December 17, 2025 Shoshone

 70 degrees and sunny. Today was the Community dinner. A great time. 

The Flower Building set up for xmas dinner. Marlys with the quilt she made that will be raffled off and the silent auction.

Michael and Susan, Cynthia and Marge in their holiday finery and the tumbleweed xmas tree. Part of the yummy buffet, all from local restaurants.

Sarah Jane dressed up for xmas tending the drink bar.  Dan, Jenn, and Ruel. 

Local law enforcement and the fire chief also showed up. Roger and Jan.

Toni was the MC behind John serving dinner. Jared and Mitch, Phyliss and Donna.

Great spread of food with Eliza and Art, who brought really good mead he had made. Mike, Eric and John serving dinner. 

Eliza with the donation to the fire dept boot. Mark and James dining outside. 

Dining outside. Karin.

Judy, Jill, John and I enjoying dinner. Dan, Jenn and Amy.  Dan is dispensing beer and root beer from his brewery. Both very good. 

John and Susan and a couple gentlemen I did not catch their names. Dessert table. 

Tap singing in front of the yummy food. Eliza and Amie.

Toni and I. Someone asked us if we were sisters, so I had him take our photo. We use the same hair dresser. 

December 14-16, 2025 Shoshone, California

 75 and sunny.

Our xmas tree. Going with the theme since we just planted 9 date palms in the yard. The yellow ornaments are immature dates. I ordered some lights for it. I buried one more drip line for the palms this afternoon. John buried the ones in the front.  After all the planting and stump grinding there was extra dirt in the yard. John decided one area was so low that there would be a lake when it rains. So he is working on drainage for it. 

This gopher was bobbing up and down out of it's hole while we watched. Not afraid of us. To warm up the road runners fluff up their feathers and expose a black patch of skin on their backs as a solar collector.  Our mother HATED gophers. They ate up her garden. If she saw one,  our sweet, little gray haired mother would become crazed , and grab a butcher knife and stab it. Judy demonstrating! Judy did not kill it. 

I hung up xmas lights all around the windows, trim and door with a staple gun. I plugged them in and they didn't work. Guess I stapled through a wire.  .  . John still working on his drainage ditch the next day.

Sunset tonight.

Second time is the charm I hung new lights on the front of the house and these work. The bar at the Crowbar with Bri our waitress photobombing. 

Jill arrived to day for the holidays Judy took us out to dinner.  John and Judy got the fence put back together ( it had to be taken down to grind the stump) and John finished his drainage masterpiece. 

Sunset tonight.

Happy hour watching the sunset. Judy is the same size as John and Jill, not sure why she looks so small in this photo.

December 6-11, 2025 Shoshone, California

 High of 70 and sunny.

On our way home from Death Valley we stopped at Long Streets Casino for fuel. It is just across the border into Nevada, so it was much cheaper. Looks like they got a new pig since I have last been there.  Diesel was cheaper than gas here. I helped my sister hang a curtain rod and some pictures in her house. We also hung this art piece I made for her for her last house.

John got a new penguin with a certificate of adoption from his sister in law. Their mother's nickname was the Penguin, so they all collect penguins. John and Judy taking down the fence so the tree company can drill out the huge oleander stump. First they took down the cyclone fence and then John used a sledge hammer to remove the cement/cinder block lower fence. 

Neighborhood road runner checking out the changes in the yard and dried, curly mud. These three huge oleander stumps got ground up today. 

This is the stump grinder. Here it is in action.

Cleanup. Taking out another stump.

Some of the trunks and roots of this oleander where huge. The monster huge stump is not this big pile of sawdust, and this is after he filled the hole back in. 

A host of sparrows on the mesquite tree out the window. Two manly men, James and John shoveling ground up stump into trailers. 

Marlys and Toni on the Aqua trail. Cool mud shapes. 

I hung our xmas ornaments on the valance above the couch. Complete with blinky lights. We don't have room for a tree. I pick these up in our travels. I have two pine needle ornaments from the ornament exchange the last two years, a crab from the light house in Crescent city, and armadillo from Texas,  a xmas alien in his space ship from Roswell, a metal sun from Hatch, NM, a steer head with horse hair from Palo Duro state park, Texas, an ornament from Pelican Lake, Michigan and a hand made birch bark canoe made by the Ojibwa in Minn.  I have more ornaments in Colorado, these are just from the last two years. 75 and sunny today. I buried a couple of the drip lines for the palm trees. The neighborhood road runner always comes over when we dig to see if we dug up any tasty morsels. John was cutting down the last stump in the yard, so the road runner alternated between our sites. They are so cute. 

Latest masterpiece.  It is made from dyed pine needles, polyester thread, clay beads from Chile and the center is slate that I sandblasted and painted petroglyphs on. It is 8 x 1 3/4 inches. It has been wonderfully warm here this year.