Dishin' It

The "Demon Hauler" - that is,my 1934 Ford 1-1/2 ton truck - has carried a variety of stuff over the years. Not the least of which are dish antennas, better known as satellite dishes for their reception of TV/video signals sent down from geostationary satellites. My brother's business, KLM Electronics pioneered the first consumer-oriented satellite reception systems, largely because of an on-going interest my brother and his partners had in satellite communications both for commercial and ham radio purposes. The photo below shows half a of a bolt-together dish about 16 feet in diameter. KLM did not manufacture this dish which was probably purchased by KLM for ham radio and experimentation purposes. The scene is the parking lot of the KLM plant in Morgan Hill, California. My brother, Mick (or Mike to ham radio operators) is standing on the hub of the dish talking to Leland _____ (the  "L" of the KLM partners). I don't remember if the dish is coming or going (its possible it came from the Stanford Research Institute where Mick worked at one time in their radio astronomy facility), but my truck is carrying it. The photo was taken by me and is likely from the mid-1970s.

Flash forward to 2015. Some forty years have passed. I am retired and living in the mountains above Mariposa with wife Melina. A few days ago, on a Facebook "buy, sell, free" site called "SWAP Mariposa," I noticed a satellite dish for sale ($50).

Now for some time I've been scheming on how to protect our 2500 gallon water storage tank from the summer sun (I hate warm tap water), and months ago a satellite dish came to mind as a kind of giant umbrella to suspend over it. And since that time I had been planning to (someday) put a wanted ad on SWAP Mariposa for an old satellite dish. Years ago, many folks up here had them installed because no cable TV was available and only a few areas were able to receive the two or three channels of terrestrial TV from Fresno (using conventional TV antennas). The big dishes intercepted the private commercial satellite feeds used by networks and cable TV operators. That window of opportunity closed after a few years when they started encrypting their satellite feed signals. That left the homeowner with a lot of channels showing of nothing but scrambled pictures. Now up here, folks are more prone to put stuff up than take it down, so driving around these days you can still see the big dishes dotting the landscape.

Anyway, in a short time, the SWAP Mariposa dish was marked down to $20 and I bit. This morning we took a drive in the very same Demon Hauling truck and rambled down Darrah Road to pick it. It turned out that this particular dish was made for commercial communication purposes, and very well built - a single piece of mesh aluminum pressed to the dish shape. The owner had bought it at a sale in Fresno and had planned to use it as a gazebo cover. But the project petered out somewhere along the line and he decided to sell it. Well, we got it home and Melina took the photo below. I am trying to mimic my brother's pose in the old black and white photo, and I am actually holding that same photograph in  my hand. The dish, of course is significantly smaller. A bit of irony: here it is forty years later and (unlike me) the truck is in better shape than it was in the 1970s...

Tanks for the Memories...

My1934 Ford 1-ton  truck has carried a wide variety of goods during my tenure as its owner (1971-present), when its doors bore the "Demon Hauling" business name and a variety of painted-over phone number testifying to my frequent changes of residence). Before I acquired the truck in 1971 I think it spent most of its life hauling boxed prunes and apricots around one of the many orchards around Almaden California (in the then lush Santa Clara Valley). All the stuff I hauled and all the places I went in this truck is another tale altogether. In this post, I'm focusing on a specific type of cargo: water storage tanks.
From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, I lived in Mariposa, California with Edna and our kids (Aischa, Gabriel, Nicolas). As part of my "Carpentry Etc." business I did occasional work for Sylvia Schaefer (not sure of the spelling of her last name) who owned a local and free "penny-saver" paper (with her husband Jim) that competed for a while with the historic Mariposa Gazette. The Schaefers lived on a hilltop near town and their land had water problems; that is, they had drilled several wells over time to find a reliable water source and none of them produced much water. This lack was complicated by the fact that Sylvia liked to garden. So I created for them a complicated  plumbing and electrical system that linked all the wells and turned each one on when there was water available. The system worked well enough that the Schaefers decided they wanted a larger storage tank to capture the output. They found a used one that was for sale in Catheys Valley by Rita and Tony Kidd. My job was to haul it and install it. Thus, the photo below, taken by Sylvia as I struggled to get the heavy steel tank off my truck and avoid any loss of control could have sent that tank charging downhill uncontrollably - to the detriment of the tank and my reputation. So, I used a lot of ropes and proceeded with extreme caution. And, eventually the tank was landed safely on its bed of gravel and railroad ties.

Fast forward to 2015 (!) and the place Melina and I live on Triangle Road in Mariposa. Last year we installed a 2500 gallon tank as a water/fire-fighting reserve. This tank draws from our main well and, through a booster pump, feeds the house and Melina's gardens. Because of the drought we have experienced here for the last couple of years, we both have thought a lot about ways to save rain water, reuse gray water, and possibly pump water from an old, shallow well on the property. We haven't gotten very far on the plans and details, but when I saw a 1500 gallon tank for sale over in Ponderosa Basin (on the fb SWAP Mariposa page) we knew we had to get it.  As you might guess in this dry region, tanks are in big demand these days and used ones don't come up for sale very often. So I immediately agreed to the selling price and committed to pick it up ASAP. Saturday morning (3/21/15) found us rambling down Triangle Road in the very same Demon Hauling truck. At the place, a young man came out of the house to watch us load it. He volunteered that we might want to turn it on its side and roll it onto the truck bed. But, I wanted to load it right side up (and have it sitting flat on its bottom for more stable travel) and so we pushed and winched it up three 4x4 skids on the back of the bed, only to find, with the tank half on and half off, that the tank's diameter was a few inches larger that the distance between the stake sides of the truck. Just a bit embarrassed, I volunteered that he was right. And so,we let it slide back down, tipped it on its side, and rolled it up and onto the bed. We then spent about a half and hour strapping it down. The photo below shows it at our place, near the house and gardens. FYI, unloading a plastic tank is a lot easier than unloading a big steel tank; Melina and I handled it easily. Just where it will eventually be installed and how we will use it and supply it remain to be discovered. The adventure has just begun!

Our 2014 Christmas Tree and Some of Its Special Ornaments

I just wanted to highlight some of the special ornaments on our tree this year. The camera and donkey are fairly modern; the rest have been in my family since I was a kid and even then they were old: passed to us by grandparents and great grand parents - so many are probably around 100 years old (some may have come from Germany).

 No lights this time around - just ornaments. The tree is a Colorado Spruce that will be planted somewhere on the acreage in a few days.

Santas just don't look this serious anymore.

Hand blown glass...needs some tail feathers I think.

This is hand-blown glass and feather-light. Ooh, there's a modern robot at lower right.

The face is a lithograph

I restrung the web this year, which I also restrung at least 55 years ago. The spider itself has survived just fine.

  

I found this and another donkey at a yard sale somewhere. It is probably made in Mexico of very fragile, low-fire clay. I've had to epoxy several broken legs. Melina loves donkeys, so although this isn't officially an "ornament" it had to go on the tree.

I made a series of these cameras about 15 years ago and distributed them to several friends at work. I know of at least two that have wound up on Christmas trees this year. 

Not sure why Santa has no legs - maybe they wore out?

 Amanita mushroom anyone??? I Googled "amanita" and discovered they are now sold legally for their hallucinogenic properties. I was always told they were highly poisonous. This one ain't for eating - it's hand-blown glass.

I bet the dull orange spots were once meant to be bright, shiny red balls (but I won't be messing with them).

Epiphany

From another room
I hear you playing with Zane on the bed and
laughing, and
I suddenly know I am
happy.

Angel Flight West

In the early years of the 21st century, my wife Edna was eventually obliged to seek an experimental treatment for cancer at a clinic in Bakersfield. That's a long haul from Fairfield, California. The appointments were weekly, and the first couple times we drove down and back on Interstate 5 (the quickest route, although definitely the least interesting). It took several hours each way, which also necessitated staying overnight at a motel. Between the treatments and the drive, these were very tiring and stressful trips for her and for me.

Then, Edna heard about Angel Flight West (http://www.angelflightwest.org), an organization that matches up pilots willing to donate their time, gas, and aircraft with patients who need to travel long distances for medical treatments. Edna took the lead in contacting them and setting up dates and times with local pilots for travel. Soon we were flying to Bakersfield in the morning and flying back in the late afternoon or early evening. Usually we flew out of the Nut Tree airport in Vacaville (once in a while from others in the area) and landed at the Mercury Air Center in Bakersfield (Thank You! folks) How good it was, at the end of a long day, to see the lights of Vacaville and the Nut Tree airport again. It was so much easier on Edna and we could return to our own bed the same day. We flew to Bakersfield many times between July of '03 and February of '04, and each and every pilot treated us in a very caring way. We were very thankful and I think we made our gratitude obvious at the time.

Just a few days ago, I was going through a box of old photos and documents and discovered this photo. It was taken when her sister Millie (left) accompanied her (it was usually me), and shows them just before to take off (with pilot Rick Markwell). About the same time, fortuitously, I came across her flight appointment notes. It inspired me to again express my gratitude to the organization and each pilot that so generously donated his or her time and money to carrying us to appointments.

Below are the names of every pilot Edna listed in her notes. I can't be sure if everyone who flew for us is listed here or if names are correctly spelled. For any errors or omissions, I apologize. To all the folks that flew for us: THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

Kelsey Hood
Jerry McClelland
Matthias Frank
Barry Scott
Fred Weibel
Don Radcliff
Joe Fitzpatrick
Grant Smith
Mitchell Dion
John Capuano
William Spangler
Robert Mills
Greg ?
Stewart Rosenberg
Brad Ruben
Elwin Smith
Grover Ash
Bob Romero
Paul Kutler
Paul Hart
Darryl Schumart
Gigi Debery
Mike Cottle
Grant Smith
Stan Slaton
Kevin Mnich
Bill Shear
Tom McGrath
Fred Channon
Earl King
Tracy Hawn
Bill Canaran
Doug Kaye
Doug Campbell
Rick Markwell (thanks for the photo)

PLEASE NOTE: Angel Flight West does good work for people who need to travel long distances for medical treatments. If you can, please donate to them at: https://afids.angelflightwest.org/donation/donationEntry. Thank you!

They say it's your birthday...

I awoke this morning with these very special blessings from Melina: a beautiful card, pottery stamp ("chop") for the pots we will soon be making, and a lovely poem celebrating my birthday - all from her amazing hands and heart. Thank you Love!

Down in the Holler...

If you have six acres ("+") of land, you might as well be able to walk it and enjoy it, right? But there are a few areas here that, over years of neglect, have been seized by poison oak, dead trees, and dead brush. The gully ("holler") to our North West is like that. Over the early summer, while the poison oak was still leafy and green, I attacked it with periodic spraying (don't ask!). Here is some info on poison oak family - it is aptly named:
Toxicodendron is a genus of flowering plants in the sumac family, Anacardiaceae. It contains woody trees, shrubs and vines, including poison ivy, poison oak, and the lacquer tree. All members of the genus produce the skin-irritating oil urushiol, which can cause a severe allergic reaction.

Western poison oak is called T. diversilobum), which seems apt, too, because it does appear in diverse forms, as bushes, as vines (with yards-long runners just beneath the forest duff), as small trees (weaving their way up through other trees), with a concomitant alteration in the size and shape of its leaves. Brrrrr. Hate the stuff and I have a couple spots on my arms from accidental contact a few days ago. It can sometimes be hard to spot amongst all the other dormant plants this time of year; it has dropped it leaves, showing only brown, undistinguished whips to the less than diligent, or distracted, observer

PART 1:
So now, some of the poison oak has been killed and some has died off (as it does in late summer/early fall.And this seems like as good (and safe) a time as ever to go in and clear it out, and the tree dead wood, too. This is a shot of what the area looked like a few days ago before I started, looking back towards the house from the gully. 

This is the gully, looking South towards Triangle Road. Nice rocks and trees, but a lot of deadwood and poison oak shoots.

 There are some big rock slabs to be seen, mossy rocks, ancient tree stumps, and boulder clumps (see pix below), but they are shrouded in deadwood and poison oak. This is what I want to open up, to hike, to sit in, and enjoy. Most of it is shady, with patches of sunlight here and there -  and it will be even more beautiful in the spring with fresh grasses and flowers.The best would be seeing some water running - a seasonal stream. Up the gully a bit, there is a an old stool next to the gully and some wooden planks across it, so at some time in recent history, water did flow here. I'm hoping for a rainy winter.

Streambed and some big boulders on the other side

Big slab rocks

Ancient stump - something really big grew here...

Streambed

For the last couple days I have been working on the area East (house-side) of the gully, using a hedge trimmer to knock down the poison oak whips, and chainsaws to drop the deadwood. I'll be taking photos today to show what's going on (see below) and what's changed...

Part 2 (work in progress)...

I don't want to handle the poison oak, so I've been cutting it up into little pieces that can rot back into the leaf duff. I'm hoping it is the fresh leaves that carry most of the urushiol...

The dead wood larger than an inch or so I have been cutting into stove lengths to be burned this winter. There are years of firewood on this property!

 The leftover branches I bundle with a chain, tie it to the trailer ball on the van, and drag out of the gully and over to the burn pile by the garage.

The cut logs I load into the new trailer and use the new tractor mower to haul to the woodpile to the rear of the mill office..

So here's how things look opened up:

Looking down towards the gully: At the bottom by the streambed, there is a little meadow.

 And up from the gully - now a walkable slope.

Oh, it turns out that even the dormant poison oak branches will get you a rash - both my forearms can attest to that!