the world as i see it … humboldt county and beyond

I was super surprised to get a postcard from Bruce! Handwritten and thoughtful, and thanking me.
Made my day, actually it still makes me smile.
I just love this man.

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Background:
In July Bruce’s mother passed away.
I sent a card with my condolences and some thoughts, having just lost my Dad and both our mothers endured a 7 year bout with cancer.

He was still working on his latest cd recording. He also had a tour lined up to start in the beginning of October, when he developed pneumonia and a partially collapsed lung that canceled that part of the tour.

You can read about all this at Cockburnproject.net.

Tagged as:  BruceCockburn · CockburnProject || Leave a comment

We bought a new to us Toyota Tundra.
I have been looking online, Craig’s List, from Oregon south to the bay area for a month or more, every day.

Seems like if you have a Toyota truck, especially a Tundra, you don’t sell them. They don’t lose value and there are few to find, especially in the price range I was looking for.

Russel needs a new work-school truck to haul his Aikido mats, his old 1990 Toyota is worn out, but still drivable, so the question was,
“Do we put a ton of money into it to keep it safe and functional, or do we get a replacement?” Then the thought was, ‘well I (me) didn’t want just another Toyota like his old truck, it was uncomfortable.’ And I couldn’t find anything for sale which wasn’t just buying the same problems we have with his 1990.

So after much looking and hard decisions, we decided to pull some money from our retirement account that my Dad left us.
Maybe not a smart idea, but that’s what we did.

2004 Tundra 4x4 Stepside SR5

We bought a 2004 Toyota Tundra 4×4 Stepside SR5 TRD… this truck is like new..really like new. You can’t tell anyone ever drove it. It only had 28,000 miles on it. It’s a bit fancy for our taste, but rides great, I don’t feel like I am in a blender, as I do in both of our other Toyota’s.

We need to get the truck bed a spray on bedliner, and a rubber mat for the bed. Still need seat covers and some really good rubber floor mats.

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Seem’s sort of fitting somehow.. today is my Dad’s birthday.. and he is still giving to us.

Tagged as:  Dad · PhotoOps · Tundra || 1 Comment

We spent the day at Charlie’s house, just up the road from us.
His grand-daughter Bailey was with us for a little while, it’s always a joy to see her and watch her grow up.
A very relaxed day of cooking and eating, with Penny & Charlie, and Tim arriving with a delish apple pie.
A small gathering of chosen family, just the way I like it.

Charlie, Bailey, & Penny

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Mateel Aikido celebrated 25 years of training on November 20-21, with Frank Doran Shihan. Black belts arrived from as far away as Alaksa, Oregon, and all over California. There were 49 people on the mat training at the Beginning’s Octagon in Briceland!

Mateel Aikido 25th Anniversary Gathering

Some of the Sensei’s relaxing a bit!

Michael Friedl, Frank Doran, and Russel Wisby

The potluck was fabulous, and also a birthday party for Frank Doran. What a great bunch of people and what an honor to Russel and Forrest Kan and the rest of the Mateel Aikido dojo to be honored with such a full house. A great weekend!

More photos online at Mateel Aikido’s Facebook page.

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I missed spring, summer and most of the fall. It is now winter, with rain and gray days, running the generator way too much as there isn’t enough solar to keep our small system going.

I haven’t been off the land to town in over 44 days now! Thank the goddess for internet as it seems to be my main social contact. I try to phone someone every few days, but talking on the phone is just not my thing. And my throat / voice has been stressed and strained and talking just makes me cough more.

I am now on day 3 of antibiotics (AGAIN) for the tickle – wake – me – up all night cough – all day cough, that developed as I was finally getting rid of the ‘end of summer colds’. I obviously have something going on that is causing this, (bacterial infection?) but no diagnosis.

I want to wax eloquently about how great a garden we had this year, we actually made tomato sauce to can last week end. I picked off 4 large flats of green and pink tomatoes to ripen off the vine. We dug some red potatoes a couple days ago that were just sooo goood. (carrots too) and peppers. I have 10 good sized butternut squash to store for the winter, and several acorns to eat up. I love being able to go into the garden to determine what’s for dinner, but those days are over for this season.

November is just around the corner. Russel’s Aikido school, Mateel Aikido will be celebrating 25 years this month. There is a big retreat planned for the weekend of Nov 19 – 21, with Sensei Frank Doran headlining. There is a Mateel Aikido facebook page that one of the students put up, that you can check out.

I have been dreaming of a warm sunny relaxing massage filled sauna taking swimming several times a day eating only good food retreat with mountain views. Just a few days (maybe more!) to detox, relax, and rejuvenate. Maybe southern California, as I need to get my passport redone before I can go to Mexico. But this is just a dream at this point.

Election in few days.. will be interesting to see where the ‘collective we’ end up with regards to Prop 19, CA governor, and some local issues.

Tagged as:  Aikido · cough · garden · health || Leave a comment

Russel started working back at the schools on last week, by Wednesday (Sept 13) he came home with fever and chills which launched into a full on sinus & head cold.

I managed to keep feeling good until Sunday, the 18th, when a cough started and by Monday I was full on into a head cold as well.. and still today. All the usual aliments, stuffy nose, running like a faucet, sinus head ache, coughing, sneezing and feeling miserable.

This is just a bit much to take on heels of just getting over by 70 day bout with coughing. We also had a brief weather change in there a few days of gray cloudy weather and rain on Monday.

Today if was foggy all morning and now the sun has appeared, seems we are in the middle of Indian Summer .. with the full Harvest Moon just yesterday along with the Fall Equinox… changes coming. I just wish I felt better as there is soooo much to do.

OH and by the way Facebook is down today! My connection to the world, at least I can keep talking here, but really don’t know how many of my friends actually check this site out?? So if you do come by, please drop me a note, ok?

Tagged as:  Facebook · FB · health · Russel · weather || 3 Comments

My birthday was September 11, hard to believe I just turned 58! I really never thought I would get to be this old.

After many years of not much ‘fun’ for birthdays, this year I really wanted to have some out-of-the-ordinary fun..for me at least. Thankfully I felt good and much of my energy had returned after the months long cough issues.

We started the day going out to Ferndale, coastal farming town for the town-wide yard sale. It was a sunny pleasant day and we wandered, didn’t really find any ‘great flea market finds’ but had a nice time looking.

We did stroll into Abraxas, and a pair of leather boots caught my eye. Ok so your thinking, ‘Oh she likes shoes’, well only in that having ones that fit and are comfortable are hard for me to find. I am a hard foot to fit, always have been and I have been looking for years (yes years) for a pair of flat, leather, booties that are comfortable..and ta da!

I wore these shoes a week later to town for an all day shopping errand day, and felt like I was walking on a cloud. I just love them! And it is a big deal to me, as my other booties are 15 years old and worn out, and the only other shoes that I can even wear are SAS, which are really ugly.

Then we had great pancakes at the Main Street Cafe and then headed to Eureka for a few errands. We drove home through the redwoods along the Avenue of the Giants and stopped for awhile in Founders Grove communing with some big trees.

Then it was on to the Briceland Volunteer Fire Department BBQ & Boogie at Beginnings.

This was an event to raise money for our watersheds local fire department, these are the friends and neighbors who will show up at your place if you have a fire, and it’s all volunteer. So many generations of friends and neighbors were there, good music, good food and more than anything boogie-ing with our neighbors. It was really fun.

So all in all that was one of the best birthdays I have had in a long time. And it was also especially nice in that it was the only ‘summer fun’ I had since I felt better from the ‘cough’.

Tagged as:  birthday · PhotoOps · SoHum || 1 Comment

The garden is in full harvest mode, so what energy I have is going there.
Haven’t had time to work this site theme or any other Word Press projects right now.

We did harvest many of our tomatoes:

And we canned up 7 pints. We used the cold pack – 60 min water bath method.

Russel also made some fresh tomato sauce, which was so good, I am tempted to harvest and or buy more tomatos and can up some pints of that.

We have also eaten corn (so sweet and fresh), we have eggplant almost ready, and the peppers are really turning red. Cukes and squash are still producing, as is the salad bed. I love eating fresh organic food.. makes all the work worth it!

Tagged as:  canning · garden · PhotoOps || 2 Comments