Ninety

At the beginning of the month, I noted that we'd gone nearly seventy days without rain.  Well.  Today we hit ninety.  As I said before, there have been a few clouds, and a spatter of rain may have hit the windshield once when I was driving around, but at no time has there been a wetting rain.  It has truly been a surprise.  It is hot and dry in southern Utah, but we always have at least one point during the summer when a monsoonal flow moves in and gives us a week or two of rain.  Evidently northern California has no monsoon season.  And the ten day forecast?  Sunshine.  The Susan River, at any rate, still contains a refreshing trickle.

Plumbed

A week and a half ago it was the apricots.  Right now it is the red plums.  By next week, it will be the purple plums.  And, of course, there are always the apples.  It is a fruit lover's paradise.  Unfortunately, both of my fruit lovers live in Utah.

Rooftops

At some point, the previous owner added a small shed to the back of the main garage at 420 Grand.  By this past winter, the shed roof (above, at bottom left) was so badly damaged that the plywood was showing and water was running into the ceiling when the snow melted.  The rest of the garage roof isn't quite as bad (below), but there are plenty of broken shingles and it is plainly near the end of its life.  To repair it, I've been installing new, three-tab, asphalt shingles on top of the old.  I'm not very good at it and the sun is boiling hot up there.  I think it is going to take me several weeks to finish this job.

Go Home by EATO

On Wednesday morning I woke up with these lyrics in my head.  I sent them to the girls to see if they could work something out.  VSO got the basic sound, and then EDO added a layer of slide guitar.  When we all got together we recorded this version on the second take.  Listen here.

App-ricot or Ape-ricot

Does anyone know how to pronounce this?  At 420 Grand we have a very nice apricot tree, and it has slowly produced a few bags of slightly raw fruit.  Until now.  When the whole crop is finally ripe, it is finally ripe.  There are about 24 hours between “good” and “brown mush.”

Sixty Eight

The last time we had a wetting rain in northern California was May 27th—sixty-eight days ago.  Since that time there have been scattered clouds and isolated drizzles, but not enough moisture to wet the soil.  Instead, there is sunshine.  If you love sunshine—which I do not—this is the place for you.  The sky is clear from horizon to horizon nearly all the time.