Weather … getting cooler with highs in the low 70s rather than the 80s … WIND started during the night friday the 21st and got harder during the 22nd with very light rain and a rainbow over the Mountain.
The Aspens can’t seem to agree what to do. A few, very few, have dropped their yellow leaves which look like late flowers now on the ground. Others are beginning to turn colour in patches. The rest are still in full green leaf.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac says … There’s an old weather proverb that states, “If autumn leaves are slow to fall, prepare for a cold winter.”
At 0630 sunday morning the temperature was at freezing. My nose and ears were complaining.
The Monitor heater comes on when the house gets down to 60º and came on about 0700 on both sunday and monday. The front porch was covered with frost. Guess we aren’t too far from a freeze.
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Boy … I really got hung up on NASA last week.
Guess I’m a bigger space nerd than I thought.
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I went to the Mt Shasta Amateur Radio Club meeting last wednesday evening. It’s the first time since George died.
Several members remembered me and there were a couple of new ones and another who will be taking his test to get a license. One of the new ones said something about me being the matriarch of the club.
It was sort of like old times. Me being a simple tech (lowest rate in being a ham … George was the highest) I’ve never known much about the technical side of radio so I did a lot of listening.
A member who lives in Dunsmuir picked me up and brought me home. The club is having a potluck the weekend before Hallowe’en. I think I might go. Some of the wives will be there so I won’t be the only woman there.
I have a pumpkin cookbook so I’ll have to see if there’s something I can cook to take. Bruce’s wife is already signed up for Pumpkin Pecan Bars.
If I decide to start participating in the weekly net I’ll have to locate my handheld radio so someone can reprogram it. Its memory has probably gone since George was the one who used to program it for me and it hasn’t been used since he died.
I might be going to meetings regularly. We’ll see. I didn’t get home until after 8 and am usually in bed close to being asleep by then.
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Francis was here overnight friday.
Mark has been in work meetings etc. all week. Kamille was teaching all week and dropped Francis off here on her way south to join Mark and others on friday for a “council” meeting.
Francis and I work well together. We stick to any outlined rules and requirements and then just wing it.
Late friday one of his sandals lost a strap. A neighbor had some Gorilla glue but it was old. Francis and I tried to fix the sandal strap, but the glue application nozzle was clogged so the repair wasn’t pretty and probably won’t last much longer than until someone makes a run to Walmart.
We tried and did our best. Guess that’s all anyone can ask of amateurs.
Oh well …
Turns out his feet are nearly as big as mine. So he used my house shoes as substitute.
Dinner friday was taco meat burgers and mixed salad veggies with ice cream for dessert.
Saturday breakfast dry cereal with blueberries and coffee creamer (I didn’t have any milk … poor planning) and orange juice. Snacks during the day were a bagel with cream cheese, later crackers and some of his Dad’s ham salad, and a couple pieces of Hallowe’en candy (since he won’t be here on the day).
Later …
Kamille got here earlier than neither Francis or I expected, so after they left for home. this house sure felt empty.
There is now a copy of Scrabble in the extra bedroom, which Francis calls “his” room. I’ll be ordering some other games or get some next time I’m at Walmart in Yreka, so I will be better prepared … UNO, SKIPBO, Mancala, maybe Clue, and others if I can remember what Francis likes.
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Results of the wind … at least one tree down across hwy 89 and pine needle piles all over including strips along the side of 89 and little piles all over the Village. I wonder what will be done with them. Back on the farm we’d use them for mulch but not able to do that here.
The wind also blew the frost prevention cover off the tomato planter. Francis and I got the cover off and the frame dismantled. I’ll leave the planter box on the porch and store the cover in the shed.
John will move the rose planters over under the carport where they will be protected and get morning sun.
The antenna for Sirius was blown loose but Mark was here monday and reattached it in a different location. He said the original spot was in an iffy location and he thought the first snow would bring it down. But now it has been relocated in a more secure site and all is well.
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I just read about how Julia (McWilliams) Child got her start as an OSS operative in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and China during WW II. She had been an active civilian member of the Aircraft Warning Service, a group of mainly females who spent time watching for enemy shipping near the Long Beach harbor on the southern California coast or listening for enemy aircraft under Air Force flight paths in an effort to prevent enemy attacks.
My mother and I were also part of the Aircraft Warning Service. We had to learn the shapes and sounds of enemy aircraft and did stints during night darkout times in a lookout below the paths between the Ryan Air Force training field near Hemet (for recruits which were called 90 day wonders) and the March Army Air Force field near Perris on the western part of the route in Riverside County, when it was still farming country, and another training area near Twentynine Palms across the mountains in the Coachella area.
I remember scanning the sky with binoculars (wrapped in comforters during the cold weather) and only once reporting on a suspected aircraft. It turned out to be one of ours which resembled a Zero, but I was thanked by someone at March Field.
I don’t remember what our communication equipment was, maybe some sort of radio telephone. But that was years before I married a Navy Radioman and eventually became an Amateur Radio Operator.
Interesting how an article about a tv cooking star can trigger old memories.
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And another item about radio …
There have been what I believe to be non-hams using the scanner frequencies. There have been what sounds like a very young, maybe too young, child talking to his Dad. It is a one-sided conversation. The child doesn’t use a ham call sign (mine is KD6WZC) so, nosy old lady that I am, I haven’t decided what I should do. You’re supposed to be a licensed Amateur Radio operator to use Government designated Amateur Radio frequencies.
My son (AB2LI) tells me you can now buy radios in stores like Walmart which are able to use some dedicated amateur radio frequencies without licenses or oversight by any governmental agency.
But I’m not on that committee.
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With the beginning of cold weather, I need some warm slippers, a robe (the one I had before the almost move south was heavy and because I had anticipated warmer temperatures down there, I gave it away), and some night socks.
Guess it’s time to create an ordering connection with Walmart since the Redding store will fill net orders and deliver.
P.S. The Walmart items are due tomorrow. Strange shipping patterns from Walmart … Items are shipped separately. That would seem to be costly.
Oh well …
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It snowed a good lot on the Mountain monday night.
So end the week …
Don’t wait for things to get simpler, easier, better.
Life will always be complicated.
Learn to be happy right now.
Otherwise, you’ll run out of time.‘til next week …