Work last night

Last night at work I did something pretty neat. You might have heard that there is a national ammunition shortage. (It happens before every election but this year is worse because of covid.) What you might not know is that the shortage isn't just modern cartridges but extends to reloading supplies (e.g. primers, gunpowder, and empty casings) and black powder/muzzle loader supplies. Well, last night a couple came in looking for .50 & .36 cal bullets (not cartridges. just the lead.) and black powder. And we didn't have any. So I showed them how to make black powder and where to go to get the ingredients, and, using a pocket knife and pliers, disassemble .50 BMG rifle cartridges and 000 shotgun shells (000=.36 caliber) so they can use the lead therefrom in their guns. The end result: They bought all the .50 BMG and all the 000 buckshot we had on the shelves, and the customer has a new hobby.

I think I should get paid extra for that.

Pumpkin and Pistol

 Sunday night the boys came over and we ate a Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good.  Rather my version of it, which is better.  I use croutons made from day old baguette buttered and dusted with powdered sage and thyme, and I use 1/4 pound of bacon, cubes of beef, and slices of bratwurst all fried in bacon grease. And I use more cheese and cream, too.  Oh, and many 12-15 cloves of garlic sliced in half and fried in bacon grease, too.  It's a dish that can be changed many ways and still be amazing.

After the dinner we watched John Wayne in Henry Ford's 1939 film, Stagecoach.  I wanted to take them to see it at the Stanford Theater in Palo Alto this year but, because of COVID, the theater is closed.  I took Anselm there to see the movie when he was 5 but he didn't remember it.  He remembered the theater but not the movie.

Yesterday, Kathleen and I worked in the garden.  I think I like the winter garden as much as the summer garden.

Last night I completely disassembled and rebuilt my pistol.  It was the first time I had done it since I bought in 1994.  It was long over due and much needed as the gun would not cycle nor would the magazines eject properly.  I replaced the recoil spring, lubricated the firing pin, cleaned the carbon build up off of every surface (It was carbon on the grip screws that was hindering the magazines.), and greased it up.  Now, it's as good as the day I bought it.  I've very happy about that.  Hmmmm.  Maybe I should become a gunsmith.

Vegetables and Shotgun Maintenance

I had a nice day.  This morning Kathleen and I picked up some seedlings from Valley Verde: cabbage, lettuce, parsley, broccoli, sugar snap peas, and Brussels' sprouts.  We transplanted them in one of the beds where the kale seeds I planted never germinated. (I don't know why the never germinated.  The seeds in the other bed are doing well.  It is a mystery.)  We also pulled out the last tomato vine and the last three zucchini vines.  We won't taste those again until next summer.  Right now, in addition to the seedlings we got today, we have pumpkin, acorn squash, melon, spaghetti squash, cucumbers, bell peppers, eggplant, and Thai chilis growing. 

The last time I went shooting with Kathleen my shotgun malfunctioned.  I went, today, to the hardware store, bought a special screwdriver, and took the whole thing apart, I mean the whole thing.  I had already cleaned it and blasted it with a powerful solvent a couple of days ago so it was clean, but it still wasn't working.  Therefore, today, I did EXTREME maintenance on it; probably, the first time since the old side-by-side was made in 1944.  It works perfectly now.  I heartily recommend Birchwood Casey's "Gun Scrubber" solvent. (It's so good you can't ship it into California without a license.) and Hoppe's #9 Black Gun Grease. 

My whole shooting life, since I was a 17 year old private in the Army I have only used Break Free CLP on my guns but this job needed something a more powerful. I will still use Break Free CLP for regular cleaning and lubricating but it's nice to know there are other products available when my regular product isn't enough.

A note about this shotgun:  Long ago I used to share this Blog with Jeff Miller.  This gun and two others were his dad's guns.  When Jeff's dad I bought the guns from his widow.  I have one and each of my brothers has one.  When my dad died and I inherited his library I gave many of the books to St. Katherine College but the most important of them I gave to Jeff Miller.  He has our dad's books.  We have his dad's guns.

Kale, Beets, and the Priesthood.

The weather is still warm so I planted some more beet seeds and kale seeds in the ground.  If everything goes well they should be ready to harvest in mid-December.  I've never planted anything so late before.

I saw this on the website of the OCA today.  It is a fairly desperate presentation of a very soon to occur priest shortage.  I predicted this shortage more than 10 years ago, when the bishops decided to require the completion of a three year M.Div. program before ordination.  That means a total of seven years of school, the first four of which have nothing to do with the priesthood, are required with no guarantee of ordination.   

Let's look at a 18 year old right out of high school and living in Fresno, California.  He works full-time as a painter, and lives at home with his parents.  Amazingly, he gets all his classes and graduates from Fresno State University with a degree in business in 4 years.  According to Fresno State's website, that student will wind up paying $80,000 for that degree.  Then he quits his job goes to St. Vladimir's Seminary in New York, where the lives in the dorms for three years (or nine months out of those years.  The other three months he has to find somewhere else to live.) That will cost him another $66,000.  But unlike Fresno State where he was able to just go to class and ignore the whole "campus life" thing in order to hold down a job, the seminary is really big on "campus life" and keeping the seminarians busy with mandatory extra curricular activities.  So this imaginary man can not hold down a job while attending seminary.  

But hey! After $146,000 dollars he now has a M.Div. degree (With that money he could have bought a house in Fresno.) and a three year interruption in his work history, and because he is too young to be ordained (He must be thirty according to Canon 14 of the Quinisext Council) he can't get a job as a parish priest.

But there is a better way to do it:  He's been an acolyte since he was 5, so by the time he is 14 he should be able to be a reader.  So Make Him A Reader!  And during his high school years he attends all the services and meets with the priest, together with all the other young men in the parish to study the Bible and learn the jobs of subdeacon and deacon.  And while serving in his parish as deacon he continues studying with his priest.  And by the time he is thirty, he might be ready to be a priest.  And look at this:  He didn't have to put his life on hold, leave his job, leave his parish, move across the country, and spend $66,000 on a seminary degree.  And the church gets hundreds new deacons, and priests every year. 

The summer is over

I finished up my work for the U.S. Census Bureau this week.  It was a good way to finish up the summer.  Most of my work was here in San Jose but they sent be to Reno for a little over a week and to Stockton for five days ending Tuesday of this week.  While I was on the Stockton trip they named me to the permanent travel team, and I thought my next trip was going to be Wyoming and Montana where I would finish up the census on Oct 31.  But then, the very next day, Wednesday of this week they shut down all our operations.  Well, it was fun while it lasted.  Now, I'll look for something else.  I still am working part time at Bass Pro Shops but that is only a few hours a week because of Covid. (The health department only lets us serve 2 customers per hour at the gun counter and two customers per hour at the ammo counter.)

A lot has happened in the garden.  About 2 weeks ago we took delivery of a truck-load of horse manure and covered all the beds with it.  Then we planted beets, garlic, kale, and radishes.  Everything except the garlic has sprouted.  I don't know if I mentioned it or not in earlier posts but we made an 8 foot tall tube out of cattle panel, set it in a trash can full of our compost, and planted a bunch up stuff in it last spring.  All the vines climbed to the top and have produced spaghetti squash, butternut squash, cucumbers, melons, and last and getting ripe right now, a pumpkin 6 feet up in the air.  We planted some beit alpha cucumber seeds a few weeks ago and harvested the first one yesterday.  We have a volunteer acorn squash in a 2' pot.  We had filled the pot with our compost but, I guess, our compost doesn't get hot enough to kill all the seeds.  But that's okay.  There are six acorn squash on the vine.  And we still have four potted zucchini vines from the spring that are producing.  Not as much as in June but each still produces one or two per week.  The star of the garden right now is the eggplant bush.  We have given away a lot of eggplant to neighbors and there are 8 or 9 on the bush getting big and ripe right now.  Today, I mailed a bunch of our Thai dragon peppers to my brother in Modesto. 

A couple of weeks ago, Kathleen and I visited Fort Bragg, a little coastal town in northern California.  We rode the Skunk Train, ate at some amazing restaurants (Silver's and the North Coast Brewing Company), watched seals playing in the harbor, and stayed at the Anchor Lodge.  Almost everything in town was closed because of Covid, but the Silvers and  North Coast had outside and socially distanced seating.  

Oh!  We found out that there is a small preschool that visits the garden a couple of times a week.  The teachers talk about the different plants, the compost bin, take measurements, etc.  They also sampled some of our millions of sungold tomatoes when they were still growing.  When we found out they were visiting the garden Kathleen gave them cucumbers.
 
I made 6 fruitcakes today.  Well, they are still in the oven so, to be more accurate, I'm still making them.  Basil Wenceslas is coming over tomorrow and together we'll make six more.

A Christmas List

 Kathleen has been watching me gather Christmas presents for other people and store them under the bed for the last few weeks.  Almost every day I was in Reno she would call me and tell me another package had arrived and I would say, "Don't open it.  Just put it under the bed."  And she has watched as the pantry filled up with dried fruit in anticipation of making the Christmas Fruit Cakes.   Well, yesterday she asked me to write a Christmas list for me.  So, in no particular order here it is.  

1.  A trip to Seattle and back on The Coast Starlight.

2. A subscription to First Things Magazine.

3. A stay in the Old Faithful Inn.

4.  A Fiskars garden trowel.

5.  Baking paper.

6.  A 20th century table lighter and ashtray set.

7.  A copy of These Truths We Hold.

8. A SW/LW/AM/FM/WB radio by C. Crane or Eton that has an antenna port so I can run an antenna up to the roof, and can use AC or DC power or DC only with an adapter.  A transmitter would be cool too but that might be too expensive.

9. A box of MREs.

10. A subscription to Ancient History Magazine.

11.  The Lamp.

12.  An icon of the New Martyrs of Libya.

13. An Icon of St. Basil the Fool-for-Christ.

14. Any book by Fr. Dimitru Staniloae

15. A meatloaf pan.

16.  Russel pull-on boots for hunting.

Last trip to Truckee/Donner/Reno for 2020 and an Eagle Scout.

Kathleen and I went to Reno last Friday night.  I promptly got altitude sickness and was no good most of Saturday.  I had never experienced that before, and I hope I never do again.  It was misery but I started feeling better late on Saturday.  In the afternoon we went shooting at Reno Guns and Range then out to dinner at Wilde River Grill.  I had meatloaf.  Kathleen had braised beef spareribs.   On Sunday morning we stopped at St Anthony Church to pray before going up to Donner Lake to get the boat.  We had to get the boat because the berth I rented back in June was only until September 20.  So, we strapped it to the roof of the car and drove it home.  Now it is in Kathleen's garage.  I'm going to have to do something about that.

When we left San Jose on Friday night it was horrible smokey and still very hot.  Reno was the same.  While we were gone something must have happened because when we got home the air quality was much improved and the temperature was much lower.  It is almost like a normal September.  I'm starting to plan for Thanksgiving.

Covid is still messing with my life.  One of my goals every year is to be in church for all the Great Feasts.  I have never achieved this goal.  I was off to a good start with Nativity of the Theotokos but due to restrictions put in place because of Covid none of the parishes in the in the San Jose area had services open to the public.  So, maybe, next year.

Exactly a week ago tonight, Anselm Samuel (AKA the Little Boy) attended his last Boy Scout Troop meeting.  Technically, he hasn't been a Boy Scout since the spring when he turned 18 but Covid messed stuff up and there were no more troop meetings from before he turned 18 until last Wednesday.  And at that meeting, he was given the emblems of the Eagle Scout rank.  He did it.   Fewer than 5% of the boys who start out as Cub Scouts attain the rank of Eagle Scout.  He started in 2008.  It's been a long 12 years.  I  am super proud of him. 

Darkess at Noon, Working in the Garden.

I didn't have work for the Census Bureau today and I'm on leave from Bass Pro Shops until Sep  17 so I took advantage of this time to work in the garden,  I took all the tomato vines out of one bed (So, yes, we are having fried green tomatoes at supper tonight.), chopped them up and threw them in the compost pile.  Then I dug up the whole bed to loosen up the soil and and mix straw into it.  About 6 inches down it was very compacted so it really needed to be broken up; and the straw should help with water retention.  Then I transplanted six basil plants from various places in the garden to the north 1/5 of the bed.   In the remaining part of the bed I transplanted onions we started in a 2'x1' pot back in March.   There were hundreds of them in the pot, all totally root bound.  I separated them transplanted the biggest 40, gave some to the Indian woman who showed me how to grow garlic a couple of years ago, and some to the HOA's landscaper to take home and put in his garden.  What was left over went in the compost pile.

There was ash from the fires on the ground this morning.  On cars and on the balcony, too.  One of the fires, a small one was about 1/4 mile from my house but San Jose Fire Department extinguished it in just a few hours.   The smoke is so thick today that I had to turn on the lights in the house and the street lights (they come on automatically when it gets dark outside.) came on about 11 a.m.  The sky is dark orange and even the hummingbirds are confused.  They are acting like it is end-of-day feeding time.  The nice thing about today is that it is cooler than it has been in a week.  

The Garden and How I Cook Eggplant.

Today we lost three red kuri squash vines and all the beet seedlings  to the heat.  I tried picking cherry tomatoes but many of them fell apart in my hand, cooked on the vine.  This heat is brutal.

Gretchen asked me to post an eggplant recipe.  Because eggplant is new to me and I do not understand its properties very well this is all I do:  Slice them thin (1/8 inch - 1/4 inch),  sprinkle with salt pepper, and garlic powder, then lay them in a pan of very hot olive oil.  I fry them about a minute on each side, or until dark brown.  Its simple but it tastes good.

Home Again.

The time is just a few minutes after midnight on Monday.  It has been such a crazy couple of days.  On Saturday I woke up in my hotel in Reno, and drove to Incline Village where I had been assigned about 70 difficult cases.  After reviewing the case histories and seeing what I was facing I didn't really expect to close more than ten at the most.  But by 4 o'clock p.m. I had closed more than 20.  So I decided to head back to Reno and not work any overtime because my two youngest sons were on their way to Reno to spend a couple of days with me.  In the hour it took me to get back to the hotel my boss's boss had been fired and we had been ordered back to California.  So, I called my sons and told then to do a U-Turn and go home.  And when I got to the hotel I packed up my stuff, checked out of the hotel, and started for home. 

When I got to Verdi I stopped to buy gasoline, check the oil, and check the air pressure in my tires.  And that is when I noticed that I didn't have my key to the house.  I had lost it.  That shouldn't have been a problem because Kathleen would be home and would be able to let me in.  But she wasn't home.  She was at Pismo Beach in San Luis Obispo County.  So I had to drive to Pismo Beach to get a key to the house.  So, after driving from Reno to Incline Village, working all day, and then driving back to Reno I had to drive another 440 miles to to Pismo Beach.   Oh, I did do something really fun on the drive from Reno to Pismo Beach.  When I got to the summit of Donner Pass I put the car in neutral and coasted down the hill.  I descended 5,000 feet over 49 miles and didn't touch the accelerator from Donner Pass to Applegate.  At Applegate the road started to flatten out and my speed dropped below 40mph so I gave it the gas and sped down I-80 west  to I-5 south to Hwy 41 west to Hwy 101south.  I passed by Shandon where my two oldest sons lived with their mother about 25 years ago.  I drove past the ranch where my oldest son died 10 years ago. And I drove through Atascadero where 30 years ago my first wife chose her drug dealer over me.  (I was inexperienced and naive and did not recognize what was happening.) 

Except for Pismo Beach, where I took my two oldest sons to spend an Independence Day with my parents and my Uncle Fred and Aunt Nettie,  SLO County is not a happy place for me.  Bitter memories of my own failures, her betrayals, and my sons' suffering.  It was 1:55 a.m. on Sunday morning when I arrived at Kathleen's hotel room.  

We woke up about 9 on Sunday morning and I took Kathleen and her kids to breakfast at The Sand Castle.  Then I drove home. On the way home, (Hwy 101 the whole way.) I stopped at my oldest son's grave in Paso Robles and prayed for him.  Someone had put a little American flag on his grave.  Standing there at his grave I suddenly started sobbing and the strength went out of me and I almost fell.  I had to leave.  The pain was too great.  A decade later it has not faded.  

When I got home the thermometer in the garden said 105 degrees.  The garden was completely wilted.  We lost two squash plants and a lot of fruit.  

I don't have to work Monday.  I'll just work in the garden and try to stay cool.

Nevada

 I’ve been living in a hotel in Reno for the last 8 days while working for the U.S. Census Bureau.  I’ve been driving all around Washoe County and have fallen in love with it.  It is beautiful.  

Kathleen came over the mountains to be with me for a few days.  We went to the shooting range a few times.  She is getting good with the six-shooter I bought her.  

Today I wennt to church at St Anthony Orthodox Church.  The priest there is the brother of the priest who use to be the deacon in Saratoga.  It was the first time I’ve seen a priest since March.  Wuhan virus, insurance companies, Governor Newsom, and cowardly bishops: Damn them all.

The Census Bureau asked me to stay in Reno for another week.  It ought to be fun and worth quite a bit of money.

Doing nothing on the taxpayer's dime.

I was supposed to be out, going door to door, counting people for the United States today, but two hours ago the computers failed and I have nothing to do but, as my boss texted me, "Stand by for further instructions."   So, I am standing by. 

While standing by I went out to the garden with Kathleen and picked some cucumbers and tomatoes.  I am amazed by the graffiti aubergines.  They are very pretty, having purple and white stripes.  The larger ones are 10-12 inches long and 4-5 inches in diameter.  This is our first time to grow them and we are not sure when to pick them.  I turned the compost and buried a dead opossum in the middle of the pile.  I did a little Christmas shopping on eBay and Amazon.  I looked at the news about the fires raging all over California. I looked at the Apple Farm website as a possible getaway for Kathleen and I in October.   I've been there a couple of times, the first time in 2010, but have never actually spent the night in one of their cottages. 

Update:   They fixed the problem.  Off to work I go!

2nd update:  I'm home from work now.  The census is so much fun.  I love getting to meet all my neighbors. East San Jose is a pretty rough place.  Some people would call it a slum.  But the criminal element gets all the attention to the detriment of the reputation of the neighborhood.  I meet lots of really nice people.  Most of them go to church at Our Lady of Guadalupe, the biggest Catholic Church in the neighborhood, or to Five Wounds, the totally gorgeous Portuguese church.    Most of the rest go to one of the various Pentecostal churches in the neighborhood, such as La Puerta Abierta or the "Oneness" East Valley Pentecostal Church, or to one of the several small baptist churches. I don't ask everyone where they go to church (its not one of the census questions) but it there is a Cross above the door or araound the neck of the person wha answers the door I always ask, "Hey, you're a Christian!  So am I! Where do you go to church?"

I wanted to mention that my son Anselm is taking Kathleen's course on economics.  It is a course she and I designed together and is, I think, pretty amazing.  He is not officially enrolled because he is officially a high school graduate, but because he never took an economics course he wanted to take one.  If were not for the wuhan virus he wouldn't be able to take her course, but because of covid she is teaching all her class online, which means my son can take the class.  His nameday was a couple of days ago so I bought him three of the textbooks for the class:  The Law by Bastiat, The Road to Serfdom by Hayek, and Economics in One Lesson by Hazlitt. 

Work for money, work for love

Yesterday I finished all the training for the Census Bureau.  Now I'm just waiting for my boss to call me and tell me when I can go out and start counting people.  I'm pretty excited about it.  It's fun to do a job mandated by the Constitution.

I'm still working part time at Bass Pro Shops.  It is only part time because of Wuhan restrictions.  The health department only lets us serve two customers per hour at the gun counter, and only two customers per hour at the ammo counter; not that we have any ammo.  For example, there is a nationwide shortage of all the most popular kinds.  We've been out of buckshot since March.

My instructor from last semester's waste water management class sent me an email and asked me to apply for a job in his department.  He is the director of public works for a small city here in the Bay Area.  I  submitted my application late last night but wont hear anything until October.  Governments have very slow hiring processes.  This brings to three the number of waste water management departments I've applied to since I finished the training.

Also yesterday, I helped Kathleen with her classes.  I wrote the first assignment for her history class (it has to do with identifying values that motivate people to make the decisions we call history) and gave her the readings and assignments for the first six weeks of her economics class.  Plato, Aristotle, Bastiat, Marx (He's been in the grave for 140 years but he is still killing people.), Smith, Hazlitt for the first six weeks.  In the second 6 weeks, I think, she is going to do Hayek, Friedman, and Keynes.

Today I began growing bacteria for the garden.  Yes, we are composting but I think the nutrients we have been putting into the soil are not getting into the plants because the bacteria are getting killed by the heat.  (Hot soil is a hazzard of growing in raised beds.) So now I am growing bacteria and in a few days I will pour it all over the garden.  Then I'll cover the ground with a good mat of straw to keep the soil from getting too hot.

Demons

 

I don't think I have ever mentioned this event on this blog but I was listening to an interview Kevin Allen (Memory Eternal!) did of a priest who specializes in exorcism and I remembered this this strange event.  In 1997 I was at Crown Books on El Camino Real   in Sunnyvale California.  (Me encanta ser Californio!)   I used to be a voracious reader and would pick up any book to see what it was about.  (I am more discriminating now.)  I was at a Crown Books store one night and the tile of a book caught my eye:  A Course In Miracles.  Well, I was a Christian. and I believed in miracles. So I picked it up off the shelf and opened it.  Then a strange thing happened.  The letters on the page rearranged themselves into a bull's head.  And the bull spoke to me.   "We are not for you" is what it said.  I knew it was a demon.  I closed the book and set it back on the shelf.  I was afraid and began to weep.  I almost vomited right there in the bookstore.  Now, many years later,  I understand that the demon must have been afraid of me or, more likely, the Holy Spirit in me.   Now, if such a thing were to happen I would just ask the archangel Michael for help and throw some holy water.

Guns and Ammo

 It was a good night at work.  One of my coworkers and I talked an Air Force officer out of buying a Remington 700 PCR chambered for .308 Winchester and into a Ruger Precision Rifle chambered for .338 Lapua.  Then we convinced him to buy a Vortex Viper HSLR scope.   The company really ought to pay us commission.  But maybe not, for last week I talked a fearful  apartment-dwelling man out of buying a very expensive and very powerful hand gun (He would have shot through the walls and killed his neighbors!) and into buying a can of pepper spray instead.  It all depends on what I think is best for the customer.

Making Do

Today is the Forefeast of the  Transfiguration.  In normal years Orthodox Christians take grapes to church to be blessed but we can't go to church this year.  I don't know how to bless grapes but I picked some off of one of our vines,  put them by the icons, and sang the Troparion and Kontokion of the feast when I did Sixth Hour.  The grapes are pinot noir and are not ripe yet because of shade from nearby trees and clouds in the sky.  I'll leave them there until tomorrow, the actual feast day.  Then, I guess, I'll feed them to the goldfinches.

In other news I shot another squirrel in the garden this morning and harvested enough cucumbers to make two more jars of pickles.

I started with the census bureau yesterday.  It's just a couple of hours of training each day until next week.  I'm happy for an opportunity to earn money.

Saint Basil's Day (The other Basil)

Today is the feast of St. Basil of Moscow, the patron or my youngest son.  So, while praying the ninth hour today we got to sing the Troparion for St. Basil of Moscow.

Most of the beets, kale, and pumpkins - all the pumpkins, actually- we transplanted two weeks ago were destroyed by squirrels.  But we are still getting 5 or six big tomatoes, a dozen little cherry tomatoes, and three or four zucchini every day. (The squirrels, even though I shoot them, get more of the zucchini than we do.)  I've put up six quarts of pickles.  I really wanted more pickles but there have been very few bees in the garden this summer, so thought there have been many flowers there have not been many cucumbers.  I don't know what to think of that.  The carrots did not do well.  But the bell peppers are doing amazing.  The pumpkins we planted back in February were harvested and all but one given away.  I started more cantaloupe and pumpkin 2 weeks ago on the back balcony.  Tomorrow I'll transplant then into the garden. The turnips and radishes did really well but I'm really the only person in the house who likes them, so I won't plant any more, I think.

A word about the tomatoes:  The Cherokee purples did not do well.  We only got three or four off each vine.  The real star among the tomatoes this year is the Lemon Boy vine.  It is prolific and is the best tasting tomato I have ever had.  We might plant three or four of them next spring.

I ordered some short growing season watermelon seeds from Baker Creek.  They should be here in a couple of days.  I'll sew them directly into the ground and hope to harvest them in early October.

Kathleen and I have been doing a lot of fun stuff this summer.  We go shooting at Coyote Sporting Clays pretty often.  And, of course there are all the trips to Tahoe/Truckee/Reno.  (Basil and I went last Sunday and Monday.  He had a great time on the boat.)

Something kind of neat happened at dinner tonight.  Kathleen and I were talking about the reading list (Bastiat, Smith, Friedman etc.) for the economics class she teaches when Anselm, who graduated from high school two years early so did not take the economics course high school seniors take, asked Kathleen if he can take her class.  And since she, like all teachers in the county, is teaching online he can take it.  

A trip to Reno, an Eagle Scout, and a Fountain in the Garden.

Kathleen and I just got back from spending two nights in Reno. 

We drove there on I-80.  I've spent so much time on that road this summer I am starting to memorize all the business along the way.  We stopped in Auburn to eat at Ikeda's. All we bought there was water and coffee because I can't eat their food. (It is difficult.  I used to enjoy shopping for groceries but now I just feel resentment when I go shopping.) But we used their outdoor tables and ate some cold roast pork and cheese.  I also bought some  of their peach jam for Basil Wenceslas, who was minding the garden and the dog while we were gone.

We arrived Monday afternoon and went to our new favorite shooting range, where we practiced with the Swedish Mauser (the most accurate rifle I've ever fired) and the Star Model S.  We fired about 200 rounds and got some really good groups.  Kathleen has decided that because she likes revolvers more than semi-autos and because of the price difference between .380 ACP ammo and .22 LR ammo she wants to get a Heritage Rough Rider.

For dinner we ate at Mel's.  I went off my diet and had a Reuben sandwich.  Other than Max's in San Francisco, it is the best I've had.  Yes, I felt the pang of no martini with my reuben.  But something really wonderful happened during dinner:  Anselm Samuel called me to say he had passed his board of review and was officially an Eagle Scout, something we have been working toward since the autumn of 2008.  Yes, I cried at the table.

We had a room at the Sands Regency.  And it was a great price; much lower than the rate I paid at the Inn at Truckee were we stayed last week.  It was a nice room with a great view of the Sierras to the west.

We woke up early Tuesday morning and drove to Donner lake to go fishing.  We trolled the lake for three hours but caught nothing.  After stowing the boat we stopped at Cabela's in Verdi where we bought matching shooting vests.  I was going to buy ammo for the guns so we could go shooting again but since the wuhan there has been a shortage of ammo in America,  and Cabela's was out of almost everything but bird shot and .22.  They had no .380 or 6.5mm Swedish.  So, we drove to Mark Fore and Strike.  They had the Swedish but, wow, crazy high price.  I'm used to paying between $25 and $27 for a box of 20 bullets but this was $34 for a box of 20.  I really need to start reloading my bullet casings.  It doesn't look that hard.

The afternoon was about doing nothing.  Kathleen went to the pool to lounge.  I stayed in the air-conditioned room and read.  For dinner Kathleen picked the Wild River Grille.  I had the meat loaf.  Kathleen had the rainbow trout.  It was good food.  That night I played blackjack in the Casino.  I stayed within budget and it took me almost 3 hours to lose $50.   I think that is, probably, enough gambling to last the rest of my life.  Kathleen played a slot machine and won $16 on one spin.

On the way home we listened to a book by Sir Roger Scruton: How to be a Conservative.  It was very enjoyable.  One thing he said very much rang true.  He was discussing Edmund Burke and conservatism being based in  love for family, truth, beauty, and goodness, when he said something along the lines of this:  Those who disrespect their ancestors also hate their descendants.  And I thought, wow, that really sums up the American leftists.

When we got home this afternoon we found the stem on the garden faucet broken.  I turned off the water at the main and began fixing it.  Then I broke the pipe and, to the joy of the neighborhood kids, sent a fountain of water 30 feet into the air.   It seems I had turned off the wrong valve.   Thankfully, one of my neighbors is a landscaper and helped me find the right valve, told be what parts to buy at the hardware store, and then fixed the pipe.  We paid him with tomatoes from the garden.

It is good to be home.

 

Boating and shooting but barely working

Kathleen spent the whole month of June and the first week of July in a rented house at Donner Lake.  I wasn't working because of the Wuhan so I spent the first week of June up there too.  Basil (son #4) and Kathleen's kids went, too.  As hard as we tried, whether fishing from the boat or the shore, we caught no fish.  We could see them in the water but they did not bite any of the bait or lures we tried.
Anselm (son #3) stayed at Kathleen's house while I was gone and took care of the garden.
Interestingly, Athanasia, Basil's mother went up to Donner Lake and spent several nights with Basil, Kathleen, and her kids.  They all had fun swimming and Athanasia did crafts with the kids.  Basil chased off a bear and her cubs that were raiding the trash can.

Anselm and I drove up there for two days in the last week of June.  We didn't catch any fish but we visited my favorite antique store in Reno, where he bought a really nice 100 year old pipe wrench.  Kathleen came home on July 6.

Why did I come back to San Jose after only being there for the first week of June?  Because I was expecting to start work for the Census Bureau.  But it was delayed again.  The start date has been repeatedly delayed because of the Wuhan.  They just told me today that my new start date is August 1.  Thankfully, I did go back to work at Bass Pro Shops in mid June but because of restrictions on how many customers we can serve I am only getting 15 hours per week.  At least, I am getting unemployment insurance.

So, what have I been doing during this time of plague?  Reading and gardening, mainly.

Books I've read since Santa Clara County shut down for this disease:

Gospel of Matthew
The Psalms
Nehemiah
Revelation
Joshua
Farewell to Arms by Hemingway
The Night Manager by LeCarre
The #1 Ladies Detective Agency by McCall-Smith  (I first rad this book 15 years ago.  It is still wonderful.)
The Constant Gardener by LeCarre
The Way of Kings by Sanderson  (A present from my son Basil.)
Operation of Wastewater Treatment Plants (Vol. I) by Kerri and Dendy
The Decadent Society: How we Became Victims of Our Own Success by Douthat

Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Changed the World by Holland
The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam by Murray

Tears of the Giraffe by McCall-Smith 
Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization by Kriwaczek
The Secret Pilgrim by LeCarre
Euthyphro by Plato  (Every Christian in America, or any pluralistic society should read this book.  It is the best argument ever made against the idea that everyones ideas about morality are equal.)
The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway

Last week, since some of the restrictions have been lifted Kathleen and I went to Coyote Valley Sporting Clays were were both had our first experience shooting clay pigeons.  It was much fun.  We are planning on going duck hunting in Don Edwards in September, then turkey and pig hunting at Cache Creek in October.  Today I gave Kathleen a Mossberg Silver Reserve II so she won't have to use my shotgun but will have one of her very own.

Today  is Wednesday.  Kathleen and I just got back from another two days at Donner Lake.  This time we stayed at The Inn at Truckee.  The main purpose of the trip was to install and test the new outriggers on the canoe.  WOW!  They are amazing.   Even in 30mph winds the boat was steady.  Kathleen was even able to stand to cast.  We still didn't catch any fish.

The garden is producing a lot.  Squirrels are eating a lot before I pick it.  So far we killed two rabbits and six squirrels to protect the garden.

Flowers and a Trip to Donner Lake

I took the fish off the hook for Kathleen.

  Tuesday, two days ago now, early in the morning and with the boat strapped to the roof of the Subaru, Kathleen and I set off on a trip to Donner Lake.  We took the dog with us, and though he was mostly calm in the boat I think he prefers the land.  Kathleen caught a trout.

A really nice thing happened: We found a berth on the lake and it only cost $250 from now through mid-September.  Very happy about that.  Kathleen and her kids are spending a month there this summer and I was worried about her lifting the boat on to the roof of the car every day to go from her rental house to the lake but now that is not a problem.  I'm very happy about that. So, we left the boat on the lake and drove home at the end of the day.  Little did we know that CalTrans was repaving I-80 from Truckee to Auburn.  So we had to take a 30 mile detour through Tahoe National Forest at 25mph.  As we approached the Bay Area I thought we could take a short cut through the Caldecott Tunnel (my first time since the 4th bore oppened in 2013) but soon discovered that I-880 through Oakland was reduced from 7 southbound lanes to 1 southbound lane, and I-280 and U.S. 101 were both backed up due to road work. We did not get home until one o'clock on Wednesday morning.  But, still, it was a fun day.

Flowers on the Sweet Millions vine

Today we didn't do much.  Worked in the garden, watched some lectures from Hillsdale College, prayed the troparion and kontokian for Ascension and that's about all.  It was too hot to cook so we just had sliced vegetables (including tomatoes, radishes, and cucumbers from our garden) and cheese (Point Reyes Blue and Laura Chenel fresh goat cheese) for supper.

I talk about the tomatoes and other food crops in the garden but I think I like the flowers as much as the vegetables.  Here are pictures of some of the flowers in our garden.