Life On The Central Coast

It rained for the first time in months today. Hopefully the start of something good. California has been in a drought for YEARS and if we don't get some rain this year, there will be water rationing. It began as a few showery drops, light, fresh washing off the months of accumulated dirt and grime on windows, cars, tree leaves and roads. Pretty soon the gutters were full and flowing the gravity pulling the water down towards the ocean and low lying patches of ground. Puddles formed ever larger, dotted with the circular patterns of falling droplets like holes in Swiss cheese. Children in raincoats and boots find these irresistible! And then, while driving the backroads, you come up and over a hill and out before you is the MOST beautiful site....rows and rows of wine grapes soaking up all the wet goodness, adding to the juicy sweetness of the grapes that will be pressed into wine. And life is good. I can't wait to buy a bottle of wine from Edna Valley Winery and sa...

When Beckie came to pick Scott up on Friday evening, we went outside to pick some Ollieberries (yum yum!). The berries are SO good right now, IF you pick the black ones. Scott was a "Picking Wonder" and although we kept telling him, "pick the black ones only", he picked and ate red, black and sometimes even green. These bushes are LOADED with berries and unfortunately, lots of bermuda grass. We started picking out the grass which turned into a Saturday morning clean up of the berry bed and another area where we hope to put in a couple of 4 x 4 square foot gardening beds. Yup, we are going to TRY and grow some fresh veggies over the summer. Good exercise and good food. In the afternoon, we took a drive to run errands and take some pictures. Here are a couple of roadside shots I took. Then, Wes and I finished a job that we had been working on all week... cleaning up the kitchen and putting in new under the counter lighting. The lights are up and this week we are putti...

My new Westways arrived in the mailbox yesterday and had a page featuring a Day Trip to Pismo Beach. (pg. 30 if you get the magazine) If you don't get the magazine, I'll try to put up some of the most interesting things from the article. First the map from the downtown area with featured places to visit highlighted. The first catagory covered was places to EAT. They suggested (1) Old West Cinnamon Rolls. 1861 Dolliver Street. Follow the smell of just baked cinnamon rolls and inside you will hear the rolls are "the best in the world." (2) Steamers of Pismo Beach . 1601 Price Street. Known for its panoramic ocean view and award-winning clam chowder and some of the tastiest fish and chips in town. And (3) Rosa's Italian Restaurant . 491 Price Street. Try the thin-crust pizza with Italian sausage, salami, and green pepper. Be sure to save room for the tiramisu. Next, there were the places to PLAY. Number (4) is Hotlix. 179 Pomeroy Avenue. Kown for its ...

Wes has been working the Diablo Canyon outage for the last couple of months. Taking advantage of the first real weekend in 2 months, we decided to make a little trip to Parkfield. It rests along the San Andreas Fault line and has had a history of fairly regular earthquakes. The USGS has set up monitoring devices and collect data in an attempt to better predict what may happen all along the San Andreas Fault. We took a drive up Hwy. 101 to Hwy. 41 East and drove that way through Shandon. These old, rusty metal sorting silos stood along the road like this with nothing else around for miles. I'm not sure what they were used for but they looked really old. The photograph was taken using the pinhole setting (dark circular margins) and then processed using the sepia tones. Love the final photograph! To see more photographs like these, visit my photography website here .

If You See A Fairy Ring Author Unknown If you see a fairy ring In a field of grass, Very lightly step around, Tip-Toe as you pass. Last night Fairies frolicked there And They're sleeping somewhere near. If you see a tiny fairy Lying fast asleep Shut your eyes And run away, Do not stay to peek! Do not tell Or you'll break a fairy spell. Believe it or not, I found these mushrooms while on a brief nature walk today in our Monarch Butterfly preserve. They were indeed in a circle and the little flower reminded me of a delicate fairy in a white dress pausing in between rides on a Monarch Butterfly.

I think I'm finally tired of being sick and tired! Yes, after let's see, 10 days.... I finally feel better. Good thing too because we had our big Santa Barbara weekend this past weekend. Found out Beckie's new little one is a BOY!! Yes, we are happy and excited about that. Everything is fine, heart beating measurements where they should be for his age. Now it's just the waiting game. After the appointment, we headed downtown for some shopping at Paseo Nuevo Mall. Kristen had never been to Santa Barbara that she could remember, so we showed her all our favorite "haunts".  Next, it was down to the waterfront to look at the Sunday craft faire, Stern's Wharf and enjoy the local flavor of the town.  Scotty got to ride on a really nice Merry-Go-Round. They told us later that we couldn't take pictures.... ummm, too late! And check out this contented group AFTER going into the candy shop.... come on you guys, have a little fun!!!  He he he he. It was a marvelo...

Isn't this a beautiful Victorian Style home? You can't see all of it because of the shrubbery and trailer park at the base of the house. It made me curious about the history of the house so I looked it up. Here is what I found. This is the historical information I found written  HERE . Coffee T. Rice House Oceano, California History and Description: Coffee T. Rice was a wealthy financier, with enterprises throughout the State, who migrated from Ohio to San Francisco. When a railroad was surveyed through this area he envisioned an industrial center here and acquired various properties close to the right of way. He introduced celery production to the area. Rice started construction on his home in 1885 using the same craftsmen that were working on the Pitkin House. The house originally had 20 rooms and was painted yellow. Surrounded by well-kept grounds with various trees and a sundial, the house was approached by an oval driveway and a stone-pillared entryway. The grounds also in...

"Like a circle in a spiral Like a wheel within a wheel Never ending or beginning On an ever-spinning reel As the images unwind Like the circles that you find In the windmills of your mind" Do you ever feel like you are being blown around by the "winds" of the day? I think that was me today. The day started relatively normal; Sunday paper, cup of warm chai tea, a walk with my dog Rico. We made "light" plans because my son and his wife were visiting this weekend. One of the things I wanted to work on was getting out my Worm Factory and start using it again. Ok, I know, I know, gross right? Well, it's not so bad and you can get some really great soil for your plants while doing composting with kitchen scraps. Bonnie Hunt had the "Germinatrix" on for a segment on Friday where they made worm bins out of regular deep storage containers. Got me thinking about the 2 worm bins I have on the side of my house just sitting there doing nothing! It'...

Don't you LOVE camping? I do! We were able to camp out at Lopez Lake for a couple of days this past week and we found out something about our dog. Did you know that not all hound dogs like hunting? Here is our little Oscar Meyer who could care less about the deer outside the motorhome window. So you're thinking, "Weiner Dogs wouldn't go for game that large" right? Well, he wasn't interested in the wild turkeys, squirrels, woodpeckers, ducks, or anything else wild for that matter. As a matter of fact, he liked sticking it out IN the motorhome. It was like pulling teeth to get him to even take a small walk. We stayed in a really nice site,  Bluejay 31 . One of the best things about this site was the view of the sweet little valley on the left side of the site. Each day the deer showed up around 5 just to casually stroll through on their way to the lake. Next we are going to spend a couple of days visiting my son and his wife in Tracy, CA

Just a quick weekend update. Saturday.... well Saturday can be my favorite day of the week. I get to sleep in, catch up, relax and have fun. It is also Breakfast Buddy day. Do you and your friends get together to do something on a regular basis? We do too! Once a month my friends Janine and Robin and I get together for breakfast on Saturday mornings to "catch up" on each other's lives. It's food, fun, laughter and therapy! We've been doing this for YEARS! This Saturday it had been even longer than a month so there was a lot of catching up to do. We went to CoCo's in Pismo Beach and must have been there 3 hours before any of us was ready to go. Robin's son and daughter-in-law recently bought their first home and Janine had just returned from a family visit to Albuquerque. It was such a fun visit and I really LOVE these girls. Can't wait until next month's breakfast! Then I went home and was sick for the next 24 hours. I know! A perfectly good weeke...

Remember how special those first couple of days back to school were? When my 4 kids were all school age, we used to start our school year out right with a trip to the Apple Farm for breakfast. It was usually the day before school was to start. I'd have them get up early, dress in a new outfit for school and we'd head off for a fun, wholesome breakfast of hot apple cider, bacon & eggs and those wonderful biscuits complete with Marionberry jam. Then we'd all go down and take "school pictures" in front of the Old Mill. Each year they'd grow a little taller and more mature, but the Old Mill backdrop remained the same. Some of my all time favorite pictures were taken there.  Now my kids are 32, 29, 27 and 23 but they haven't outgrown their love of the Apple Farm breakfast. We went this morning with husbands, fiance's and our one and only grandson. What a good feeling! I'm glad some traditions never die! This mill was built August 1, 1871 by Nordyke...

Good morning all! We made a trip over the weekend to IKEA in Burbank, CA. It was great fun! We took Hwy. 101 down along the beaches and on the way back, we came up the 5 to Mt. Pinos area and then Hwy. 33 through Lockwood Valley. We've been this way in the fall and to Mt. Pinos in the winter, but we've never been in the summer before. It was a beautiful day with great weather and the valley was just beautiful and serene. Although the grass was a little brown, mostly due to the drought California has been in for a couple of years, there were flowers and bees. We pulled over to take some pictures. Hope you enjoy.

So, since my blog is called Life on the Central Coast of California, I should say something about a local place...have you ever heard of Tepusquet? Tepusquet canyon is located East of Santa Maria, California off of Hwy 166. There are several wineries along the road but the reason we took this road was to see snow...yes SNOW! Now we live where it doesn't ordinarily snow. It gets cold and it rains (see prior blog) but seldom snow. Recently in the mountains surrounding our area though, the conditions were right, cold and wet, which turned into snow. So when we crested the mountain between Santa Maria and Hwy 166, this was our view...beautiful, white snow. I think it would be really fun to drive over there and play...gosh it's been YEARS since we went anywhere with snow...2002 to be exact and it was South Lake Tahoe. Back to Tepusquet...I was thinking it was a type of grape since there are so many vineyards and wineries there, but it might have something to do with the Native Ameri...

We took a trip up the coast today to see the Elephant Seals just North of San Simeon at Piedras Blancas. Rain was forecasted for the day but we decided to try the trip anyway. Driving up we did hit areas of rain but it was clear and sunny at the Elephant Seal beach. This time of year most of the babies have been born. Today we saw hundreds of moms with young and relatively few males. It always amazes me to go to this beach and see the seals as far as your eye can see and packed in like sardines! The babies were yelping to be fed, moms were squealing to contain their children and keep the best locations and every now and then you would hear the big males trumpeting just like the honking horn of a car. Add to this the squabbling of seagulls trying to find something to eat and you can begin to imagine the noise of this aquatic choir. Everywhere you looked mother seals were scooping great flipperfuls of sand and tossing it over themselves and their young . I think it helps to keep the fl...

We went camping at Lopez Lake this past weekend. It was us with our motorhome, our daughter and her in-laws with tent trailers. We had such a good time relaxing, eating, sitting around the campfire and just doing nothing. The baby was really good and seemed to enjoy the great outdoors too. We went down to the little kids park and let him play on the slide, swing set and merry-go-round. The slideshow is Scott, his Mom, Dad and Uncle Cullen. We saw so many deer, turkeys, racoons, quail, red-headed woodpeckers and crows. Nature really can rejuvenate your spirit! http://www.slocountyparks.com/activities/lopez.htm