.

Tomorrow we are driving up to their house (1 1/2 hours) to meet his blushing bride.

It is so weird to think of him getting married. Weirder still that we don't know his bride-to-be.

We haven't really seen our friends much for the past 2 years but we used to see them almost daily.

Daniel stepped in when our oldest abruptly left home & sort of took on the big brother roll for my kids.

He & my now 15 year were especially close & spent  a lot of time turning sticks into swords & plywood into shields & perfecting their light saber moves :)

If you have a Star Wars question or need something translated into Elvish ~ ask Daniel.

He was supposed to wait & marry my daughter but there is that pesky 10 year age difference...

Many, many years ago I took a compromising photograph of Daniel.

I am pretty sure I told him I planned to save it for his wedding...

Well. The time has come.

I ordered a 5x7 of it & I plan on buying a lovely frame (that they can actually use for a wedding photo) & giving it to them tomorrow at dinner.

Yes. I am that mean.

Oh come on, it's not like he's naked or anything ;)

Just remember, a picture is worth a thousand words...

Blessings.

Okey Dokey Artichokey

One of the totally cool things about living here...

Artichokes taller than my 12 year old.

The stems are as thick as her arm.

Want some? Steamed & dipped in butter? Hmmmm? 

Yummy.

Blessings.

After 20 years...

I have dealt with severe, debilitating upper back pain for more than 20 years now.

Right between my shoulder blades is where I feel the pain.

It started, for no apparent reason, in my early 20s.

I didn't injure myself or have anything to blame it on.

It just started.

It has no rhyme or reason. Nothing 'causes' it & nothing keeps it away either.

I can exercise or not. Stretch or not. Be tired. Be rested. Be over weight. Be under weight (HA!). Whatever.

I will be fine one minute & the next I can feel it coming on & within 10 minutes it hurts so bad I want to cry.

Before I discovered ibuprofen it was awful.

Most times ibuprofen will mask it.

If I am at home & can lay on an ice pack that will usually stop it.

I have been to chiropractors.

I have been to medical doctors.

They have prescribed pain killers.

One guy gave me some stretches to try.

One guy thought it was a sprain...um, okay dude, a sprain for 20 years???


No one has ever given me diagnosis, a reason for my pain.

Until now.

Saturday, at our parade we had a wee bit of reckless driving with our float & one of the results was my lower back getting jammed.

I could feel the discs compress :P

By that night all the pain was in my right hip & I could barely move with out crying.

So Monday morning my husband hauled me into his chiropractor.

We talked about my injury & how it happened & he started to examine me.

In the course of our discussion we brought up my "usual" upper back pain.

He felt my spine, asked a couple question & in less than 2 minutes gave me a reason for my pain.

A diagnosis.

I have scoliosis.

Not severe, not needing a brace or surgery but enough to cause pain.

He starts explaining the curve (which my husband has told me for years I had but no doctor every caught it)
& explaining what kind of pain I deal with (spot on) & the things that will work for relief  (he mentioned stretching the spine over a ball or hanging from a bar. All these years when it was really bad I would hang from the doorway for temporary relief). 


Everything he said was just right on the money.

After he popped my hip back in (which by the way was WAY less painful than the last guy) he showed my husband an easy maneuver to stretch my upper spine & ease my pain.

He also said that he can do adjustments to keep the pain away.

Oh. My.

20 years of misery & he nailed it in 2 minutes.


I heart our chiropractor.

He is so smart & so awesome.

If I weren't madly in love with my husband I would have proposed on the spot. (His wife probably wouldn't have appreciated that either).

I am just so impressed & so pleased & so thankful to finally have an answer.

So if you are in Northern California go see the folks at Masula Chiropractic.


They rock.

Blessings.

Chicken Tractor

My latest project has been a 'chicken tractor' (of sorts) for our meat birds.

Where we currently live is not set up very well for animals. We have very limited housing options.

Last year we put our meat birds in with our laying hens & the results were less than optimal. ;)

The meat birds made everything dirty, poopy & yucky  :P

And they pecked at & ate eggs. Lots of eggs. NOT a happy situation.

So over the last year I've tried to figure out the best, most economical way to house the meat birds.

They needed to be enclosed, safe from predators, have shade, water & a way to have/keep clean bedding.

It also had to be big enough for at least 25 birds & easily accessible for us.

We decided on a sort of chicken tractor/hoop house combo.

I saw some ideas & examples on line & kind of 'built it' in my head.

The one thing that was bugging me was the door.

We have to have a way in & out right?

So my first thought was to just frame in a door but that would require more materials & make an already heavy frame even heavier.

I pondered this for months.

One night God slapped me up side the head with the best idea EVER~ a zipper!

I bought a sleeping bag zipper & sewed it onto the mesh I used for the sides.

It is really truly awesomely cool :)

Wanna see?

So we went with an 8x8 frame made out of 2x6s. With 2  5'x15' cattle panels bent in between to make the frame. The ends are covered with plastic mesh with the zipper door. The panels are covered with tarps (couldn't find the size I wanted so used 2 8x10 tarps).

See my door? Is that not cool? Come on, admit it~ it's cool! And it works awesome! Easy in, easy out, no gaping doorway for the chicks to charge out of. One of the all time best ideas God ever gave me :)

You can see the panels in this one.

Happy birds on fresh grass.

  Now this is not the worlds most portable set up. It takes 2 of us ~ we put 2x4 skids under the frame & 1 person drags to new grass while the 2nd person herds the chicks so nobody gets  stuck or smashed.We move them every other day right now & it's working well.

They still have the heat lamp at night for awhile until the nights warm up (coming all too soon in this region).

What's really cool about this?

My son & I built this in a day using materials we already had laying around the farm yard. The only things we bought were the zipper & the tarps bringing our project total to $37.00.  :)

Even if you didn't have the 'inventory' on hand I figured the whole thing would cost less than $150.00. A very cost effective way to house birds.

And of course, reusable season after season.

So there you have my new favorite toy :)

Blessings.