July 2018

Pa weather map didn't look like any good weather was coming just more rain.
103 here today....it truly doesn't stay over 199 like this for this long...but we have days 109 to 115 here....so I guess I'll settle for 103 and keep on truck in.
Took forever for


appt today....4 hours. Now more appts on the horizon...we might get out if here before the snow flies....

TRUDY:
Wow, I saw video of the flooding in PA. I hope your neighborhood isn't getting all that. It sounds like you have enough to deal with. We haven't been getting all that rain, but those not far from us have. It's been going around us for the most part. We finally did get rain yesterday and today, but probably not more than half an inch so far. We really need it. More rain is predicted. Stay dry!!


Good news: my mouth isn't hurting, although I am still being careful when I eat. A Wheat Thins cracker is what brought all that on. My dental appointment is on Monday and I will have them fix the crown. Then I will be getting a new dentist.

Other good news: Areion is definitely feeling better. No Bute for her today, although she is still in SoftRide boots. She is walking much easier. We'll leave her in the boots for a few more days and then see how her feet feel.

GRAYMARE:
How does one deal with that kind of heat? I can't imagine getting anything done outside an air-conditioned house. Stay cool!

ELLEN:
I made the ice cream bread this evening. I used vanilla ice cream. It was mildly sweet, but pretty tasty! I could see adding a touch of sugar and cinnamon and calling it a dessert. Donnie liked it. Next time I will make a double batch, though. It was just one serving each. Thanks for the recipe! It was very easy.


Today is Cactus Jack's 21st birthday. He got extra treats. I saw him and Trinket scratching each other's backs the other day, I never saw that before. I have been worried about Cactus since Zippy died since they were lifelong friends. Trinket apparently is taking over the job. She mostly ignored him when Zippy was around, even though Cactus would protect her from dogs and seemed to like her.

Ark, I'm glad the bread worked. I'll have to give it a try soon.

Still raining with more to come today.  Flash floods everywhere.  It took my friend 2 hours to get home from Danville yesterday.  A normal 8 mile drive.  I just saw flashing lights go past the house.  A fire fighter told my son who lives by Knobels a elderly couple called for help.  They kept hearing knocking on their kitchen floor and were afraid to go into the basement.  Here their freezers were floating and hitting the floor from below.  We have creeks on both ends of our road so we are staying put on the farm.  We had 7 inches by yesterday morning and it rained all day and night.  It's crazy weather.

CB:  Good luck with the VA.  Fight hard.  Never give up on the PTSD.  IN PA the wives have to write a letter showing the PTSD things the guys do without them even knowing the things they are doing are not normal reactions.  Our friend has a trigger on copters & planes (you know where Geisinger is and the copters fly over head all the time).  He runs out side the minute he hears planes or copters, no matter what he is doing.  He was a doctor in Nam.  The symptoms get worse as the Veterans get older.  He was awarded PTSD benefits.  Road rage..being on time..anger over petty thing, paranoia, insomnia.  There are so many symptoms.

ARK:  Glad your tooth isn't hurting as bad.  Mouth pain is so hard to deal with.

ELLEN:  The bread recipes sound pretty good.  I'm going to give that a try.  My bread machine quit working years ago.

GRAYMARE:  WOW the temps in AZ are unbelievable.  115 holy moly that is HOT.

I made a blackberry pie yesterday.  YUMMMMMYYYYYY Nothing better than homemade fresh berry pie.  Hoping the rain hasn't ruined the berry bushes so I can pick more berries for winter once the rain stops.

Yes I heard places back home was getting up to 13 inches...we could use some rain. It's weird funny how the weather hits and where. Stay home and safe.

PTSD is getting worse...its one if the reasons we are still here in Idaho and not traveling. I'm glad power is included here at fam camp...cuz as hot as it's been I wouldn't be able to afford the bill. Crazy hot temps...animals are having hard time in pastures....no shade out here...shelters not required. My puppy dogs are lucky and cool.

Not doing much today....hubby and I cleaned the dog park as it had doodoo all thru the baseball diamond field that has been turned into a dog park....so we cleaned it up. It gives the puppy dogs a safe place to run. One of the biggest complaint if RV ing us people don't pick up after digs and number 2 is people or kids cutting thru campsites

I'm home in the heat and irrigation is done. Passed my physical and seem
as good as new. not sure when we're headed back up............when we regroup.
It will get really hot in the afternoon.

TRUDY, have your "fixit" guys shown up yet?

ARK, I'm still worried about your tooth.

CB, where are you?

ELLEN, anything new with you?

ROSE & BEECH must have deserted............

Everyone have a good day.

OMG, TRUDY. Hope you don't flood out...........hope your neighbors got
help, for sure.

Mud slides...floided streams..rv parks evacuated...amusement parks under water...you stay home, Trudy....and be safe. Friends have been sending pictures...not looking good.
GM we are still in idaho..camped at RV park on base.
Been hot...b
Hotter than normal longer than normal.
Crazy weather everywhere

Nope. Nuthin' new here. The last time I rode the jet ski, I got stuck behind a slow moving boat coming through the channel. I couldn't move fast enough to slide over the weeds and a bunch of them got sucked up into the intake. My big adventure today was going swimming and then reaching under it to pull the weeds and moss out of the intake. woohoo. big excitement. not.

Trudy, how are the repairs going? Are the flood waters going down?

Still waiting for the contractors to show up.  The insurance adjuster called and changed the claim amount and will change it again once the roof guys and contractors get their estimate turned in.  Gotta change the insulation in the attic too.  What a giant mess.  The roof isn't leaking, whatever Rick painted on it stopped the leak for now.

More rain coming today and again next week.  Everyone is getting used to doing the clean up.  Knobels is going to reopen today and so is Hershey Park.  Our water has finally cleaned up, thank goodness we put in that expensive water filter system last year.  It really stops a lot of dirt, we have been changing and cleaning the filters every morning.

Compared to others, we are not too bad off with our water issues.  We had sun yesterday for awhile. Picked Berries and dug up carrots and got them in the freezer. I'm going to venture out to the store today to get ready for the next week of rain.

WOW, TRUDY. So glad you're doing OK in the rains. It's raining daily in the
mtns but it's so dry it's a Godsend. Our weather patterns have changed so
drastically in recent years. We still have only had one rain in the valley.
We have two fires now, not near me, but around 50 mi away. Depending
on which way it goes, people will have to evacuate and it's in ranching areas.
It's fires in the west, and rains in the east.

High today is going to be 107 so it's hot. Humidity 18%. So, horses
are back in now, complete shade and fans. ARK, you just make it work.
And, overall, it's a good life here, even if we couldn't go to the mtns.

Everybody have a good afternoon.

Here's a little treat that is easy to make. Strawberries dipped in chocolate ganache. Ganache = 1 cup heated heavy cream, 1 tsp. vanilla, 1 cup chocolate chips (half semi-sweet half bitter sweet). Pour the very hot cream over the chips, let them melt and stir together. When it cools, dip the strawberries into the chocolate. If your self-discipline holds up, don't eat them all on the spot. Put them on a piece of parchment paper or waxed paper.

LOL, I'll take two plates full....................YUM

If I'd wanted to get really fancy, I would have melted some white chocolate to drizzle over the chocolate strawberries. I don't have any white chocolate, so I left out that part of it.

I did get out to the store yesterday.  Roads weren't too bad, saw a couple backhoes digging alongside the roads.  Picked more berries yesterday until the bugs and barn swallows got too bad.  It stormed again last night.  AUUGGHHHHH

I had a wonderful experience.  Got to pet a little Paint pony at the Amish veggie stand.  AWWWWWW That's the first time I have petted a horse in ages.  Didn't want to wash my hand all day.  LOL  It's a sickness.  LOL  He looked like a miniature Maxxie.

The guy showed up to talk about putting the chair lift in yesterday.  Next week he will get started on that project along with all the roof/ceiling nightmare.  Might as well make a giant mess all at once.

ELLEN:  YUMMMYYYY those strawberries wound wonderful.  

CB:  See if you can open this site.  It's a good one about PTSD. If it doesn't work email me and I'll send you the site. US Department of Veteran Affairs.
How to Talk to Your Doctor about Trauma and PTSD - PTSD: National Center for PTSD

If any of you are interested in seeing a small part of the fireworks we had here on the lake, as seen from a drone, click on this link:
https://youtu.be/srgBQJFrUno
Much of the actual fireworks footage was shot from just about over my house.  It's about 7 1/2 minutes long, so you probably won't want to watch all of it.  The sound of the fireworks has been replaced with music.

Cool video ELLEN.

No rain here in the valley, but it continues in the mtns.

Everybody have a great day.

ELLEN:
That strawberry recipe sounds wonderful! When I was so sick 6 years ago, my sister in KY sent me a box of chocolate covered strawberries. They looked wonderful, but I was actually so sick, I couldn't eat them. Donnie and Annie enjoyed them, though.

GRAYMARE:
I really hope they get those fires put out soon. All of them.

TRUDY:
I am glad you are getting thru the weather okay. What a mess for some people. They called for rain here all weekend and I don't think we got a drop. All the farmers around here are getting only half their usual hay crop, including us. Those berries sound good....

CB:
Stay cool! Ours temps are good, about 80 today, but we are just dry in the midst of flooding everywhere else.
They say we will get rain all week....I guess we shall see.

My jaw is killing me again. Advil doesn't seem to be working as well. I had mushroom soup for dinner, I just can't seem to chew much without suffering for it. I go to the dentist tomorrow. I hope they perform dental miracles.

A local girl went to the Tevis Cup endurance ride this weekend and competed on a horse she just met. She started out good, but she and the horse fell off the side of the trail when the horse spooked about 27 miles into the 100 mile ride. She dived off on the upper side as the horse slid down the steep shale slope. Somehow the horse stopped herself and was scrambling back up the shale and nearly stepped on the girl, who grabbed the horse's breast collar and let the horse help her back up the hill to the path. Neither were injured much, but the girl dropped out of the race a few miles later because she was worried about the mare. Whew, that had to be scary. The girl just laughed it off. She is 23 and immortal.

Ark I know riders who have done the tevis and it's tough...glad they are alright. I thought horse and ruder team had to have so many points to be invited.

Darn smoke gas gotten me down...im throwing up my sinuses are so bad. Nothing much can be done. Stay inside take my allergy meds. Fire on nv Idaho border has burned over 400,000acres as of yesterday. Ten fires burning in just Idaho. Still over 100 for highs even when they say 96 or 97 it crawls on up there to 101 to 104 lately. Some days 106 108....whew. Only time the digs want out is to go to closest spot do their business turn and go back to camper. If it cools off to 90 by 930 we take them to the dog park to stretch their legs...if not a shirt walk makes them happy.
Ellen you made me hungry for some fresh sweet strawberries....minus the chocolate....hard to find good fruit.
Trudy I heard knoebels was open again...yeah! Water must be receding.

CB:
They have to have so many miles each, but the horse and rider don't have to have them together. I think it is 300 miles of 50 miles or more rides. There are folks who ride it that are from other countries that couldn't bring their own horses. This girl met up with someone who had a spare horse that they thought could do it. Some folks will rent endurance horses who are already in shape. The winning horse this year is from Florida, an Arabian owned and ridden by a woman. The best conditioned horse trophy went to a mustang.

I saw a picture if the mustang that win the tevis and I thought the horse was beautiful but it didn't look like any mustang I've ever seen.
Happy for the team tho. They did well.
Another smoky sky day here...ugh...
At least I'm not evacuating like so many have to...so sad about the great grandmother and two grandchildren who perished in the fire....i hope they can get a handle on that Redding fire. Need rain lots if it.

Justify's retirement parade at Delmar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3_7a8fuEek

You can research the details. He has a swelling in the L front and isn't fit
to run & train for Breeders Cup.

I did watch the Justify parade. He is such a gorgeous horse. I'm sorry he won't be running in the Breeders Cup, but I can certainly understand not taking any risks with his future.

OK. Here's the story for me:

Yesterday I had a friend from California call me. She was very excited as
she saw Justify being retired on Saturday. Then yesterday she was driving
home on the freeway and saw his hauling truck ( Hubbard) going down
the freeway headed back to Bob Baffert's training stable (Alamida). Then
on Tuesday he is being flown to KY to Win Star Farm. There's one glitch that
I'm unsure about as he might be being sold. They are in negotiation I guess
so that could change. High dollars roll I guess. They haven't consulted with me.

By the way, Baffert is way saddened over the whole thing. He said he felt
like crying but couldn't.................

I'm saddened, too. I didn't even know he was retiring.............

CB, I agree. That phone call to the grandpa for help was a horror........
Then the roads were blocked and he couldn't get there. I couldn't get it out
of my mind..............prayers for all in those fires.

GRAYMARE:  I saw that poor guy on TV.  How terrible.  Those fires have gotten so outta control.  

Today is Ace's 9th birthday.  He is old enough to start collecting his social security.  LOL  For his big day, he got a Happy Birthday cookie and a new toy.  He was a happy dog dashing all around with the cookie and then the new toy.  Can hardly believe 9 years has gone by.  Time is flying.  He is showing his age, getting gray.

More rain this week but nothing like the torrential down pours of last week.  Thank God.

Dug up more beets yesterday, I'm giving this batch away. I'm beeted out.

Ordered a lift chair for George yesterday.  I have finally convinced him that he needs one, he has been struggling to get up off the recliner, also ordered a chair stair lift for the steps.  He said he doesn't need it but that day is coming.