Thanksgiving

So many things to do, so little time to write about them all. After a night rockin’ out in CT’s sound room we spent another day driving around Lake Tahoe, seeing all the little towns around the lake and stopping to check out the scenery every now and then. There are some huge houses in an area called Incline Village, some are nice, and some are ugly as hell. We drove past one of Tiger Wood’s houses which was next door to one of Tommy Hilfiger’s houses but apparently nobody actually lives in their houses around here, they just like to own them. Go figure. We stopped at a place called Cave Rock which is apparently fairly well known. I don’t know much about it but it is made of rock and has lots of caves in it.

Its a rock, plus some caves

We stopped a little further around the lake and found a cool spot where we could climb down on some rocks and get really close to the water. The water in Lake Tahoe looks tropical, it is so clear. I got quite a few photos. In fact I got enough photos to make a 360 degree panorama, but the whole thing is so big I can’t upload it. Here is a small version.

CT is as small as he looks here

So I was pretty impressed with that. We also stopped at a few thrift stores to see if we could find any cool stuff which, as you might expect, we did. Thrift stores are so cool. In England people take the shit they don’t want to the charity shop (or the tip) and when you go in there you can see why they didn’t want it. Mostly the stuff you find in charity shops are ugly, broken, or look like it’s been pulled out of someone’s arse. Here in the US every thrift store you go into is like an Aladdin’s cave of magical artefacts. Pink fur Pimp hats, ‘Truckee Rodeo 2004’ T-shirts, Mesh caps that have likely been worn by real sweaty truckers, the list is endless. I managed to find a pair of shoes that I quite liked the look of. I tried them on and they were a little tight, plus I figured I’d end up never wearing them, but they were $8 so I figure if I really don’t want them I can just give them away. Oh shit I just ruined your Christmas present Chris, sorry.

After a long day driving around the lake and trawling for trinkets at the thrift stores, what better way to relax than going for sushi. CT took us to a cool little sushi place where they had a happy hour which meant lots of sushi for less. It was some damn good sushi, especially for the price and we topped it all off with a really chocolaty chocolate thing that was decorated with a design that looked suspiciously like a hemp leaf. Sushi.

We couldn't stop laughing, then we got really hungry,
then we got really paranoid

The next day we had to leave early to get back to Boonville, but not before taking some pictures of CT’s house. He has spent the last two summers decorating the front of his house and it had turned from some horrible baby blue birdhouse to a cool looking mountain cabin with granite and big belt sanded logs. It looks a hell of a lot better than some of the houses around Tahoe, and the fact that he has managed to do almost all the work himself (a friend painted the house for him) makes it even better.



So we left Tahoe and headed back to sleepy old Boonville. The next day wasn’t a big deal, back to work in the apple shed for the morning. I worked on strengthening the doorframe which was being pulled out by the heavy door. I knocked the whole thing back into place and then put a bunch of 6” screws in to hold the whole thing there. They were a bastard to get in though because they were so stiff. Then Peter turned up and suggested I use the oil I had been using to drill the heads off nails. Duh. Things went much faster after that. I made a time-lapse video of the whole thing which I thought would be interesting. It wasn’t.

Sometime after midday Wendy was ready to head to Ukiah to do some grocery shopping, and go to the bank. I needed to get some cash so I went along. I decided to see if I could get some boots for riding in since I have been using my work boots so far which is kind of dangerous, but then I always was a rebel. Wendy dropped me off at a shop in Ukiah which sold all kinds of farm supplies including clothes, so after spending ages looking for a good pair of boots I decided to check out the jeans. Jeans are so freaking cheap here, $30 for a pair of Levi’s that actually fit me. I almost bought the whole rack, but then I decided that would be stupid, so I just bought the one pair. I also looked at the cowboy hats there and Wendy, always the voice of reason, insisted I should buy one or at least try some on. I tried on quite a few of the cowboy hats but surprisingly, or unsurprisingly depending on how you look at it, almost none of them fit. Almost every hat I tried on was way too small for me. Eventually I found a hat that fit me, I took one look in the mirror, put it back on the rack, and walked away. I’m thinking a cowboy hat will make a nice souvenir but only to be displayed, not to be worn. To top the day off I made an awesome stew, even if I do say so myself. Chicken, sweet potato and leek stew. I would have thought that getting good at cooking would make me feel like Gordon Ramsey, but with all the stews and things I’m making I feel more like Delia Smith. Oh well.

And so we come to November 27th, the third Thursday of November, Thanksgiving. The plans for this were all over the place with people planning to be here and then not be here. Eventually it was decided that we would be going to have Thanksgiving at someone else’s house. The someone else was Lisa and Ed. These are the kind of people I came here to meet. Lisa is a bit of an expert in period weaponry and I got to hear all about how she won a competition which involved trekking, using black powder guns, knives and tomahawks. This is the kind of lady you don’t want to run into in the woods at night. Ed is an artist who has only just recently started trying to sell his stuff. He carves sculptures out of wood and they are all awesome. I would have taken a bunch of pictures but the battery died on my camera again. I really need to sort that out. After Peter, Wendy and I arrived the final guest was a woman called Christina, who by sheer coincidence happens to be the Manager of a shop called ‘The Lark in The Morning’ in Mendocino, which is the shop that the guy in Fort Bragg was raving about the other week. One of the things to really catch my eye was what the dinner was being cooked on.



I thought that was a cool looking range, and then Ed told me about it. It is well over a hundred years old. How awesome to have my first Thanksgiving dinner cooked in a range that probably cooked one of the earliest Thanksgiving dinners (it turns out that Thanksgiving as it is today didn’t really come about until the 1800s). Lisa had a button accordion which she played for us, adding a little bit of a French vibe to an already confusing situation. Lisa seemed to have plenty of funny stories and hearing her impression of some of the California stoner kids made me think that perhaps there was just a hint of firsthand experience in there. I had a great talk with Ed about his work and he was very happy to show me all the pieces in his living room. I could spend ages describing all the sculptures but that would be boring. It turns out, however, that Ed was friends with Ron Wilson who, for those who don’t know, was the drummer for The Surfaris’ and was the main contributor to their classic song Wipeout. Ron Wilson was also the cousin of the Wilsons of the Beach Boys. I was impressed anyway. After dinner we let the food go down and then we had to get back to Boonville, but I hope I get the chance to go back and take some pictures of Ed’s work, and to throw some tomahawks with Lisa.

There isn’t much else to say for now and this has been a long post so I’m just going to go now. I’ll leave you with a picture of Wendy doing her best Ron Wilson impression.

STEEEEZ

After seven hours driving, and a six hour stop in Davis, we finally got to Tahoe yesterday evening. Having driven across the state and seen many towns from Fort Bragg to Tahoe I can easily say Tahoe is the coolest place I've been. For those of you who don't know, Tahoe is a lake, a big lake. Wendy's brother lives in South Lake Tahoe, which as you might imagine is on the southern edge of the lake which also puts him right next to the border with Nevada. We arrived around maybe 6:30pm and considering nobody was really that hungry, we did the only thing we could do in that situation. We hit the casinos.

Wendy apparently has very good luck with the slot machines and has won quite a bit of money in the past, so we scouted around and checked out a few of the casinos. Wendy tried a few machines and won a little but not much. Being that this was my first time in a casino I felt I should gamble a dollar, so I did. Actually I think I may have gambled 3 dollars, but not in some kind of 'I'll win on the next one' frenzy, I was just feeling a bit stupid standing watching Wendy play. I lost two dollars trying out machines and then I managed to make my third game last for quite a while. I finally cashed out at the princely sum of $1.85.

The manager was unavailable to present me with my winnings

Not worth the paper

Probably the most fun to be had in any of the casinos was just watching the people there. There were elderly people sitting at the slot machines who looked like zombies, young people at the bars who looked like ten year olds in their Sunday best, and there were plenty of drunken people. The drunken people were actually pretty impressive to watch, seeing how they moved from slot machine to slot machine, using each one as a support while they carefully calculated their trajectory to the next one. I was also impressed by the number of women in the casino who blatantly had no interest in gambling and appeared to be dressed with something else altogether in mind. Every casino we went into was like a tiny eco system with various species of gambler, each with their own little traits. I felt like the David Attenborough of the casino world watching over the big screaming apes of the Roulette tables and the wide eyed Bush Babies of the slot machines. It turned out that one of the other casinos in town gave out free stuff to people who had a birthday in that month and as Peter had just celebrated his birthday we were all for getting some free stuff. On the way back to the car Wendy insisted I take a picture of this truck just to make a point of how stupid people over here can be when it comes to their choice of automobile.

And Wendy is six foot five!

We had dinner, hung around in the casino for a little bit longer and then headed home after a very long day.

This morning we were able to get a good look at the front of the house which CT (Wendy’s brother) has been working on this summer. It looks really good with some really cool wood and granite combinations. Then we moved around the side where we saw this:

STEEEEZ

Suh-weeeeet! Wendy was, as ever, eager to suggest that we take some photos of me in the driver’s seat... wearing a cowboy hat. Sadly I didn’t have one on me, but ‘luckily’ CT did, and what would you know, it fit me. yay. You get two pictures.

All aboard the gay bus!

I forgot to mention we saw Woody from Toy Story

We found Fievel Moskowitz Hiding in the boot

After a photo session that went on far longer than it should have we decided to go get a closer view of the lake so we drove around to Emerald Bay. There are some pretty cool things around there like a ‘Viking house’ that was built for someone with more money than sense back in the 1920s. I got lots of cool photos.

This picture is a little squashed, you may want to stretch it back again

We also found this phone box in the woods.

I checked the coin return for change

So it has been an interesting couple of days and who knows what wacky adventures I’ll get up to next. Check back soon for the next riveting instalment. You never know who might turn up, maybe even Wicket W. Warrick.

'Weptaar!'

Goodbye

There hasn't been much happening around here the last few days. I tested some paint on the ceiling of my cabin, and yesterday Jeff, Wendy, and I all went on a short trek with the horses. I guess the main news is that Jeff has gone home.

I came up to the house from my cabin today to be greeted by Jeff on the front step. He was just about to come down to the cabin to say goodbye. I'm not going to broadcast his business on the Internet, so suffice to say that it wasn't entirely unexpected but it was quite sudden. It is a shame because Jeff is a really good guy, and despite the impression I might give out, I really do hate it when bad things happen to genuinely good people. I don't feel like I got to know Jeff well enough, he always seemed very interested in where I'm from and what I'm doing and I feel bad that I didn't have time to find out more about him. I did have enough time to get an impression of Jeff's character though and I know he is a good friend so even if we didn't get to hang out all that much I'll still think of him as a mate. Plus we saw James Bond together and that has to count for something. I've given Jeff my blog address so if you're reading this dude, I hope you have a better Christmas and New year, and I will be back to do that road trip one day.


As a side note. Wendy, Peter, and I will be going over to lake Tahoe on the California-Nevada border for a few days to go and see Wendy's brother, so I might be out of contact until the middle of next week. Until then you can look forward to hearing of my adventures in Tahoe as well as the excitement of THANKSGIVING, which will be next Thursday. Those turkeys better watch out because I'm not having Thanksgiving without one of them on the table, and I'm not talking about having one of them as a guest. Although I'm not saying they aren't welcome to join us in the spirit of the holiday. But they will have to eat one of their own. And that's just wrong.

Bond and Bragg

Well I guess I should start of today by explaining I cut my hair this week. I was getting far too scruffy and had decided to trim my beard. I felt it only made sense to go the whole way, so I enlisted Jeff as my spotter and took the clippers to my scalp. I got Jeff to grade and neaten up the back for me, and I did the rest myself. Check it out.

I'm just covering the patch of bloody scalp

As you can see in the picture, I’m quite happy with it. All I can say is that I’m damn glad that my hair grows fast.

This week’s big news is Bond. Jeff and I decided to get all excited for the new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace. Not for any particular reason other than to irritate Wendy by mentioning it as much as possible. We even managed to get Wendy to learn to play the theme on the bagpipes (coming soon to YouTube, probably) under the guise of making our own Bond trailer but then totally dropped it when she had stayed up all night figuring it out. Bless. So anyway, Jeff and I decided to make a day of it and visit the coast while we were at it. We drove over to Fort Bragg and headed straight for the cinema to check out the times. It was too early to get tickets because the box office hadn’t opened yet, so we decided to have our picture taken with the poster instead.

Oddly enough it didn't feel stupid at the time

The best part of this picture is where you can see the reflection of the woman we asked to take it. You can just about make out the look of utter bemusement on her face. Excellent. With the photo taken we decided to have a look around for music shops because Jeff is learning piano and guitar while he is here, and I’m trying to keep up my practice. We managed to stumble into a guitar shop that didn’t sell any music but the guy there talked to us for ages. It was pretty interesting and he told us that he played golf with the old bassist from Van Morrison, which was nice. Then he showed us the bass guitar that the guy had given him. It was pretty cool and had a rotating pickup on it. He told us it had been used on stage and only two of them were ever made (the other one was stolen). Then he let me hold it so I could tell everyone but as I forgot to take a picture, can’t remember the name of the bassist, or find anything on the internet about it, it was ultimately pointless. The guy did tell us to go check out the coast for the great view though. Jeff insisted on getting lots of great pictures of me walking as well as this fantastic shot of me looking completely confounded by the concept of a forked path.

'Two paths! Now what am I going to do?'

I opted for the more voyeuristic approach and took an arty shot of this couple smooching.

They jumped moments later

We looked around a few shops and finally after being sent up and down the main street by various people giving directions, we found some sheet music. Find-of-The-Day was the sheet music for Vangelis’ Hymn, so I was pretty chuffed. We had sushi with waaaay too much wasabi on it, I thought my eyes were going to start bleeding at one point, and then on to the cinema for the main event.

I’ve seen some pretty bad reviews for Quantum of Solace but I liked it. The thing that really struck me though was the difference between an American audience and a British one. I always thought it was ridiculous when you see those little PSAs about piracy in the cinema and the audience are all like ‘oooh...ahhhhh...wow!’ and then cheering at the end. I thought ‘What kind of moron gets that excited at the cinema that they actually applaud the screen at the end?’. Well, to be fair, I don’t think anyone applauded the screen (if they had, they may not have made it out alive) but the rest of the movie was like sitting in a crowd of 5 year olds. I could actually hear grown men repeating lines from the film that had just happened. Without wanting to ruin it for anyone who may be intending to see the film, here is an example.

Bond: When is the next flight back to London?

Female spy: Tomorrow morning.

Bond (in a rather suggestive tone): Then we have all night!

Man behind me (like an excitable idiot): ‘Then we have all night’! oh man... ‘Then we ha...’ huhuh jeez. I like eating candles duhuhuhuh.

Ok so I added that last sentence for effect but hopefully you’ve got the picture. Now I understand why big movies have so many action scenes, they were the only time where the constant idiotic droning was reduced to simple cooing and drooling. If there is one thing, however, which I have learned since being here, it is that America is pretty big and to use one small town cinema as a basis of comparison is quite unfair (as anyone who frequented the Chester Odeon, before it was justly shut down, will tell you).

Wendy had a concert this week. She is the newest member in a singing group who performed at Lauren’s, a local restaurant. They did renditions of all sorts of songs, the only one I recognised was Georgia on My Mind, but it was all very good. Having discovered what a great soprano Wendy is and also knowing it doesn’t take much to force her to do stuff (like learning to play the Bond theme on the bagpipes) I’ve tasked her with learning Schubert’s version of Ave Maria which I’ve been learning on the guitar and piano. She certainly takes these challenges to heart.

The final bit of news for now would be that Peter has been so eager to put the new floor into the apple shed that I did a quick mock-up last night so we could see what kind of headroom to expect. It’s pretty basic and I’m adding details today to make it more accurate but I think it’ll be a cool project for my portfolio.

Obviously the apple shed doesn't look exactly

like this, though that would be pretty cool

That’s all for now. I leave you with the greatest Christmas card I’ve ever seen.

Juice

Reading the comments, it sounds like I missed a doozy in life drawing class but the last few days have been positively action packed here. Peter and I went to do some target practice with the air rifle on a Saturday morning. Wendy drew a nice little picture of a squirrel for me to aim at. It seems I'm a pretty terrible shot. It doesn't matter too much though as all the walnuts have been collected in now and anything that is left will be rotting. The Squirrels are safe for another winter. I did manage to get a shot at a turkey the other day though.

Turkey is the cheapest meat out here because it is free. You just need to shoot one of the little buggers. Me and Wendy took our time creeping around the outside of one of the pastures to get in position for a good shot on a turkey. Wendy didn't want to use the .22 because she only had hollow point ammunition and didn't want to shed the thing. I rested my air rifle on the fence and took my time aiming. I waited until I could see a turkey head-on because there is supposed to be a better chance of killing it with a shot to the front. I took a breath, exhaled, pulled the trigger, and the pellet hit the turkey right in the front. And bounced off. So no turkey for dinner that night. Thanksgiving isn't too far off though and I intend to get some target practice with the .22 so next time...

We also made apple juice the other day. Chelsea, who had been working here before I arrived, came over to help us make juice. I'd heard her referred to a lot since I got here and was under the distinct impression I was going to be meeting a 'character'. I don't know what constitutes a 'character' here but she seemed pretty normal to me. Although considering that's coming from a guy who likes to stop around pretending he is a giant every night, probably doesn't mean much. So anyway, we made juice. I was hoping this would make for an interesting blog segment but aside from 'we made juice' I can't really think of anything else to write, so that's that.

Juice

On a side note, I queried whether or not the juicer could make use of all the squirrels shot here but apparently, whilst it may work, the appeal of squirrel juice is not as wide as I had initially thought.

We did try this one squirrel

We celebrated Peter's birthday yesterday. I haven't asked how old he is but who really cares? He obviously doesn't. Wendy spent the day rushing around making a cake and most of that time was just waiting for the chickens to lay another egg for the mix. The cake got made and Wendy changed the rota so she cooked Peter's birthday dinner and we were spared Jeff's terrible cooking for another evening.

Celebratory baked goods

I spent the morning working on the apple shed and after finding out that Peter had been holding out on me with a band saw stashed away in the house, I was able to get on with the work much faster. I've almost finished on the front of the shed now and then we'll able to look at putting another floor in and fixing the roof.

I can't really think of anything else to write about now so this is it for now. It looks like there could be lots to do this weekend though, it's time we get out of Boonville and see some of the surrounding towns. I'll leave you with this picture of and alien I saw in the kitchen. At least think it was an alien, it could have been a hornet but it's a bit too blurred to tell.

Fan Mail

Considering that there is a dirth of particularly exciting news to report I will be answering fan mail today. This is an e-mail from Mum, it doesn't state a location. Mum writes (among other things)...

Hello chick
...We would really like to know what you are up to. eg

1 what exactly are you doing day to day?

2 how do you feed yourself?

3 are you alone in the cabin or do you share?

4 are your hosts going away or not?

5 how is your money lasting?

6 are you keeping warm/cool enough?

7 are you happy?

...
Love you to bits

Mum

XXX

Well Mum, first of all, thanks for reading. In answer to your questions;

1. My day to day activities vary depending on what needs doing. There are certain chores that need doing everyday and we all do them in rotation. This includes things like feeding the animals and making the dinner. Beyond that Peter and Wendy ask for 4 hours work a day in exchange for full room and board. This can be just about anything from gardening to general carpentry. I have been spending most of my time on the apple shed.

The apple shed

The apple shed is a pretty big job and I've been trying to finish off the outside so its nice and cosy inside. I think I've done a pretty good job so far except for when I almost cut off my left index finger with a rusty saw. That would have been a bit shit for my guitar playing.

2. Mostly I feed myself with foodstuffs. As I said before we get free room and board in exchange for 4 hours work a day, so as long as I'm working I can feel free to just get myself some food whenever I want. If I don't manage to do 4 hours work I have to forage for whatever I can find in the woods. Kidding. I can just pay a little money towards food if I want and still feel free to help myself. Dinner is cooked by a different person each day and we rotate it, so we only have to eat Jeff's crappy food every 4 days. Thank God. Everyone hates cooking here so the meals tend to be as simple as we can make them but with so much fresh stuff to eat here the meals are never as crap as Rustlers burgers or McCain's Microchips.

3. I am all alone in the cabin, which is ace. I live in the middle of the woods in a little cabin on my own. It has a sweet wood stove, running water, and a never ending bathroom. I was sleeping in the fold away camping bed until a few days ago but I have moved up into the loft where there is a foam mattress and it is much cosier. With the camping bed gone there is loads of room for me to stomp around downstairs, which I do for around 3 hours every night, usually shouting 'FEE FIE FOE FUM' and pretending the various insects on the floor are people who have wronged me in the past.

4. I don't think Wendy and Peter are going away now. I think that money issues may have stopped them, or something has just changed. I think Wendy would still like to go, and is staying hopeful but it looks unlikely.

5. My money is lasting fine. I spent quite a bit in the first week while I was in San Francisco, but there isn't anything to spend it on here. I tried to pay one of the chickens a dollar to pose for a photo but it just looked at me indignantly. I upped the offer to five but it lost interest and walked away.

6. I am keeping warm. There is a stove in the cabin and it doesn't get all that cold here anyway. I am also keeping cool, I bought sun glasses in SF (see earlier post).

7. Am I happy? What kind of question is that? I'm not in a deep dark hole of despair if that is what you're wondering. As for happy, I'm fine. I'm not bouncing around grinning like a fool the whole time though. That would be stupid. I'm having fun and I'm enjoying being here. Every now and then I stop and look across the mountains and think I would rather be here doing this than sitting in front of a computer all day.

Where would you rather be?

Halloween

We're into rainy season here and it has pissed down the last couple of days. The good news is that I can use the little wood stove in my sweet cabin now. I didn't think to get a shot of it in action though so you'll just have to imagine it.

Draw some smoke coming

out of the chimney here

I went into Ukiah the other day with Peter to do some shopping. Then we went to see W. because Peter really wanted to see it and I'll watch pretty much any movie going. It was good, both funny and a little scary but mostly funny. We stopped in Boonville on the way so I decided to get some pictures.

Here is one

The cinema in Ukiah looked so awesome. It's such a cliche small town theatre. I really wanted to get a picture but I couldn't do it without looking stupid so I'll have to get it on another day.

Me and Jeff went into Boonville to experience an all American Halloween at the local drinking establishment. They had Karaoke and I decided it would be a good idea to sing Hey Jude. I rocked it. The locals were confused as hell. I considered singing something by Hank Williams or Johnny Cash, and then thought better of it. Plenty of pictures from that night but the problem was that they had a smoke machine which whited out all my pictures where I used a flash, and without the flash they just blurred.





As you can see, I was quite taken by what I have now named the Frumple Bee. Bless her. It was a fun Halloween but I suspect it was a little unusual even by American standards. Anyway I'm using up power here so I should go, but not before I leave you with this headline from the Wall Street Journal.

Oh these guys have no clue