Rainy Friday and Saturday

At Sister’s House, Citrus Heights, Ca

Around midnight Thursday it started to sprinkle…by morning it was a good, solid rain.  For the next 36 hours it rained…about 2-3 inches.  Rarely was it a hard rain, there might have been 15 mph winds, just a good, solid rain.  The type of rain that farmers really like this time of year…unless they were planning to get a crop in the ground this weekend.  Folsom Lake is now 82 percent full, which is 122 percent of its 15-year average.  They finished a new spillway last year, so the lake level can be higher than in past years.  Just this past February they wondered if it would get above half full…amazing what a wet March and a good rain in April can do for this area.  This was a warmer rain, so it rained on some of the snow pack in the Sierras, which means they had to release more water from the dams in anticipation of the high water rate coming into the lakes.  Looks like the farmers will have water again this year during the hot summer months, at least from Merced and the valley to the north of Merced.

This amount of rain means that a lake forms between the motorhome and the patio.  This picture was taken AFTER about half of the lake dried up.  I took the carpets up that lead from the motorhome to the patio in anticipation of the rain…glad I did because they would have been soaking wet.

Here is another angle…you can see the high amount of tree droppings in the bottom right of the picture, which is where the high level of the water was at.

The tree is a Fruitless Mulberry, and the Blossoms come out before the leaves appear.  The Blossoms fall off, making a big mess…but at least they are not sticky, just love to stick in doggies tails, feet, etc., and the bottom of your shoes.  We hoped that the storm would knock them all down…

…but not our luck…still a bunch of them up there in the tree.

   

The cherry tree…now that’s another story.  It once had a bunch of blossoms on it, like in the upper right picture…but the rain knocked 95% of them off, as you can see in the upper left picture.

By evening, I was able to put the carpets back out, and the dogs could have free run of the yard again.  During the higher water, I put them on the leash and walked them around the water onto the higher area of the lawn.  They could not understand that…but after all, they are just dogs…who knows what they understand outside of food, petting, and sleeping.

    

With the rain gone, the sun back, and a big blue sky…the animals came out to feast…

    

    

ALL of these bird and squirrel and dog pictures were taken today after 4 and before 8. 

   

Thought I might be able to see the Sierras after the storm, but it needed to pass through a few hours earlier…still clouds over the mountains to the east.

    

And with no clouds to the west, the sky did not light up for a real nice sunset…but any sunset is still nice, especially one with Old Glory flapping in the wind.

Ninety Years Old

At Sister’s House in Citrus Heights

   

Both mom and dad have birthdays in April…dad’s was on Sunday, an April Fools baby.

To celebrate the occasion, we thought “wild turkey” would be in order…but alas, them critters are hard to catch….so….

Black Angus was our secondary choice.  Saturday late afternoon, before they are too busy, those children and spouses who were able to attend, took dad there for his favorite…Prime Rib.  Pictured left to right are Marcia, sister Patti, sister Sandy, Arny (behind Sandy), mom, dad, Rochelle (Roger’s wife) and just out of the picture to the right, brother Roger. 

    

On Sunday we gathered again for an Easter – April Fools – Birthday dinner.  Easter has fallen on Dad’s birthday only four times in his lifetime, 1934, 1945, 1956, and 2018…and will do so again in 2029, but dad says he does not want to be around ‘that’ long…which is understandable. 

We asked permission from the Fire Department to put 90 candles on the cake…but they said ‘no way’.  I think there are 90 sprinkles on it instead…

    

In the upper left picture are dad’s brother’s two children who were able to attend, Richard (far left) and Barbara (next to Richard), along with Richard’s wife Marci, and Roger’s wife Rochelle.  Barbara lives in Italy, and I had not seen her for many years, and it was the first time she had met my wife Marcia.  In the upper right picture is my son Michael (far right behind dad) and his wife to be Anna (July wedding) to the left of Michael (his right, picture left).  In the bottom picture is Arny’s mother Euleda (left) along with my mom and sister Patti.

Above, Sandy and Arny, whose home we all gathered at, enjoy talking to Marci and Richard, who live in the Santa Cruz area…and Marcia and I plan to go over to their place in early May for a few days as part of our May excursion. 

   

And now that I got these two in the blog, I think I got a picture of everyone, although Roger only got his arm in a picture.

When I took mom and dad home, mom asked me to get a picture of their front door…the Independent Living Facility had decorated it for Dad’s birthday…so sweet of them. 

Unfortunately, Sunday also brought with it some sad news.  Marcia’s cousin, through her first husband, Sophie, passed away.  The above picture is from October 2016.  Every year we have driven through Fort Smith to visit with Sophie, who was 95 years old.  She will be missed, but we know she is no longer in any pain, and with our Lord.  Prayers to her family and friends who are mourning her loss.  We still plan to stop in Fort Smith to see her son Jim and wife Pat later this summer/fall.