A Visit from Colorado

We had the entire Colorado Beals contingent in for lunch today. Sam and Lydia, Justin and Robin and Barb and Gary. We did a very nice lunch on the deck with salads, good bread and drink.

The Colorado folks had invited their friend River from Oakland for a visit. She brought her dog, Minnie I think was her name. Revel was beside himself with a another dog, and the boys Justin and Sam to play with. Gavin got over the surprise of having so many people in the house early and enjoyed all the attention he was getting.

After lunch and some Chocolate Chip Cheesecake for dessert some of us headed to the beach for a short walk. The weather was beautiful at that point even though it was quite windy. We had a really nice visit all be it too short. I know for my part we here in Aptos wish we saw these family friends more often.


Revel is very sad to see everybody go and hopes you will all come back when his leg ise better, we have more time, and and he can show you around the trails of Aptos more extensively.

What a difference a year makes.

Was it worth it? No question about it. With the flowers blooming and a full time professional gardener on the case the house looks wonderful. Here is a picture taking about a month into the project with only the fence up. The old wooden porch which you cannot see was still in place and the driveway had just been finished.
Now there are many differences, the fence fits in well with the overall fence and deck structure, the driveway is almost everybody's favorite. Most amusing is that we have now seen severe homes in the area change to this very form of driveway. The paint job on the house has held up really well over the first year. The production form the solar panels just visible on the left corner of the roof is better than we expected. The automated irrigation system keeps it all watered and the gardener comes every two weeks to clean it up.

The best part for Revel is that the hight of the porch and the fence are perfectly matched to allow him to lay on the porch and enjoy watching what goes on in the street. I cannot tell you how good I feel that he is good enough now off leach to allow out front without a concern. He can jump the fence without thinking about it as he did when his buddy Libby came for a visit but he was jumping in not out.

Another trip to Ventana

On Friday, May 16th I got a chance to head out to the Ventana Wilderness with Dorothy, Revel and we picked up Elda's dog Libby. The weather was the really big story we had 100 degree temps out in the valley that day. As you can see I picked a route along the reservoir so that the dogs had frequent access to water. I think if you ask Revel, my snow dog would tell you we traversed a desert in mid-summer.

The dam area is really pretty the colors are just starting to change from the green hills we have in winter to the yellow grass hills we see all summer. As always there was a number of beautiful flowers along the trail. I was particularly taken by these ones that I think must be a variety of Fuschia but they have flowers that remind me of Japanese lanterns.

I just finished the book "Merle's Door, by Ted Kerasote", its about a dog who lives in a town just south of Jackson Hole, Wyoming and rarely wears a leash or collar and roams the town freely. While it is not a reality for my city dog, it made me want to get them both out to Ventana where they can be off leash and roam. Both dogs behaved wonderfully there was no incidents the people we saw only two but neither really had any trouble with Revel. Nobody every minds Libby being around. Wonderful book by the way but I am done with dog books. I cant stand reading the endings, its just to hard.

Renate may recognize this hike as the one she and I took Revel and Suzie (her poodle) on about two years ago. The ticks are still there but if you stick to the trail stay out of the brush and have the dogs well treated with Advantage there is really no problem. I took several ticks off the white parts of Revel on the trail. When I got home I combed them both and found nothing but a lot of burrs in Libby (sorry Elda).

Godspell

As many of you know Teddy starred last weekend as Jesus in Godspell at Aptos High School. While I realize I am Dad and a bit biased I think I speak for all who saw it he was amazing.

If the role of an actor is to become somebody else so convincingly that even your friends and relatives are amazed then Teddy did an outstanding job. To quote Amber, "That was not the Teddy I know!" It has taken me about a week to figure out how to get these videos to the web. With about another week or two I should be able to get all 45 minutes of video on a single DVD if anyone is interested let me know and I will send you a copy.