Well here I am between guest visits and what happens but I get busy with what almost smells like work. On Monday my cousin Ricki and her dog Rosie headed back to Washington after a 4 day visit. Seeing Ricki for the first time since moving to the eastern time zone was a reminder of one of the benefits of having made this move. I used to only see her when she was either living in California or spending time at the house she used to share with friends up in Glen Ellen. Now, I am 6-1/2 hours by car from her house so visits are easier and should be a little more frequent. The odd thing is that after almost 16 months here, I still haven't seen that much of my East Coast friends. I have had way more visitors from California. I guess that may change slowly but it seems like it should be easier to get together with these folks.

Spring is being itself here. Besides the flowers, which I have been trying to report with some accuracy so I can check this log next year when people ask when to come to see (fill in the blank) blooming, the weather is spring like. It is mostly pretty mild although occasionally cool. Rain and thunderstorms are neither ubiquitous nor rare which is kind of nice. I have taken to sitting on my well-protected front porch, usually with some kind of beverage and the phone and a large white dog, and reading the New York Times or one of the books in which I am engaged. It seems so civilized.

After Ricki and Rosie left, I had a couple days of making bank deposits and shopping for stuff I neglected to get while they were here, and yesterday spent the whole day in Atlanta. Brian and Jason Marshall and I spent the day looking at materials, cabinets and various appliances and fixtures in order to get to some kind of an understanding as to the approach we might take on these condos if we do end up developing them together. It was and interesting but tiring day.

I really have never liked Atlanta as a city and yesterday's trip did nothing to change that feeling. It is a very large and sprawling city which seems to have multiple downtown-like nodes along Peachtree Road as you head north from the real downtown. None of it is very attractive to my eye and it has no recognizable character that distinguishes it from other modern cities. The buildings are, for the most part, pretty unremarkable and there appear to be few great parks or public places. The High Museum of Art, which was originally designed by Richard Meier in the 80s was recently expanded by Renzo Piano so it was interesting to see that in a drive-by, but that was pretty much the end of the stuff I liked. There is virtually no contemporary housing being built. Everything there is some fake period stuff. . .mostly neo-colonial townhouse architecture except when you get to Buckhead. This is an old North Atlanta neighborhood that has some very grand old mansions and some of the most appalling new ones I have ever seen anywhere. Driving across Paces Ferry Road, which is sort of a main East/West drag cutting through Buckhead was a deeply disturbing experience. Virtually every house for about 2 miles or so of this road is either new and huge or completely remodeled and huge and they are, almost without exception, in the most execrable taste you can imagine. Columns are grotesquely out of scale with the massing of the buildings and details appropriate to one style are generously mixed with others willy nilly on these massive and ostentatious front elevations. I probably should have taken pictures, but my jaw was on my chest and my palms were involuntarily stuck to my cheeks. I probably looked exactly like Edvard Munch's famous painting "The Scream" but was frozen in silence.

Interestingly enough, an inordinately large number of these houses are on the market. Some of the older ones, which probably are nicer looking and smaller, are well hidden behind lush landscape, but the new ones and the big remos are there for the whole world to see since the owners and designers have apparently decided to denude them of the old landscape so you can see the entire looming mass of some of these behemoths. I really don't think I can adequately describe the horror. You just will have to see it for yourselves someday.

It is now the 18th and Jini Bauer and Jerri Schenken have finished the Asheville leg of their trip around the Southeast. Yesterday afternoon, after having pretty much run them ragged for almost 4 days, I sent them off to Charleston for the next part of their tour. Jini and Jerri are a couple 60-something buddies from California (Jini from Carmichael and Jerri from Truckee) who have a great attitude about travel and clearly are well suited to running around together. I haven't seen the dynamic when respective husbands are involved but they are a pair of wild women when it is just the two of them. We had a great time hiking, touring, eating, gabbing and eating some more. We crammed in quite a bit in the 4 days they were here and I managed to squeeze in a couple meetings and do some drawing to boot.

Jini really wanted to visit the basilica of St. Lawrence while she was here and I had never been inside before so that was a new one for me. To say that this is a dramatic architectural experience is somewhat of an understatement, but the topper was that there was a very enthusiastic docent there who was an Asheville local and a deeply involved Catholic who was more excited than any tourguide I have had anywhere. The building and art were wonderful but she was really a hoot. Almost made us regret not being Catholic. . .well maybe not really, but it was kind of nice seeing someone who got so much joy from her devotion to her faith without being condescending or preachy. Accuracy didn't seem to be her strong point. . .in fact there were a few things I got the feeling she just was making up as she went along, but she was so enthusiastic that it was hard to fault her. It was fun and beautiful and I will probably add that building to the list of places to take people who visit. . .except perhaps for Kathy Treaster, who after our trip to Germany, Austria and Hungary will probably never set foot in another church or palace with me.

Cannot believe it is now June first and I still haven't finished this post. Other than the fact that I have been putting in a ridiculous amount of time on assembling an investor package with the development team to which I have alluded in the past, I have few other excuses.

Weather has turned warm again so our hiking has been reduced. We either have to go early in the morning or up to higher altitude to find cool weather. On occasion, if it isn't quite 80 out, I will take Abner to one of the hikes we routinely do that are completely shaded at this time of year. After the one encounter with the Copperhead at the Arboretum, and another on the river trail at Biltmore, I have become absurdly vigilant for snakes. Of course, I have seen narry a one since. In fact, animal sightings in the great outdoors seem somewhat different this year. Last year, for example, there was a time in the spring when every time we were at Biltmore on the northern portion of the estate, we were guaranteed to see groundhogs scurrying around in broad daylight or sometimes just standing beside the road watching people and cars go by. This year, in the entire spring season, I have seen one. I don't know if they have suddenly gotten timid or maybe they moved. Very confusing. The turkeys, while not as rare as the groundhogs, are certainly not as abundant as last year, and the deer as well have been largely invisible this year. I remember fawns all over the place last year and haven't seen a single one this spring.

Wildlife in the house, however, is another matter, and no, Big Rat has not returned. Some of you may remember the episode many years ago in my house on Garden Street during which a bird had fallen down my chimney and was trapped for a couple days at the bottom of the flue but was unable to figure out how to get out, either up the flue or into the fireplace box itself. Arlo just sat for hours in front of the fireplace waiting for something to happen and I eventually figure out (helped by the occasional pathetic chirp) what was going on. In that instance I blindly groped around inside the flue hoping to grab the bird but each time I reached up into the small cavity where he had landed, he fluttered around in panic and I was unable to grab him. Finally, in utter desperation, I managed to wedge my head up into the very tight area and shined a flashlight as well, all the while with visions of "The Birds" and being pecked to death by this undoubtedly maddened avian. Well, the bird, shocked by my head and the light, managed to get out of the flue and into my living room. Arlo and I chased it around the house for a few minutes until it finally landed on the back of my red chaise and I was able to catch it in my hands. Arlo, retriever that he was, would have preferred to have caught it himself.

I went out front to release the terrified little critter in my grasp only to see Judy Reynen striding up my front walk with a friend of hers she wanted to introduce to me. Seems the friend was interested in building a house and looking for an architect. Well there I was, walking out of my house with a bird in my hand and my hair and face completely jet black from soot, with an overly excited Golden Retriever following. Needless to say, she was very impressed and I never interviewed to do her house.

Well last Monday Matt and Amy came over with their dogs for a Memorial Day dinner here and toward the end of the evening I heard chirping and fluttering emanating from my fireplace. Visions of so many years ago came back to me but my fireplace on Garden Street was considerably bigger than the one here so there was no question of my ample skull fitting up into the top of the firebox. . .not to mention that anatomy doesn't take to pretzel shapes required for navigating the innards of a fireplace like it did 25 or 30 years ago. I really didn't want another dead animal in my house and have a read affection for birds anyway so I called Lori how is the rescue queen to get some advice. She had none but sent Jay over with gloves and about a 10-zillion candlepower flashlight (I believe they could see it shining out the top of my chimney from the International Space Station)

Jay gamely wedged himself between the gas log and the top of the opening of the fireplace, shining his beam up into the chimney while groping around above the small opening into the flue. We heard the bird flutter again once but after that could find no sign either visually or audially of him. After a while, Jay said he could see the entire inside of the chimney and there was no sign of a bird. With no more sound, we concluded that he had figured out how to get out the top and had flown away.

Well, apparently we weren't quite right. This morning, I went downstairs to make my coffee and sit on the front porch for a while to enjoy the New York Times in the foggy cool morning air, but after 10 minutes of so downstairs, I head noise that didn't sound like Abner. I wandered from the kitchen into the hall and living room and found nothing amiss, but when I went into the dining room, there, perched on a handle for one of the casement windows was a little finch-sized black colored bird with it's wings beating wildly against the window. Fortunately, since Abner is rather casual about getting his day started, he was still upstairs so I didn't have to compete with him to catch the bird. I guess he was probably tired and dehydrated from more than 2 days and nights in the chimney, because he was easy to catch. Without ceremony, and before Abner got wind of what was going on, I took him outside and put him on the bench on the front porch. He took off immediately for points unknown. Thank God.

Yesterday, Abner and I took the day off and took a little field trip. I had been hearing about the mountain towns of Boone and Blowing Rock ever since I arrived in Asheville, but had never been to either so after finishing a meeting with Jason Marshall, I got Abner, his water canteen, and some dog treats into the car and we headed up to Blowing Rock. The drive there is very pretty although the weather turned rather dramatic at one point when we were on the Blue Ridge Parkway fairly close to our destinations. We encountered a cloudburst that was so dense that I could barely see, even with the wipers going at high speed. There was also a brief burst of hail in the middle of the downpour. I was thinking that perhaps I had chosen a bad day to be a tourist, but about 4 or 5 miles outside of the Blowing Rock, the rain stopped as abruptly as it had started and the sun came out.

Blowing Rock is the smaller of the two towns. It is achingly picturesque. It has essentially one commercial street that is lined with stores and restaurants and lots of friendly people who either were tourists or are used to tourists. It is very pretty but I didn't see much that I was compelled to buy (I did pick up a stuffed squeaky toy for Abner) so we spent a couple hours walking the length of it, and having lunch. I also answered all the regular Pyrenees questions for about 400 people and we met several other dog travelers. I probably won't be going back on a regular basis but it was awfully cute so I was glad to have seen the place.

Then we took the short drive (maybe 5 or 6 miles) to Boone. Boone is a college town, home to Appalachian State University, and looks it. The old center of town is probably mostly early 20th century with one or two relics from the late 19th and is also sort of appealing although not as cute as Blowing Rock. The university campus completely dominates the area. Unlike Davis, with which most of you are familiar, this campus is built on steep hillsides that define the physical limits of Boone, so you can see practically every building on campus from one of two main streets in the town. The enrollment is over 13,000 full-time students and the official population of Boone is 13,286 so you can imagine how dominant the University is. I think just walking down the main street, I raised the average age in town by about 10 years.

We enjoyed our brief visit, but it too is a place I doubt that I need to return to on a regular basis. I probably will be in this neck of the woods again when the winter comes since the best ski hill in the North Carolina Blue Ridge is close by.

It is still foggy and not too hot, so I think I will take Abner out for a jaunt around the neighborhood. It embarrasses me that It has taken almost a month to finish this pathetic little post, but I am going to use the excuse that the heat turns me lazy.

Later. . .

Even the mailman here is friendly and helpful. In Curtis Park, for most of the time I lived there, Donner Way was served by two different mail carriers neither of whom seemed terribly concerned about delivering mail to the people or addresses indicated on the item that had been posted. While neither was physically like the Newman character from Seinfeld, both seemed to possess his utter contempt for the postal customer he allegedly served.

Well, the same cannot be said of the two guys who currently share the route here. I subscribe to New American Paintings which comes out every couple months in a square softcover book format, The books are mailed in cardboard envelopes that offer some protection from postal abuse but aren't all that effective. Since I have a rural type mailbox here, I have had a problem with the carrier delivering the books and stuffing them into the mailbox. While this doesn't permanently damage them, they get curled up and the cover can get a little crimped, so last month, when I happened to be leaving at the same time the carrier arrived, I asked if it would be possible to put this one particular item against the back gate or somewhere else where it would be relatively safe and not bent. He said that wouldn't be a problem and that he would alert the other carrier on the route. I, of course, assumed that it would be unlikely to be accomplished given my experiences in Sacramento, so you can imagine my surprise when I got home from hiking in the National Forest yesterday and found my mail in the mailbox and the latest issue of New American Paintings lying inertly on my front porch right in front of the door. I just can't get over how considerate most Southerners are.

We did have a little excitement on our hike yesterday. I had decided to take Abner for a 2-hour or so hike starting in the Arboretum and heading out into the National Forest. There is one particular route that we can take on a sunny day when I want to keep him in shade as much as possible. As we were climbing up Hard Times trail, still well inside the Arboretum grounds and on a broad and heavily used trail, I happened to glance down at what appeared to be a stick until it slithered away a few feet when I almost stepped on it. Abner had already passed it but I was very curious so I made him stop and I got closer in order to check the critter out. Well, lo and behold, it was a small Copperhead. I have since learned that they are the most common venomous stakes in the Eastern US and aren't' aggressive but have this nasty habit of lying perfectly still hoping to not be noticed. If you do step on or too near one though, you are almost guaranteed a bite. Fortunately I didn't know these details until after I reported seeing him to the security people at the entry gate. The guy I talked to said that this was the first report of one being seen this season, and that they would send their herpetologist up to try to find the little critter and move him to some less traveled location. I didn't realize that they try that hard to regulate the wildlife in the Arboretum. I know they will trap and move a bear if there is a sighting within the grounds, but it surprises me that they would try to relocate a snake. . .even a venomous one. Abner and I, however, escaped our brush with death without a scratch. Blissful ignorance serves me again.

More of these enormous bushes. It is amazing to see how big these things get when they are over 100 years old.

 

The Azalea Garden at Biltmore exploded with flowers this week. I never realized how many differen colors and types there were until I moved here.


 

Many years ago I had a friend who was particularly fond of pornography. For reasons of discretion I won't be mentioning who it was, and would prefer that the few of you who might have ever known this person refrain from guessing. In any case, once, while discussing this interesting proclivity we came to the topic of growing bored with the same old thing. . . in his case printed magazines he had bought that had once been quite stimulating for him, but over time became rather dull. He observed that all he had to do to refresh his own interest in an image was to rotate it 90 or 180 degrees and it was as if it was a whole new picture. I always thought this was strange, but I believe I have found a corollary in the dog world.

Abner and I went to Biltmore a few days ago on a day that was warm and sunny. Generally, now that the temperature and humidity are up, I try to keep him on walks that are early, shady, or at high enough altitude that there is a decided temperature reduction. On this particular day, we decided to park at the Outdoor Center and walk one of the routes through what is known as the Westover trails. This is a network of trails that follow hills behind the Inn. They are densely wooded and have lots of rise and fall, so we can get good exercise and stay in the shade. There are several places we usually stop so Abner can have some water, and we rarely see others there. The trails seem to be primarily used by mountain bikers who are almost never there when we are.

So off we set, heading up a dirt road that skirts some of the areas in which the Angus heard (400 cattle at last count) graze and usually pay little attention to Abner. The beginning of this walk is pretty exposed, so I usually don't want to dawdle a lot since I want to keep him in the shade as much as possible. Consequently we made pretty good time going up the first hill and turned to head east toward the forest and the building I posted a while back where the egg layers used to be. Abner knows this route very well because we have done it so many times, but there is a very narrow trail that heads off to the right about 150 yards before you get to the hen building, that he has sniffed and shown interest in on previous walks.

Well, on this particular day, he was more than just interested and, for whatever reason, pulled me to that path. I figured, from its orientation, that it probably just headed back toward the Outdoor Center, but I also figured that we could take some alternative trail somewhere along the way, so I humored him and we started up this new unexplored route.

The undergrowth in this area was very dense and the canopy of trees fully leafed out, so it was dark and cool and rather exotic looking. Rabbits scurried across the trail a couple times which certainly amped up Abner's interest. As it turned out, the trail takes several hairpin turns as it ascends the hill and, in fact, took us back to the Westover trails that I knew but at a completely different location than the way we normally approach. We followed the trails through the whole loop we normally do, but in the reverse direction from the customary one and, for Abner, it was just like my old friend's porn experience. Coming from the opposite direction, the trails were fascinating new ground for him. After awhile, I think he figured out what had happened because he would smell shrubs on which he has peed hundreds of times and clearly could recognize his own scent. It was, however, kind of fun watching him get so excited about a "new" route.

The week was a fairly quiet one. It rained a couple times and we had some really sensational thunderstorms that lasted maybe 20 minutes at most. I attended numerous meetings continuing "due diligence" for this condominium project I may get involved in. Thursday night I actually cooked dinner for Eric and Regie Wahlberg (Spencer's parents) and Amy Musser and Matt Vande (Bear's parents). It is kind of pathetic how infrequently I do this. It isn't like I have no time. I guess part of my problem is that it seems like most of the people I know here are either vegetarians or have some other exotic restriction on what they are willing to eat. I have a somewhat limited repertoire in this department so I have mostly been inviting the few people I know who have a wider range of diet.

My new neighbors' house made a little progress this week. A grader came and removed every tree and shrub that wasn't right on the property line, and has largely leveled the lot. Doesn't bode well for a sensitively designed house, but I am still holding out hope. They have pushed dirt onto my side of the property line but thus far the infraction isn't so egregious as to cause a confrontation. If it gets worse I will have to go have a chat with them.

And now I seem to have picked up some crappy cold. I felt pretty crummy yesterday and had to attend three separate meetings about the project, and today I am just exhausted and am blowing my nose almost constantly. I don't think it is flu or anything that heavy duty but it is bad enough to make me feel lousy. Anyway, I think I am going to cut this post short. I am, however, once again, going to attempt to post photos. If one of you uses this blog host I would love some input into why this process fails 95% of the time.

This shot of Looking Glass Rock from near the top of John Rock gives you a little idea of the terrain and the density of the forest.
And this shot of Holly and Abner was one she requested so she could show her brother what the big boy looks like. 

Rachel and Carole Sussman are relaxing on the loggia at Biltmore house. Marc is in the background on the phone. . .not a particularly unusual occurence.

These are a few shots of the hike up John Rock with Matt, Bear and Abner on Easter.  

My previous burst of enthusiasm regarding my lack of allergies here seems to have been a trifle premature. While it is true that last year I sailed through the season with almost no reaction at all, the same cannot be said this year. Make no mistake about it. It is nowhere near as severe as what I used to suffer in Sacramento, but I do awake each morning and almost immediately have an involuntary bout of swallowing because of irritation on the roof of my mouth, followed by about an hour of sneezing. The stock some of you might have in Kimberly-Clark should be going up at this time of year. There are Kleenex boxes everywhere in my house and all wastebaskets show much use.

The view that greets me in the mornings is changing again. In the winter, I get up and sit at my computer looking out a couple of east-facing windows that allow me to watch the sun rise over mountains to the east of us. As spring develops, my view is closing in due to a bunch of dogwoods currently in bloom and the lush leafing out of the trees between my house and Jay and Lori's. In the winter, I can always tell if they are home because I can see their cars parked on this side of the house. Now the cars are still just barely visible and the blinding greenery is filling in, reminding me why I don't live in the desert (I'll leave that to my dear friend Beth who is happily ensconced in Abiquiu NM), but something new was added yesterday. There is a large orange and grey earth moving device with a big front scoop and large grading blade in the back. It isn't exactly an improvement to the view but it does portend of change.

There is a double lot that separates my property from Jay and Lori's house. A couple from down the street, Steve and Karen, bought it about a year ago and have been struggling with getting a house designed for themselves for which the have requested a building permit from the City of Asheville. The permit request went in roughly 2 weeks ago which is the usual turnaround time here for a permit. This is another big difference between Sacramento and Asheville. In Sacramento, if you get your first set of corrections back from plan check in 6 weeks, you consider yourself lucky. Then you have to make the corrections (this is necessary even if nothing was missing or wrong on the plans because otherwise the plan checkers cannot possibly justify having screwed around for 6 weeks with your drawings. . .some of which they have, no doubt, lost), re-submit, wait another two weeks, all the while hoping that there are no additional and even more bogus corrections, and then you have to run around and pay school impact fees and a few other choice details prior to finally getting the permit. I used to advise clients to plan on at least 2 to 3 months to get a permit and they were rarely disappointed.

So the big digger arrived yesterday heralding the start of construction next door which I look upon with a combination of excitement and some trepidation. I don't know Karen and Steve well. When I walk by their house on occasion with Abner they are very friendly and always chat with us for a few minutes before Abner gets antsy and wants to continue on our walk. They have always been very pleasant with me although Steve smokes cigars which usually hastens my urge to keep the visit short. They currently live across the street from Joan and Nathan, who are Jay and Lori's next door neighbors on the other side, and seem to be close friends with them but have a somewhat strained relationship with Jay and Lori. In any case, either due to my friendship with Jay and Lori, or perhaps just out of a fundamental need for privacy, they have been circumspect to the point of secrecy about what they are building. When they were having architect troubles (they fired the first one) and asked me for some advice, I asked to see the drawings of what they were planning on building, but never was afforded a look. In fact, as far as I know, no one but the plan checkers at the City and their general contractor has seen the drawings. The lot is big, and I am not particularly worried about any serious impact on me other than that I will no longer be able to see what is going on at Jay and Lori's house, but it still is a bit unnerving to have a house going in next door and no clue as to what it will look like nor where it will be. I may ask again to see the drawings, now that the permit is a done deal.

Carole and Marc Sussman and their daughter Rachel blew through Asheville for about 2-1/2 days about a week ago toward the end of one of Rachel's college tours. I have known the Sussmans for more than 10 years having done a house for them in Arden Oaks back in the 90s. I have known Rachel since she was a little girl so it is a little strange to see her looking at colleges but nonetheless fun. The whole time they were here we raced around like madmen touring Biltmore, driving some of the residential areas of town, shopping, art gallery hopping, strolling downtown, and of course, eating. The pace was frenetic but that is how it seems to go for short visits. There is simply so much to see and do here you just don't want to waste time being leisurely. We had a great time though. It was really fun to see them.

Easter Sunday is a big deal here for people who go to church, and that is a significant portion of the population. It is, consequently, an excellent time for those of us who don't go to church, to do anything else we might want to do but would normally avoid due to potential crowds. Matt and I took advantage of the day by getting the dogs into Matt's car by 8:30 in the morning and driving up to an area Southwest of here around Looking Glass Falls and Looking Glass Rock. There are probably more than a dozen well established hiking trails around the area and neither of us had done any of them. The day was quite warm (an increasingly important issue for Abner) so we elected to do a hike to John Rock which is mostly through woods and has about a 1,200 foot rise. It is hard to tell what the exact distance is because the middle portion of the route is a loop. You start up a winding Forest Service road that is blocked off to all non FS vehicles. It is a dirt and gravel road and gets so little vehicular use that it really is more of a trail. The area, while being an hour's drive from my house, is still part of what used to be Biltmore Estate. It is actually close to where George Vanderbilt and Frederick Law Olmstead set up the first school of forestry in the United States.

When we arrived at the parking lot, we were a little confused about where the trailhead was and asked a couple of frighteningly hard-bodied middle-aged women who were finishing up a jog in the area. They were very friendly (Abner and Bear have that effect on people) and seemed to know the area well and advised us as to the options for climbing John Rock. We asked about climbing Looking Glass which they said was also worthwhile, but that the view was better from John Rock.

The hike up was very beautiful through dense woods that are just beginning to leaf out. While it is a fairly substantial climb, on the route we took, it was never too steep and the dogs had plenty of places to sniff and pee. Near the top, there is a large granite outcropping that you can walk out on that provides a really breathtaking view of Looking Glass Rock, the Blue Ridge Parkway, and miles of the Pisgah National Forest that surrounds the site. We stopped and took a few pictures, some of which I will attempt to post, and let the dogs have some water, snack and rest in the shade. I gobbled a Cliff bar which, by then, I needed. After maybe a 10 minutes break, we continued along the loop toward something called Cat Gap (a lot of the names around here are quite interesting. . .I am particularly partial to Possum Trot) and were a little surprised that the trail continued to climb. On the trail map it looked like the ridge we were on was pretty level, but I later noticed that the topographic increments on this map were 40 feet. Tends to be a little deceptive as to what is almost level.

Once you do reach the top, the descent is fairly abrupt. Matt and I found ourselves happy that we hadn't gone up in that direction on the loop. I tend to prefer a gradual rise at the beginning of the hike and a coast down for the end. . .and this hike fit the bill perfectly. On the way down we encountered one pair of hikers who were probably around my age or possibly even a little older. They were clearly more serious hikers than Matt or I are, equipped as they were with paired lightweight aluminum composite walking sticks (for the uninitiated, they looke like ski poles without baskets) and serious looking hiking clothes. We chatted about the route they were taking and they told us about this really nice section they had just done. To them, the little day hike they were on was something that wouldn't take too long. . .he said you could run it in about 2-1/2 hours. The hike was more than 12 miles through mountainous terrain with considerably more vertical than Matt and I had done. When we finished our hike, we had spent close to 4 hours doing less than 4 miles and 1,200 vertical feet. To do the loop this guy was suggesting, we would have had to have a tent and sleeping bags, and food for the dogs and ourselves. . .2-1/2 hours is what it would have taken me with a helicopter.

I am continuing to look into getting involved in a development project here. It will be different from the last 15 months of being free from any serious responsibility other than keeping Abner entertained, but it kind of excites me and I could use the cash. Tax day brought the unpleasant realities of paying capital gains tax on my Sacramento house into full glory. I am over the depression that set in when I had to write the checks to the IRS, and both North Carolina and California for the tax (don't get me started on why I had to pay both states) but feel like it wouldn't kill me to do a little work and replenish my investment account. As it becomes clearer whether or not this is going to happen, I will post more details.

It is now Saturday the 22nd and I spent most of yesterday and part of today in computer panic mode. I was talking to Roberta Rakela about plans she and Bob are making to come for a visit in October when my computer froze. When I got it to reboot I was greeted with the disturbing flashing message that said WARNING: HARD DRIVE FAILURE IMMINENT. BACK UP DATA IMMEDIATELY AND REPLACE HARD DRIVE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

Having never had a message like this before I had no choice but to take it seriously so I spent hours burning CDs of old photos that I wouldn't want to lose, backing up Quicken, my correspondence and other business data, and any other files I could find on the computer that I would be very unhappy about losing. I then did a quick internet search to find a deal on a new hard drive and drove to Best Buy to purchase it. As those of you who know me well realize, installing the new drive and migrating software and data files would not be something I know how to do without thinking about it. Fortunately, Jay is very good with this stuff (he is still in his 30s) and was willing to take responsibility for getting me back up and running.

This morning at around 10:00, he and his son Ashton came over and set about the task of rebuilding my computer and Lori and I had latttes. Lori did her toenails. . .I didn't do mine. The final stage of the process is for Jay to come over and reconnect the drives so the new one becomes the primary drive and what's left of the old one is for backup only. I think I will reformat it and see if it will work as a backup disk for awhile but now I have a 320 gig primary drive that ought to last me for awhile.

Abner and I did a short walk at Biltmore today while I was waiting for the file migration to finish doing its thing. While we were there, we met the smallest dog I have ever seen. It was pretty funny to watch these two check each other out. The dog we met, whose name, we discovered, is Stuart is one of the terrier breeds and, according to his owner, weighs less than a pound. By contrast, Abner weighed 15 pounds the day he arrived at my house and is up to 98.5 pounds as of our visit to the vet last week. Stuart seemed unfazed by the difference in size and I'm sure Abner had no idea what he could do with this little thing, but it certainly entertained the people standing around watching the encounter. And, by the way, for you flower lovers, the azaleas are in full bloom now. It looks like the tulips will last at most another week but the rhododendrons are just starting so the flower obsessed who flock to the estate at this time of year are still wandering around agog over what they are seeing.

I am going to, once again, attempt to post photos. I'll try to explain what each is with notes, but this is the one portion of this blog system that doesn't seem to work very well.

As usual, none of the photos from my most recent draft posted. Ah well. . .


 

As I recall, Blanche Dubois always depended on the kindness of strangers. While I can't say I have always depended upon it, I have always been quietly delighted when it occurs and reinforces a sometimes fragile faith in the decency of human beings. As any of you who has ever traveled with me in the last 8 years knows, I suffer from sleep apnea and have a bipap machine which forces me to breathe properly while I sleep and, in doing so, allows me to sleep through the night peacefully without being starved for oxygen and waking up every 90 minutes or so. I have been using this device (which Jonathan Boynton rather uncharitably refers to as the Darth Vader Unit) for about the last 8 years and about two months ago was concerned over some odd whirring noises it was producing.

I called the local outpost of the company that sold it to me and serviced it in Sacramento, and they were very nice but of very little help. They said I would have to get all kinds of information from my doctor (much of which I would not be able to produce since I don't even know where the doc who put me on this thing in the first place has hidden himself) rather than their simply getting it from their Sacramento counterpart. I had noticed, though, that there is a home medical supply place next door to the frame shop I use here and just popped in on them hoping they could help.

They were quite helpful and told me that they would lend me a brand new machine (at $60/month) to use while mine was sent off to the manufacturer for repair and would call me within 3 days with a quote for the cost of repair. This transaction took place a little more than a week before I left for my Mexico trip last month. I had hoped to hear from them before I left but, alas, it was not to be. I took the rented bipap with me and came back a week later, and now a full 16 days after having dropped off my machine for the repair estimate, and still there was no message from them.

The Monday after my return, I called to see what they had found out, and they still didn't have a price to quote me, but by now, half of my first month with the rented unit had elapsed. I expressed my concern about the delay and Denise, the respiratory therapist with whom I was working, assured me she would get right on it. By that Thursday, I had a quote for $260 to repair the machine and I authorized them to go ahead. At that point, the company said that they would repair it and have it back within about 5 or 6 days. Another two weeks passed and I hadn't heard anything from Denise saying my trusty bipap was back so I dropped in one afternoon last week to inquire. Much to my surprise, they had my machine, but had neglected to call and tell me it was back. Considering I was, by then, into my second month with the rented unit, I was prepared to have a little chat about this delay, but things were so discombobulated there that they couldn't find my paperwork and besides, I would have to bring back the rental later anyway, so we put off settling up.

I used my machine the first night and realized the settings were all wrong when it came back and I felt like there was a windstorm blowing up my nose and I couldn't exhale very easily either. I called Denise back and told her what had happened but hit a snag in that she had not written down the settings the machine had been on. It now became my task to obtain them from Apria Healthcare in Sacramento. Having been told earlier by the Apria people here that they had tried to get info from their Sacramento office and couldn't even get a phone call returned, I wasn't optimistic, but I called just the same and got my first kindness from a stranger (I knew you were all wondering if I would get back to that). The woman there spent about 20 minutes digging through files to find a prescription from 5 years ago that had the settings on it and she dictated them to me over the phone.

She was curious about why I hadn't had Apria in Asheville take care of the repair and associated hassle, and I related the story I had gotten from them. She then said that my insurance probably would pay to have me get all my parts and service done by Apria in Sacto if I had problems here. The difficulty there is that in order to get insurance at all in North Carolina, I ended up with a policy that excludes pre-existing conditions. The three called out specifically were Allergies, Sleep Apnea, and my back problems that came from my auto accident three years ago. Consequently, all costs related to the bipap are my responsibility.

At this point she started whispering. "Don't tell anyone I told you this" she said, "but there is a website called cpapman.com that will sell all this stuff to you directly at a substantial savings. You don't need us at all. We are just an expensive middle man paid for by health insurers". I was stunned. Not only had this woman spent a long time digging through files to find what I needed but she then offered me advice on how to avoid dealing with her company or any other.

So I called Denise, and she said that armed with the pressure settings, I could bring the machine back in and she could reset it. No problem. Abner and I had errands to run that afternoon (Friday of last week) so I dropped off the machine as well as the rental and said I'd be back before they close at 5:00.

We ran all our errands and went for a nice hike at the Arboretum and when I returned to pick up my machine, things were disorganized, as usual. Denise, though, is always cheery and helpful and eventually found my machine. At this point I asked her if she had found the paperwork yet for our transaction and she said no but not to worry about it. They would just take care of the whole thing. I was stunned. Two months of rental and a $260 repair, that I think actually ended up costing considerably more than that, were all dismissed because she felt bad that they had dropped the ball on so many things.

So twice in one day, I was treated to remarkable kindness and generosity from people I didn't know. Amazing.

Tulips have completely exploded at Biltmore. Spring seems to have come at least a month earlier this year than last. I have been trying to notice things like this so I can advise potential visitors of good times to come to see whatever specific foliage they want to see, but it is becoming increasingly clearer that in this neck of the woods, consistancy is missing. Last year there were barely any azaleas open by mid May and this year quite a few are already blooming. The butterfly invasion of the forests has returned as well. On Sunday, I took Abner for a hike of almost 3 hours in the National Forest and we saw the return of the butterfles that so fascinated me last spring. They are just a hell of a lot earlier.

At a point on this hike where we were in fairly deep woods and hadn't seen any humans (lots of rabbits though) in awhile, one of the yellow and black butterflies that look like Monarchs only smaller, landed on Abner's back and stayed there for almost 10 minutes. It never occurred to me that other animals would be hitchhikers, but it sure looked like that was what this beautiful butterfly did.

I am going to attempt to post a few more pictures of the emergence of spring here. I am having fun with my mini-digital camera. It is so easy to carry with me regardless of what the activity is, that I have started shooting a lot more. I still don't know what I'm doing with it, but it's fun just the same.

I hope Sacramento dries out pretty soon. I almost feel guilty that it continues to be so gorgeous here and my old friends in CA are still sopping wet. Oh well. At least you can still go skiing.

I don't know. . . maybe the geese are shy and didn't really want their picture posted on the Internet. 

These didn't show up either. Geese nesting; Matt Vande, Amy Musser, Abner and Bear on our hike in the Laurel Creek Gorge last weekend; and a whitewater stretch of the gorge itself. Since I have babbled for 14 months about a bunch of people here, I will begin to post photos of some of them so you can put faces with names.

 

None of the photos uploaded when I finished the last post, so here they are separately. One of these days, maybe I will actually learn how to do this without it failing. Theoretically you can do 5 photos with a post, but it hasn't worked once.


 

First of all, these goddamned flies are going to be the death of me. They still are appearing in the usual parts of the house although perhaps not in quite the numbers that I was enduring a few days ago, but today I was doing laundry and had a rude awakening. Decie had warned me about encountering a number of them in the laundry room on Tuesday when she was cleaning but she sprayed and vacuumed up the dead. Today, when I went down to transfer the first of four loads from the washer to the dryer, I was horrified to open the dryer door and find probably 10 or 15 dead ones in lying in a pile in the bottom of the drum and a live one that flew out when I opened the door. This is really getting disgusting.

Today there was a sale at a furniture store that I frequent and I scored a much needed storage piece for my office, but had been unable to get it out of my car and into the house without some help. Jay had two photo shoots today (the second one being a high school belly dancer who wanted pictures of herself doing her hobby) and got home around 8:00ish. After starting a dinner for himself, he and Lori walked over to help me unload my new piece and get it into my office. Once this was accomplished we sat down and had a cocktail while Lori perused my copy of "How to Speak Southern" which Beth Kiyosaki had thoughtfully given me as a going away present when I left Sacramento. The two of them didn't know whether to hoot and holler or be upset because in it were expressions they had heard their entire lives and up until now, had believed to be universally spoken English.

This entertaining conversation led into some pretty funny stuff about the speach patterns of childhood friends. One guy named Roger apparently had a particularly colorful way of expressing himself. Not only did he speak pure redneck Southern, but his sentences were peppered with such malapropisms as "my parents are traveling in Morronaco" and "He is planning to attend an Ivory League school". I gathered from what they told me that there is an entire lexicon of Rogerisms that merit publication. I sense a book in all this.

As if there were any question about Abner being a local celebrity, that was scotched today. I got a forwarded email from Jay Coble this morning that actually makes me a little nervous. He has donated a photographic session to a Cancer Survivor's organization fundraiser that is going to be a fawncy garden party at the home of a local philanthropist and got an email this morning telling him that he was entitled to a free ticket to the event in exchange for his donation and also asking him to bring the man photographed with the Great Pyrenees whose photo appears on his website. The woman who sent the email indicated that my presence was specifically requested but she refused to say by whom or for what purpose. I suspect it may be the philanthropist in question whom I have met twice in civil but somewhat adversarial situations at planning entitlement hearings. Who knows though? It is a strange feeling to not only be identified by my dog but now to get mysterious invitations based upon his celebrity.

It is now Thursday the 6th and aside from my emerging depression over having to pay the capital gains tax on the sale of my house in Sacramento, things are fine here. I have been walking Abner a lot at Biltmore lately because the springtime explosion of flowers has started and it looks different literally every day. I hope to attach a few pictures from our recent walks. You can see that the tulips are starting to really show themselves off in the walled garden and elsewhere and trees and shrubs are starting to leaf out for the season. I included a shot of a pair of nesting geese who have staked out a little peninsula (formerly and island) protruding into the Bass Pond at a particularly attractive spot. The mother goose (who knew I would ever use that term?) seems quite serene and secure in her spot. Even with Abner and me only 30 or 40 feet away she didn't feel compelled to move or honk. Neither did her husband whom you can see a few feet behind her in the water. Other geese around this place raise a huge stink when we get within a couple hundred feet of them. Maybe these two remember us from last year.

I have also attached photos of the building I have mentioned several months ago that I had stumbled across and think is ripe for rehab. I still haven't called Chuck Pickering (whose house is very close to Biltmore house and is shown in another of the intended posted shots) to talk about the potential of this wonderful old structure that is partially in ruins. It needs to be protected and put back into use before it really starts to deteriorate structurally. Apparently its original use was for the egg layers and the workers who tended them. It sits on a wonderful plateau with phenomenal west facing views. Anyone who comes here can walk there with Abner and me to see it in the flesh.

I had another meeting today with the Marshall brothers to talk about a condo project here. While I really don't feel like getting into practicing architecture here, the idea of doing one project, only through schematics, and participating in material selections and finishes but having no drafting responsibilities, no liability and no participation in the generation of working drawings or engineering, seems like it might be fun and could pay well enough that the trauma of my tax bill would be greatly diminished. It almost doesn't feel like it would be work. I know it sounds like I am trying to talk myself into it, but I seriously think this might be OK. I have also started working on preliminary designs for a house for myself on my extra lot. I still would love to find property with a killer view, but I think, in the meantime, I will probably build something on my lot so I have a new modern house to live in with all my stuff and concrete or stone floors on which Abner can spread his belly during the summer months. The idea of a well insulated, well lit house that is conducive to the display of my art and other collections really appeals to me. Actually, I miss having a house in which I was pretty convinced that everything would work or be under warranty if it didn't. So maybe in 2007 I'll build, sell the charming old Tudor I am in, and continue to look for a great piece of land on which to eventually build the house of my dreams.

Well, I'm getting hungry and need to cook dinner. Besides, this is getting a little long. Hope the pictures work and however many readers there are of this thing, you are all well.

Even though we have been here for more than 14 months, and have walked more days than we haven't, there is so much territory to cover that we discover new areas from time to time. Today was a day for discovering.

Brian Marshall dropped by for lunch and a chat about the development he is championing with which I may or may not be involved. As is typical in a situation like this one, the owner of the land has decided, now that he has someone interested in purchasing his property, that it is worth considerably more than a market study would indicate. This particular owner has agonized and delayed for a couple months over this transaction and has even gone so far as to say that he has another interested party. Today he met with Brian and announced, with apparently quite a bit of hand wrenching and rolling eyes, that he thinks his land is worth 80% to 100% more than the market study indicates but that there is some flexibility in his price. My advice to Brian was to tell him that if he has another interested party who is willing to pay that kind of money for this land, he probably should take it.

Brian and his partners have a couple other alternative sites they are considering and although this initial site was probably the sexiest of the group under scrutiny, it is a whole lot less sexy at 100% over value. I think the other interested party is imaginary and if Brian's group shows an indication that they will walk from the deal, a more reasonable number might be agreed upon.

After dishing out this advice over lunch fresh from my panini press, I sent Brian on his way to another meeting and I took Abner down to the Blue Ridge Parkway to check out some new territory. The weather has turned to t-shirt and shorts again and today was sunny with a light breeze. . . perfect hiking weather. We parked at the intersection of highway 25 and the Parkway and set off to explore a section of the MTS trail. For those who haven't either read or studied and remembered my emails of the past year, the MTS trail (mountains-to-sea) is a footpath that begins at the Appalachian Trail on the Tennessee border in Great Smoky Mountain National Park and meanders to the East, terminating at Nag's Head on the Outer Banks. When completed, and estimates range from 8 to 14 years for this to happen, it will be 1,000 miles long, entirely within North Carolina and will provide hikers a continuous pedestrian route from the Mountains to the Sea.

Abner and I had only walked about three small sections of it prior to today's stroll, but I noticed on a National Geographic map I have of hiking trails in this region that there is a fairly lengthy stretch that follows the Parkway around the Southern edge of Asheville, so that is what we started to explore today. We walked for about an hour out and an hour back through rolling terrain, mostly in fairly dense woods. The trail is very pretty and well kept. The entire portion we were on is on land that used to be part of Biltmore Estate when George and Edith Vanderbilt still lived there. There are a couple funky old wooden bridges that date back to when it was part of the route from Biltmore House to Vanderbilt's lodge at the top of Mt. Pisgah. It never ceases to amaze me that this one estate has provided so much preserved natural environment that is freely available to the public.

Geese and ducks are nesting everywhere. One of the factoids I remember from God knows where is that geese are among the few animals known to mate for life. This is very apparent with the ones at Biltmore. All winter, the geese that spend the season on the Bass Pond and the lagoon just kind of hang out in large groups and make noise. They swim around periodically sticking their heads down (and butts up) to grab a fish, but they don't seem to do much else.

In the spring though, they clearly pair off and nest. There is one pair in each of the three aquatic gardens within the Italian Garden. Another is in the small meadow above the Bass Pond (and they squawk like crazy if Abner and I are within 100 feet of their nest), and every 50 feet or so in the big meadow just south of the lagoon you can see one pair after another. The moms sit on the nests and the dads either hang out or kind of march around trying to look threatening. These geese are so well fed it is amazing they can fly. Most of them, particularly the ones that live on the lagoon, don't bother flying unless it is absolutely necessary. A whole gaggle (I have always wanted to use that word in a real sentence) of them will mosey across the road between the lagoon and the hillside that faces the water where they hang out and sun themselves. They seem completely unconcerned about traffic, which comes to a grinding halt when a parade of them is crossing. . .usually to the accompaniment of the quiet click of digital cameras hanging out of car windows. The whole scene can be pretty funny.

I am getting down to the last week or so before my springtime guests start arriving. My intention is to keep posting as regularly as possible but when I do have company there may be some gaps.

For most of the 32 years I lived in Sacramento, I was treated for allergies that made my life miserable. Every year, almost precisely to the date of March 15th (the Ides of March no less) I would begin to sneeze constantly and violently. My eyes would itch. My soft palate would itch to the point that sometimes I would start swallowing involuntarily. My nose ran and I would go through boxes of Kleenex. . .the wastebaskets around my house gave testimony every year to when the season began. Before Mitch Blum successfully tested and treated me with shots, it would get to the point where the irritation in my nose would turn into pretty severe bleeding and infection. In the late 70s and into the early 80s, I was so desperate, I considered moving to the Monterey Peninsula to get away from the misery of the Valley.

This situation was ameliorated by shots that I took pretty much year round. Still, every spring, from March 15th through the end of June, and again in the fall for about 6 weeks, I went through some symptoms. They were sufficiently under control with the shots and occasional use of Zyrtec that I stopped considering moving to Monterey or Carmel, but the problem never really went away. It was also pretty time consuming to get shots every week. By the time I drove or rode my bike to the Dr's office, waited my turn for shots, spent the required 20 minutes after the shot to prove that I wasn't going into anaphylactic shock, and drove or rode home, I usually killed between one and two hours.

Well things have changed! I was warned by my neighbors here that this is a bad area for allergy sufferers and to brace myself for the onslaught. Now I realize that it is possible that I will eventually suffer here as much as I did in Sacramento, but the apparent sum total of my allergic reaction to the stuff in the air here is to sneeze between 2 and 4 times in the first 20 minutes or so after I get up in the morning. That's it. I don't have shots. I don't take Zyrtec. I don't have a landfill named after me for all the Kleenex I go through. It's a miracle.

For those of you who were worried about my home life turning into some bad sci-fi horror flick, relax. I went downstairs this morning and didn't find a single fly in the kitchen or breakfast area. Decie, my housekeeper came yesterday and cleaned all the windows that were covered with Raid residue, vacuumed up the hundreds of dead flies from the window sills and floors, and unleashed another attack on them in the laundry where I hadn't realized there were more of them. There are still a few stragglers buzzing around upstairs, but I suspect I can get rid of them without unleashing nuclear weapons.

My sister pointed out to me the irony that I was born in the Chinese Year of the Rat.

Not certain what happened to this picture from the previous post, nor do I know why a portion of the text ended up underlined. The blogosphere has some mysteries. 

OK, so I underestimated the fly population. Today Big Rat is certainly getting back at me. After nailing about 8 or so of these hovering mammoths in the kitchen before Abner, Matt, Bear and I left for a couple hours hiking in the National Forest this afternoon, we returned to find about 30 of them virtually immobile on the windows in the kitchen. Now normally I do not consider myself a killing machine but this afternoon, armed only with an already read section of the New York Times, I felt positively like Dick Cheney on safari. Slam, whack, squish! These things are so slow and sluggish a blind guy could take them out. If the birth rate continues to rise I will probably go out and buy a can of Raid and really take care of them. For now, there is an odd sense of satisfaction in doing a "Soprano" on these nasty critters against the window with my own newspaper.

That was Sunday. Yesterday things really got ugly. The heaviest concentration of these winged Buicks is in the kitchen but a few have spread to other rooms in the house. I decided to take the WMD approach and bought a large can of Raid. Upon our return from hiking at Biltmore yesterday afternoon, I unleashed the weapon on the 20 or so unsuspecting behemoths that were lounging casually on the two kitchen windows above the sink. It was almost instant carnage. There was a little buzzing and flopping around, but death was pretty quick. The population was down considerably this morning. Not one additional living fly was visible in the kitchen. I suspect there is lingering fallout from the "bomb". There are a few stragglers in the breakfast room and refugees in the dining room and the upstairs bathroom, but most of those can be gotten with conventional weaponry. . .the New York Times.


As you can see from the pictures, Abner and I have been enjoying the beginnings of spring in the gardens and on the grounds of Biltmore. The crowds are still pretty light other than on weekends, but the closer we get to the beginning of April, the more people show up to see the flowers. The displays are pretty minimal now, but are showing hints of the explosion to come. Tulips are the biggest of the hidden surprises. They do something different each year, but the shear numbers of them are pretty impressive irrespective of type and color. The picture of the lagoon and the picture of Abner lying down resting and watching some horses ambling by with paid riders are taken from the same spot. The shot of the house with the still bare trees is just uphill. A lot of the flowering trees and shrubs are already blooming but few have leaves. This is something that still surprises me when it happens. It seemed like most of the foliage in California bloomed and sprouted leaves at the same time.

Well, it's not like I wasn't expecting this. A small plague of very large black flies has descended on my house. It has been a few weeks since the death and consequential stink of Big Rat and, as I feared would happen, the flies that were around at the time of his decay apparently all got together and decided the time was good for having a family. I don't know where the corpse ended up but he must have been somewhere where he would be accessible to small flying animals.

On the bright side, these things are big, dumb and sluggish and are fairly easy to execute even without the aid of my trusty fly gun. The catastrophe, thus far, isn't on the scale of what happened to me 20 years ago or more at my Garden Street house where there were so many I had to set off a fumigation bomb in the house and leave, returning later to vacuum up thousands of the disgusting buggers. In numbers, I would guess there are fewer than 20 who have appeared so far. Nonetheless, I will have to report to Jean Anne Rogers, one of my property managers who suggested that this bait thing had never been a problem for her, that she will have to rethink her advice on these matters in the future.

I am thinking I will forgo the accompanying photo I had planned to use with this post. I am fairly certain every last one of you reading this has seen a large black fly before.

Spring is trying to really develop at Biltmore. Each of the three ponds in the Italian Garden has a pair of geese. The appropriately named Spring Garden is bursting with Forsythia and Baby's Breath. There are even some Rhododendrons, a couple early Azaleas, the early Tulips, and some Camelias blooming. Abner still pees on everything so that hasn't changed. Finally after close to 4 months of looking like hell due to a big dredging project and the repair of some drainage pipes, the Bass Pond, one of my favorite spots at the estate, has been refilled and is starting to look normal again. There is a lot of perimeter foliage that has to be replanted or has to grow back from roots, but all in all the place is starting to look pretty good.

The first of my anticipated Springtime guests are due in less than three weeks. I wouldn't want my second home to be looking shoddy.


The new landscape crew I hired has started working on my yard and, while they probably will never provide the pure entertainment value of Bryan Fore and his gang, they seem to be a whole lot more likely to make the place look decent and keep it that way. They have been here twice this week and have not only done a substantial cleanup of what Bryan's guys had left last October, but the back yard has been aerated, fertilized, seeded and has straw spread over it in hopes of actually generating a lawn. As many of you know, I have an unerring ability to kill any plant that is within 500 feet of me so it should be interesting to see if this lawn works. Abner resents his oak chip nests being disturbed and I have to really regulate the time he spends in the back yard until there is actually some grass there. I guess I need to have some optimism about all this since these guys seem to be so earnest and dependable.

More optimistic than I can be though, is my friend Holly Black who came by yesterday. She saw the newly cleaned out planting beds in my sunny side yard and said they would be a perfect place to grow tomatoes. I almost burst out laughing. I am the only person who couldn't grow them in Sacramento. I seriously doubt that I can grow them here. Nonetheless, she is threatening to plant some herself when she returns from a ski trip to Telluride. We shall see.