You can fool the fans - but not the players.... John Cage

Benton Hot Springs weekend

Not far from us, but far enough away to get away, is Benton Hot Springs. We go there regularly, but not often enough - for when we do get there we find it completely and utterly relaxing. We've stayed at the B&B (highly recommended) and we've camped and I've celebrated milestone birthdays there with friends and family. There's no cell service and they only recently added wi-fi at the B&B.

 

The hot springs are located in a scrubby area of east Mono County and although there are some great rocks and canyons, the real draw here is the water.

 

Up the canyon from the campground and B&B is the big hot pool, the source, the mother-pool.... but it is too hot to touch here. It's all fenced off to keep idiots and dogs from leaping in, but the stream that flows down to the resort is open and just dipping your hand in it illustrates how scalding it is up at this pool. It flows for about a quarter mile to the tubs and still comes out very, very warm.

 

The campground is great because each site has its own tub. There are big tile tubs, smaller redwood tubs, sites for several vehicles, sites that are more private. We chose a larger one since we had three couples and three camping vehicles.

 

The tubs are drained, scrubbed and refilled between visitors. There's no slime, no grease, no heebie-jeebies. Just lovely hot water.

 

We had the infamous Holiday Rambler, our spacious abode...

 

Our friends had their more maneuverable campers and jeeps.

 

We did a lot of this...

 

And this....

 

And this....

Then there was some of this:

 

And then a little more of this:

 

We managed to get out just a little:

 

Where 3 out of 4 of us tangled with the deadly cholla:

 

But thankfully JC carries a multi-tool with pliers and was able to extract the beasts with little damage.

And we ended the days with this:

 

along with just enough beer, margaritas and one night, shots of whipped cream vodka. Yum.

 

Sigh. (Map image is from Best Made Company).

A little bit of country in the city.

Seems like every year I'm down in southern California in February. It is my birthday month (I like to stretch it into a month), it is smack in the middle of winter, and for some reason I just like to get away from here for a weekend in February.

 

I seem to need some time with my mom and sis mid-winter. And one of my favorite ways to start the day is to take a walk in the hills on the edge of the city.

 

In February it is always green down there and flowers are beginning to bloom. The air is moist and even though the nights can be chilly it warms up quickly.

 

It never ceases to amaze me what I see on this walk. Birds, including big birds of prey, are all over this canyon, and they must drop seeds of some domestic plants that take root and become wild. This isn't a great photo but I think this is a penstemon and it had bright red flowers blooming.

 

This is urban southern California so I carry pepper spray and always walk with my dogs. You never know. And I'm constantly reminding myself to stay aware of what is around me. So often when I hike or walk it is a time I can let my mind go but I don't allow it down here. It is prudent to stay alert.

 

So far the only people I've met are other dog owners with their dogs. Friendly, chatty, people I end up waving at across the canyon on subsequent walks.

These are wild artichokes and they are so interesting year 'round. The blooms are gorgeous a little later in the year and we've seen the little artichokes. I've never tried eating them but I've taken a lot of photos of them in all seasons.

 

It is completely wonderful that this exists so close to all the chaos of the city - surrounding this canyon are subdivisions, a business park, big box stores, and bustling busy streets. But there are sections of this walk where you can't see any of it and it gets very quiet and peaceful with only the sounds of a bird call or the drone of bees.

 

And the green. My eye needs green this time of year when everything up here is dormant and gray or brown. All this foliage does something for the senses.

 

Along one section someone has taken the time over the years to line the path with round stones. This goes on for quite a ways. JC and I were walking up here once and saw a barefoot guy placing stones - and you wonder why.

 

The dogs absolutely love this canyon and it is the only opportunity they have to be leash-free. They know when we are heading for the area and they know that mornings, after a cup of coffee, are when we go. So the eyes start boring into your brain sending that subliminal dog message, "Take me for a walk" soon after we get up.

 

It is just a fabulous way to start the day. Then I happily climb into the car and hit the stores, drive the freeways, navigate the city.

Horse time

This winter has been remarkable in what it hasn't brought - little rain, little snow, not even much wind *knock on wood*. What we have had is day after day of perfect riding weather. It has been a great time to get to know my little mare.

 

We've been trail riding, ground-working, and some arena riding all through the winter months. I've developed a good relationship with her, cognizant of her youth, speed and power but also confident of her willingness and good nature. It has been a process and a good one.

 

This last week has been busy with travel and wrapping up a project at work so I've not had a huge amount of time to ride. Turnout after a couple of days cooped up in a corral (no matter how spacious) is always fun to watch and on this day Rhea got to run with another young horse, Cody.

 

He's quite a looker, isn't he?

 

There's such power in a young horse and when they are turned out to play and run it is truly a thing of beauty to see.

 

Most of the time my little phone camera can't capture the speed and I end up trashing most of the shots I take.

 

But glimpses into a horse's life like these are pretty priceless too...

 

So beautiful.

 

I am so grateful for this winter and the time I've had with Rhea. Of course, spring is right around the corner with its wind and fickle nature - there's no telling what it will be like.

 

And we'll be packing up the house, getting ready for the new season at the resort, taking a little trip to Idaho (whoo hoo!).... it'll be busy.

There WILL be horse time involved in some fashion...

 

Right now you'll have to excuse me while I run off and celebrate my birthday - I'll be back soon!

Champagne taste on a beer budget

I've been looking for a leather sofa (and gray linen sheets and sisal rugs and cage lamps) but at our budget we can't just go out and buy these things. Besides, there is something undeniably appealing about watching, waiting, and finding. Meanwhile, our house style is described as something as non-descript as "comfortable".

And I continue to be inspired by the great ones, the master designers, the display teams, Pinterest.....

Renovation Hardware is a company that reinvented itself over the last few years and I love, love, love walking through their stores.

For the past six months or so it has been all about linen and subtle colors - creams, grays, taupe. You walk in and there is all this big furniture, high ceilings, huge lighting fixtures. Who is even living in houses this size anymore? Aren't we all downsizing?

 

I love the feel of these "rooms" though. There's a definite French feel but they use American craftspeople too. Everything feels rich but not "in your face" wealthy, comfortable wealthy.

Big family wealthy.

 

There it is - there's my leather sofa. Of course, this sofa is oversized and would not even fit through our normal-size front door, let alone in front of the window in our living room. But you get the idea.

 

And there is JC's comfy chair. We actually took these so that we could compare these lovely pieces with what I went home with:

 

Here it is at the local Salvation Army nestled in between the other cast-offs. I had only been in town for about an hour and here was this little sofa and *bonus* it was discovered during a 50% off sale.

 

It sat on my mom's driveway for a couple of days while we did the rest of my visiting and then we had to fit it into here:

 

We weren't sure it was going to make it and I had to be prepared to leave it until I could bring down the big truck - but no leather sofa is a match for three determined women, let me tell you.

 

We jammed that baby in there and it is now sitting in my dining room waiting for the other sofa to disappear.

It isn't the perfect sofa... the perfect sofa would be one section longer so that we could lay on it... but this one is pretty darn close and can be used with the perfect sofa once we find it.

Ahhh, the quest, the hunt, the find. Love it.

A chick weekend in southern California

JC and I spent the long weekend apart. He had a boys snowmobile weekend up here and I had a girls movie and shopping weekend in the city. Mostly I had time with my mom and one of my sisters and I must have needed it cause it was completely satisfying. Sometimes you just need to go window shopping and not have an impatient spouse waiting for it all to be over.

I even took Bella with me for some one on one time and we went for long walks each morning in the hills outside my mom's place. She was a perfect travel dog. Just curled up and went to sleep while we drove and was ready for each and every adventure while we were there.

Of course I went to Anthropologie. I actually made it to two of their stores. One in Carlsbad and one at University Town Center in San Diego. I like seeing the variation in the displays and even though the stores carry the same merchandise it feels fresh in each location because they aren't cookie-cutter.

It was so nice to see green and there were flowers blooming on our walk and of course my mom's yard is busting out in bloom.

 

And it is just so great to see the ideas and inspiration. JC and I are on the verge of a big transition that potentially sends us into a panic so it is important to focus on the possibilities ahead - both little ones like projects and decorating - and big ones like buying a house.

 

I just love all the plays on trophy mounts that are out there right now... the ones made out of paper mache like this, plaster or cast ones like the these at Renovation Hardware:

 

By the time I get around to having something like this it will probably be passe, but that is the good thing about living in the sticks - nobody cares.

 

The folks at Anthropologie find some amazing pieces and every store has different salvaged cornerstone treasures. They are priced, but not anywhere near my budget. Only good for eye candy in my world. And ideas like paint finishes.

 

The windows right now are paint sticks. Painted and splatter with more paint, then hung with kitchen string. Do you think the folks at Home Depot would notice if I grabbed a hundred or so paint sticks?

 

I actually do think that this could make a wonderful window treatment in a home... and they would move in the breeze, make a little soothing clacking sound...

 

I'm sure there is a place to get bulk paint sticks and I'm equally certain they don't cost much.

 

One of the two stores had this in the front - is this a rickshaw? Or some variation?

 

The tilt of that seat does not make me want to go for a spin in this thing. I think I'd want to be the driver of this get-up. But more than that I want to be in the group that goes around the world and finds this stuff. Sign me up!

 

This metal gate I would have in my yard in a heartbeat. What a grand entrance to a little cottage. We are scared to death to move out of our comfy home but there is another one out there waiting for us. One of our own. With room for the horses.

 

We laughed at this since I had just purchased a secondhand leather sofa that needs to have the mesh fabric redone underneath... guess I don't have to really get stressed over it.

 

And these, these are just great. What patience to loop all this fabric and ribbon and seam binding. Again, there must be big warehouses where one can go in and buy this by the pound.

 

More great paint and detail.... just mounted on a wall...

 

Love the colors.

 

Even shower curtains become infinitely more interesting when they are hung like dresses on a rod.

 

And this beautiful piece was in the dressing room...

gorgeous, no?

 

Tomorrow, we'll take a little visual journey to Restoration Hardware.

Our own custom road trip game

When you have friends with memories like steel traps and a way of looking at the world that makes every event potential for a story you end up with gifts like your own customized road game. We do and we did.

 

This has been a constant source of chuckles and guffaws since we opened it. Our friends up north made this for us and it has its roots in trips fraught with disaster. In fact it seems that we can't make a plan to visit these friends without something breaking down and that has become the source of endless jokes.

 

There is nothing I like more than people who know how to take bad and twist it around into something to laugh about. When you have friends who know how to laugh in the face of adversity you know you have good friends, folks who aren't afraid to have a good time even when life isn't cooperating.

 

So all the details of our trip disasters are here for us to remember and along with that the absolutely wonderful times we have had with these friends - eating good food, laughing deep belly laughs over some story, drinking beer, bourbon, and DD's wicked creamsicle cocktails.

 

It is the kind of gift that money can't buy and that you want to treaure forever. In fact we will treasure it forever, along with the memories of those past road trips and the anticipation of the future trips we'll take with *hopefully* fewer catastrophes.

 

These maps are made by the Best Made Company and I think they should offer custom maps - we'd send in our routes and they send us back a map with "Everything Here is Wonderful"! Cause it really is.

Eh. I'm out of practice.

JC and I have been living pretty frugally the last couple of years - rotten economy and a big desire to stay out of debt - so we've become the king and queen of trash. Finding it, making do with it and turning it into as much of a treasure as we can manage. Most of the time it works out just fine. The Holiday Rambler is our favorite trailer, JC has learned all sorts of new skills fixing and repairing stuff, and I have become best friends with a can of paint.

Not too long ago our TV died, it was football season and it didn't take long for JC to find another one. Bigger and heavier than our old one, it wouldn't fit on the entertainment center. We put it precariously on a rattan trunk and kept looking for another solution.

 

A friend was giving this away and I thought it would work, at least until this TV died and we could finally get a flat screen. Have you noticed the way things are going? There are entertainment centers galore at the thrift stores because you don't need one once you get rid of the big boxy TVs. Now TVs can float on the wall and all you really need is an iHome or something like that for music.

So I knew this would not be forever and I was reluctant to shell out money for a piece of furniture we'd soon be discarding ourselves. I would make the trunk do. But not white with those flower decals...

 

Which were more of a problem than I thought. She must've put them on with white or wood glue and trying to get them off took the paint with it. Stripping the whole trunk was not something I was interested in doing so I did what I could with a razor and a sander.

Next, I went off to the hardware store with a paint in mind - a suede paint I'd used before. No suede paint to be found. This WAS happening this weekend so I ended up buying a textured Rustoleum:

 

and putting two coats of a medium brown on the trunk.

 

Kind of a Milky Way candy bar brown. Eh.

I also bought some metallic paint in bronze and brushed that on the locks and the corner pieces.

 

Now we have a pirate's chest in the living room! Sigh. Not that I want to move this television again but I'll be keeping an eye out for something that is more my style. This trunk has a usefulness somewhere but it isn't my favorite project ever.

I look at it and I try to imagine going on a trip with this kind of luggage.... can you see it? It would hold a lot of stuff! But on those ships you needed formal wear and weeks worth of clothing. I think a trunk like this should live in a bedroom and hold winter blankets or something at the foot of a bed.

There are days when I am sick of being frugal. Then I remember the days of endless bills and am reminded that having "stuff" isn't the be all end all. Having time to do the things I love is what matters. And then I can live with a pirate's chest in the living room.

Bees, birds and flowers in February

No, no little plant - don't bloom yet....

These popped up in a sunny corner of the yard along with some crocus and I want to push them back into the ground.

 

It is too warm, too dry, and too early to think of winter being over.

Everywhere in the valley birds are chirping, bees are  humming in the trees and there are signs of life every direction I turn.

Stop!

Wait!

Snow is in the forecast and we haven't made it through March yet.

Nature doesn't listen to me, it is on its own path, marching to the beat of its own drummer and we are just along for the ride.

This will go down as a winter of record and just what that will be we have another month to determine.

 

I keep reminding myself of how many rides I've gotten in on the horses and how in a normal winter the only thing I can do with them is turn them out in a muddy, wet arena. It has been a stellar year for ice skating and winter riding in perfect, windless, sunny weather.

Counting blessings.

Living in big sky country

I know there is another state that claims to be the big sky country, but we here in the Owens Valley can make the case that we also live in big sky country - that the sky sometimes dominates the day. Especially when there are clouds.

 

The big arc of the sky is held in place by our mountains to the east and the west and there isn't much on the ground to compete - no big city, no large formations of rock or earth. A rain-shadowed, sage-covered landscape that really just redirects the attention back up to the sky.

I love our sky here -  the fiery sunrises, the huge moon-scapes, the enormous expanse of stars.

When we drive north to get hay we have a good opportunity to sky-watch since we are driving along the valley floor with a great view of the Sierra crest and we ascend a little as we drive into the tri-valley area. When we are headed home there is often a beautiful panorama spread out in front of us.

 

I like our hay expeditions (except maybe for writing that check - but even then it is such a simple transaction between buyer and seller - no middleman). We take the dogs and they are free to run around the hay barn while we load, and unloading the hay is like putting money in the bank. Feels good to have a ton of hay in front of each corral.

 

It gives us some car time / talk time and we are just alone in our bubble for awhile.

Our lives pretty much revolve around horses and dogs - we squeeze work in somehow. While JC and I stress about truck repairs and the bills, the dogs and the horses are completely taken care of, content, and go about their day without a care in the world. I should include the cat too - his greatest worry is the cat across the street.

 

This is pretty typical of the dogs' life.

 

And this.

 

And this.

 

What a life. Well, we'll be getting hay again, soon, because that's what happens. You load it, unload it, feed it off twice a day and before you know it you are back buying more.

We love our life in this big sky country.

Weekend project (a quick one)

We haven't upgraded to flat screen TVs yet - we're a couple who still watches "Modern Family" and "Glee" on an older style, hulking Sony Trinitron. Works great, has a nice picture, the price was right so there is no compelling reason to upgrade at the moment. We aren't that much into it.

But we recently acquired a bigger, better Sony that wouldn't fit on the ole' entertainment center and is right now precariously balanced on a rattan bench. We've been looking for something sturdier to use and this fell into our laps:

 

An old steamer trunk. It has been painted and decorated with decals like this for years and needs a revamp. We carried it into the living room last weekend and all week I've been thinking about the quickest way to give this a makeover so that we can move it in, go to the hurculean effort of moving the TV over, and have it done with.

I've come up with the idea that I'll sand it down enough to get the decals off and roughen up all the white paint and spray the whole thing with Krylon Suede paint. It has a nice matte finish and a little bit of texture. We have a leather, western vibe to our living room anyway and that seems like it will fit in.

At first I thought I'd  have to tape over all the metal, but now I've decided that it will work to spray the whole thing and then go back over the metal with a good Rustoleum and a brush. I haven't decided on a color yet but maybe a rust finish if I can find a good one. Like I said, I want this to be completed in a weekend.

I'll get my window back once this is moved into the corner, and we'll be able to eliminate one piece of furniture (I think - still need to deal with the stereo). I don't know what I'd do if we were able to just go out and buy what we wanted - we probably wouldn't be able to find anything we liked. Thank goodness I married a man who's style is as eclectic as mine and tolerates, no more than tolerates, this kind of make-do attitude. He encourages it.

Wish me luck and I'll post photos once it is completed.