The Blog Formerly Known as An Orange County Sitcom

Twisted

For Wordless Wednesday.

Here's what we're up to this week

Above the clouds

For Wordless Wednesday.

There was a terrible accident at the cabin last week

The roof just suddenly collapsed!  And we have obviously spent so much on maintenance the last few years.  Luckily nobody was hurt.

Did I fool ya?  This is actually an old sheep herder's cabin at Kennedy Meadow.  The meadow was gorgeous - lots of wildflowers; which pictures I will post as soon as I learn Photoshop.  (which means, when the Lord returns).

I love pretty flowers

For Wordless Wednesday

Ka-blam!

Ha ha, just kidding.  GWH would never shoot an unsuspecting doe out of season.

This girl was across the street from the cabin last week.  She let me get very close to her (the lens is only zoomed to 105 which isn't a huge magnification).   We watched her for about 15 minutes while she generally ignored us and munched on her lunch.

This looks really dangerous

Things 1 & 2 had fun at the lake yesterday with some friends. They're sitting on a giant sequoia log, which I used to think looked really dangerous but nobody's died yet:

Thing 1 is usually so photogenic; not sure what happened here. :)

I love my new camera. (It will continue to be "my new camera" until I actually figure out how to use it). This shot was taken with a zoom lens at 105 in the "action" mode and I think it froze the action pretty well.

Love my new computer, too... we Photoshopped out a lawn chair in this picture so it looks like we were the only ones at the lake. Can you tell where the lawnchair was?

Thing 2 in his natural habitat

We took some photos of Thing 2 earlier this month at the cabin:

Notice his "machine gun."  :)

Just a few hours earlier, this trout was swimming happily in Hume Lake.

Arachnophobia

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that Hume Lake isn’t perfect.  We knew when we bought our cabin that it was in the great outdoors, which was its main appeal but also had its drawbacks; namely: bears, mountain lions, snakes, spiders, ants, raccoons.  The bears don’t bother me because they rarely come to the cabin area and they’re harmless to humans unless you try to take back the portable cooler they’re digging into.  The mountain lions will eat you, but I don’t believe in them (despite the warning signs to the contrary), so until one of my neighbors gets eaten I’ll live in ignorant bliss.  The only snake I’ve seen was dead…Terminix takes care of the ants for us…and the raccoons just leave cute footprints on the deck when they try to get into the bird feeder.  So that leaves the spiders.

I never knew spiders came in so many shapes and sizes until we bought our cabin.  Big, little, skinny, fat, black, brown, furry, glossy – they all live in the forest.  And – if they can get in – they LOVE cabins.  The worst time of year for finding spiders in our cabin is spring.  Spiders like it quiet, so I think all of the people coming and going in the summer keeps them out.  And in the winter they must be hibernating, because we see very few.  But whenever we show up in the spring, it’s like a National Geographic special on spiders in our cabin.  The cabin has been closed up for 3 months, so it’s been dark and quiet – just the way they like it.  The first place I find them is in the kitchen sink – they like to build webs across the sink.  I quickly dispatch them down the drain.  Then I move through the house, with a fly swatter in hand, carefully inspecting each room: moving the sofa cushions, scanning the ceiling, etc.  GWH isn’t much help with this job.  I’ve asked him to inspect the downstairs, only to have him come up and tell me he didn’t find anything.  Then, somehow, when I go downstairs, the first thing I see is Shelob staring me in the face.  So I’ve learned not to trust anybody else for this search & destroy mission.

When we showed up for our first weekend this spring, I went through the cabin quickly and sent a few spiders to their eternal reward.  Then, I continued with the kitchen unpacking/organizing while GWH was getting a fire going in the fireplace.  I picked up a bag off the floor in the pantry and...”AAIIEEEEEEEEEEE”…I screamed like a girl.  There was a spider in the corner of the pantry, as big as the palm of my hand.  As GWH came running, I started shrieking, “Kill it!  Kill it!  Kill it!”  (I’m sure that was very productive).  GWH grabbed some paper towels and I helpfully screamed, “Don’t let it get away!”  (I was envisioning it disappearing into a crack, although it seemed a little large for that sort of escape).  Thankfully, it did NOT get away so it could come back and haunt me later.  Lest you think I’m exaggerating the size of this thing, GWH even commented, “That WAS a big spider; it was almost a tarantula.”

I’m a little edgy when I open the pantry door these days.

I hope you’ll all come visit me at the cabin some spring weekend. 

Honey, we're at Hume Lake

Faithful readers,

We'll be at our cabin until about June 15 so I have limited internet access.  (I have to drive down to the camp and sit on an open deck with a poor wireless connection. Life is hard but somebody's got to do it).

So I wanted to share some of the reasons we love Hume Lake.  We love it for its natural beauty, its milkshakes, and also because the atmosphere here is so friendly and wholesome.  Here’s a story that illustrates it:

As is our practice, we recently took the kids down to the snack shop to pay the milkshake tax. GWH was having a hard time choosing his milkshake flavor. He asked the cashier about the “peanut butter cup” flavor and she informed him that it had a peanut-butter flavored ice cream base with peanut butter cups blended in.  I was skeptical, as I’ve bought “peanut butter cup” flavor ice cream at the store which has always been vanilla ice cream with the peanut butter cups tossed in. But I said nothing, since I couldn’t think of a way to nicely correct her. 

When GWH’s milkshake arrived, it was a lovely tan peanut-buttery color. Upon tasting it, I confirmed that it was, indeed, peanut butter ice cream. I mentioned to GWH, “Oh, I thought the cashier was lying about the peanut butter ice cream. I was sure it would be vanilla.” 

GWH looked shocked. “Honey, we’re at Hume Lake.  People at Hume Lake don’t lie.”

And that’s reason #111 to love Hume Lake.