Labor Day

Well folks, I guess it is official.  Summer is winding down.  We just had our last official holiday of the summer season.  Since it was cool and rainy all day on Monday, I imagine a few plans got rained out or changed.  As for myself, I spent the day making jam from some boysenberries I got from a friend in Anza and canning green beans that I grew myself.  So I was happy for the less than perfect weather.  In my book, rain is the perfect weather.  But no matter, we hope everyone had a great holiday regardless of what they did.  And as the summer of 2011 comes to a close, we can take comfort in the fact that we  have the wonderful autumn season to look forward too! 

Autumn means cool, brisk mornings, spectacularly perfect sunny autumn afternoons,  leaves changing colors and that feeling in the air that the seasons are changing. We will smell the smoke from the first fires of the season as the evenings start to get cold and the smell of pine and cedar will permeate the cool evening air. It is also a time to get back to cooking soups, stews and all sorts of things that get put away for the summer months when cooking heats up the kitchen too much or there is just too much to do outside to be stuck in the kitchen over the hot stove.  But sandwiches and salads lose their appeal after several months and a bubbly beef stew with warm, homemade bread fresh from the oven and a fresh baked apple pie for dessert have been on my mind lately. 

While I am sure summer has a few punches left for us, I know it won't be long until my favorite season of the year is upon us.  Meanwhile, I will be having salad again for dinner tonight!

Monday Musings

August is here!  Wow, where is the time going?  Wasn't it just the 4th of July the other day?  Well, we still have lots of summer concerts and the Jazz Festival to look forward to before we head into Labor Day weekend.  July went out spectacularly.  What a lovely, rainy weekend.  While I didn't get any painting done on my shed, I can't complain.  The rain was well worth putting off the painting for another week. It will probably take me until Christmas time to get it done anyway.  The rain was a good excuse for staying inside and napping!  I did do some inside chores, but I also took the liberty of goofing off as well.  I just love waking up to a cloudy, rainy morning and it puts me in a good mood for the remainder of the day. 

This morning as I walked to work, everything looked so refreshed.  I think most of the pine pollen has now been washed away, as I saw very little of it during this storm.  The last storm that came through created yellow rivers and puddles, due to the large amount of pine pollen that had settled onto everything.  I noticed the plants and trees all looked extremely happy this morning.  Freshly showered and cooled off, they were standing taller, looking greener and I think some of my trees actually grew over the weekend!  Rain is an amazing gift and it rejuvenates everything living here on the mountain.  The plants and trees  Rain is so incredibly refreshing during the summer.  I tire easily of the heat and the dryness.  But the rain brings a coolness to the air that is invigorating and I think plants, animals and humans are grateful for the break from the unrelenting sunshine. 

We have a couple more chances for rain this week and I do hope they pan out.  Here in southern California, I don't think we can have too much rain in the summer time.  At least not in my opinion.

Monday Musings

It is good to be back.  I was on vacation last week so I have a lot to catch up on.  I hope everyone had a fabulous 4th of July holiday.  The parade was great, as per usual and I think everyone had a  great time.  While I generally steer clear of the village during holiday weekends, there is no missing the 4th of July parade.  And as always, the holiday weekend flies by leaving us wondering where the time went.  We hope everyone got to attend the activities they wanted and had a great time doing it.

Monday Musings

Each Monday morning, I try to take the time to go through the stats for the blog.  It is amazing that we are getting hits from around the world!  A lot of them are due to searches people are making and a related post from our blog pops up in their search.  While they are are not specifically looking for Pine Cove Water District, I still think it is pretty neat that our little blog is being seen and some posts are being read around the world.  We do have a lot of hits from people coming directly here to read the latest posts or about the board meetings or various other things going on here at the water district as well and we are grateful to those who read regularly.    We want to thank everyone for their support of our little blog.

We are working our way to 10,000 hits and this is amazing to us.  I remember when we hit 1,000 and thought that was really great.  We never thought we would get anywhere near 10,000 hits, so we are very excited about that.

 We would also like to encourage everyone who reads the blog, to let us know what subjects they are interested in seeing here on the blog, as sometimes we feel like we are repeating ourselves quite a bit.  Water is a very important subject and can also be a very deep subject as well, (I know, very puny) but we are trying to keep it light and local here on the blog.  So if you have a suggestion for a subject, please let us know.

 If you would like to write a post on a topic that is pertinent to our blog, drop me an email and if it fits our format, I will publish it and let everyone know it was a guest poster.  You can be anonymous if you prefer, but I would love to have some guest bloggers to give the blog a bit of variety.   You can email me directly at pcwd2675@yahoo.com.  We would also like to encourage everyone to leave any comments they might have as we love to hear from our customers.

We hope you are all enjoying the nice summer weather and have a fun filled summer.

Raining again!

As I sit here typing my blog posts, we are shrouded in fog.  This is great.  I love a rainy, foggy morning.  I don't know why, but I do.  There is something extremely cozy about it.  Being enveloped in fog and rain is like being given permission to stay indoors and relax.  With weather like this, it seems OK to stay in your jammies all day and watch re-runs of old television shows.   It seems everyone would be content to just hang around in front of the fire with a mug of hot chocolate, the remote control or a good book.

However, I did manage to get myself dressed and make it into work.  According to the weather station we have received .24 inches of rain so far today.  March may have come in like a lamb but this past weekend, the weather across the nation was anything but calm.  We are really very lucky here in Pine Cove.  We don't usually have tornadoes, hurricanes or flash floods to deal with.  While I am sure there is always the possibility they could happen, as a rule they do not.   We also don't usually get those frigid below zero temps and even though we might get large amounts of snow, we don't seem to get those white outs or blizzards that are common in the mid west or back east.  Being out in the snow when the temps are around 30 or so is quite fun.  This past week brought temperatures in the 40s and 50s. I am amazed at how much of last weekend's snow has already melted away.  Once today's storm clears out, the forecast looks like it will return to the nicer weather, so I expect it will all be gone before long.

Before we know it, summer will be here and the winter of 10-11 will be just a distant memory.  Snow is such a magical thing sometimes.  Watching the first flakes of the season slowly drift to the ground is always exciting.  Of course snow at the holidays always makes things seem more festive.  And a walk in the snow when there is a full moon just can't be described as anything less than magical! We are very lucky that we get to enjoy all four seasons here in Pine Cove and that none of them are all that extreme.  Makes for very pleasant living.  So as we leave one season for the next, we will have to say good bye to the rain and the snow, but  we can look forward to the garden springing to life, picnics, sandals, the summer concerts and all the other wonderful activities that go on during the spring and summer months here on the hill.