Just Another Gualala Weekend

This weekend was a "Gualala weekend" for us; we took off on Friday afternoon to pick up 10 cases of bees (which amounts to no less than 120,000 busy little ladies) in Vacaville then headed north. Of course, we had to stop for our requisite In-N-Out meal on the way out of town. Conveniently for me, Borders books is near In-N-Out and I had just finished my latest book. So while Dave ordered our bugers and Neopolitan shakes, I walked over to buy myself a new book for the ride. (I love reading in the car.) Well, I ended up buying three books--Dave suggested that he might need to put me on a "book budget." Haha. I bought Marley and Me, Spook, and Naked.

We had to borrow my parents' Big Red Truck, Cliff, for the jaunt so we that we humans, the dogs, AND all those boxes of bees could ride comfortably up the coast. Well, it turns out that there really isn't enough room for two humans AND two dogs in the cab of the truck. Potatoes prefers to stretch out completely on the seat, leaving Ruby nowhere to sit but on top of him (literally). Otherwise, Potatoes likes to stand on my lap and stick his head out the window into the wind. Actually, he likes to stand on me even when we're in a normal car with an entire back seat dedicated to the dogs. We've just accepted the fact that Potatoes is just plain weird. Even with a lap full of canine, I was able to get through 1/3 of Naked by the time we pulled into Gualala. (My mom and Dave think it is weird that I can read in any moving car, let alone a car swerving up the coastal highway. They get super nauseous after reading more than 1 sentence.)

After dinner that night we hung out downtown at my brother-in-law's house, chitchatting about work, school, etc. It was nice and relaxing. We spent Saturday looking around my father-in-law's timber harvest area, where he harvested something like 20 acres of redwood, white fir, and douglas fir. There were burn piles from the day before still smoldering and smoking away. Potatoes walked straight through one of them; about halfway across he started walking a lot faster once he realized it was hot. It was really funny to watch (and his paws aren't burned).
Then we went down to the river so the dogs could swim. Unlike Ruby, Potatoes doesn't really like to swim; in fact, the only time we can get him fully immersed in the water to swim is when all his humans swim away from him. It turns out that he will also jump right in and swim like an Olympian when horses there are horses around. After we'd been there for a while, two horses and riders came down. The horses swam across the river, carrying their riders before heading down the river's edge for a nice walk. Potatoes sat there on the bank with us as the horses started into the water, contemplating what these huge animals were doing. Once the horses emerged from the water and started walking down the other side of the bank, Potatoes suddenly jumped up and charged straight into the water...then he tried to herd them. Ruby let us know how concerned she was that brother was over there; she whimpered and cried the entire time. It was sooooooooo funny. The riders were very understanding about herding dogs (folks on the northern coast tend to have border collies instead of other, less smart breeds). The lady rider let Potatoes run around them a bit before she and her horse swam back across the river, just to guide my weird dog back to me. The best part is, I got the whole thing on video. I apologize for the shakiness of the camera-- my uncontrollable laughter made it hard to keep steady:



After bathing the dogs, we suited-up to do some remaining bee work. Dave's dad and a friend had already hived the new bees that morning. Since new hives like this don't have reserves of honey to eat we had to put a jar of sugar water in each one. This is a super simple task, unless, like me, you're a small-handed gal who has to borrow gloves from her size XL father-in-law. My fingers only reached about 1/3 of the way down the gloves, making it almost impossible to grab small things. Each jar of sugar water has to be placed upside down on two small pieces of wood so the solution could drip out of the holes in the lid. I had to do place the wood in the hives chop-stick style and use two pieces of wood to scoot the jar holders into place. Right when we were done we headed inside to look through the Dadant catalog for some child sized gloves for me. I also told John (my Gualala dad) that I wouldn't agree to harvest honey with him this summer without running water in the garage. Last summer Dave and I spent 18 straight hours harvesting honey without running water in the garage. It was a pain to have to haul warm water from the house out to the garage where the honey extractor was. John assured me that he'd talk to the "water company" about installing a sink and mini water heater out there. Since he owns the water company, I expect I'll have my water in time for July's harvest. =o)

On Sunday we headed back to Santa Rosa for my great aunt Grace's memorial luncheon. The meal was at a strange hill-top Italian restaurant, whose building was Moroccan style. We heard funny stories about Grace, met some of her long-time friends, and mingled with my mom's side of the family. I don't really know that side of my family very well, so it was nice to see everyone again. Hopefully we'll be able to organize a Halliday family reunion thing in the next year along the coast someplace.

Before heading back home, my dad said he could use a cup of coffee. When I suggested the Starbucks just down the street, he grumbled something about wanting "good coffee." I assured him it is good coffee, just expensive good coffee. My dad has been known to boast about never having drunk Starbucks. Ha! I took a picture of him with his fancy frappuccino to document the occasion: