February

A beautiful day. Sunny and mild. A little frost this morning but I'm already in my shorts here at 10 AM. And of course there are no clouds in sight. Drought has us all scared. I know a lot of the country has been suffering from it for quite awhile and now we join them. I read this morning that Lake Oroville is only a 100 feet away from 'dead pool'; that's the point where water can no longer flow out of the lake and would have to be pumped. Lake Shasta is in the same condition, with old towns popping up every day as the water level drops. People with metal detectors are scouring the bottoms of dry streams, rivers and lakes. Low water at Folsom lake now reveals the town of Mormon Island and a full sized, all original, two lane concrete highway bridge. A bridge to nowhere.

My sister and brother-in-law just left after a 5 day visit. Very enjoyable! Yesterday, we toured the Sierra Nevada Brewery. That is something to see! We have lived here for 9+ years and never got around to taking the tour. At the end of the tour you are invited to sample 8, 2 oz servings of their different brews. Once again I regretted not being able to partake...they looked so good! But I didn't dare.

The day before our trip to Sierra Nevada, we went to the Abbey of New Clairevaux, just a 20 minute drive from here. A fascinating place, even though we were unable to have a close up view the Sacred Stones project. It was closed; darn it! If you watch PBS you might have seen a special on the great cathedrals of Europe and part of the filming included the reconstruction of the 800 year old Chapter House. It was truly amazing that they were able to find a stone mason with the expertise to 'see' the Chapter House in the pile of ancient stones that had been delivered from their last resting place; Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. William R. Hearst had given the stones to San Francisco when he abandoned his plans to rebuild the structure. And he had bought the entire building in Spain and had it shipped to him. A fascinating story!

The arrival of a dear relative gave us the impetus to explore our own neighborhood. We need her to come back more often. And to bring water... The long range forecast says, said, that February would be stormy. We need it! The snow pack is at 12% of normal and the whole state depends on that snow pack. True story; the state of California was primarily desert until the 'white man' came along and captured the snow melt and channeled it to towns and fields. We could easily see that desert again.