First Winter Storm of the 2013 Season

Yup, it is only September 28th but the first winter storm of the year is rolling through this weekend!

Gusts to 90 at Cape Blanco which we are just downwind from.

There was a flurry of harvesting the past two days in the garden and the orchard to lighten limbs and protected plants. Here is the text from the High Wind Warning.

* WINDS...SOUTH TO SOUTHWEST 30 TO 40 MPH WITH GUSTS TO 65 MPH.
  WINDS COULD GUST TO 90 MPH AT THE HEADLANDS. A BRIEF LULL WILL
  OCCUR LATE TONIGHT INTO SUNDAY MORNING. BUT...WINDS SUNDAY
  AFTERNOON AND EVENING ARE EXPECTED TO BE SLIGHTLY STRONGER THAN
  DURING SATURDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING...35 TO 45 MPH WITH GUSTS
  TO 70 MPH.

Here is what that looks like from the satellite imaging.

Follow-up:

This storm was more than a month ahead of traditional time frame for winter storms.

Winds came as expected and in two days time we received exactly seven inches of rain in our government issued rain gauge!

General Lee with Friends

General Lee was not the easiest dog to get to know - but once you did you had a great friend. Here are some photos of The General over the years with some of his friends. 
If you have other great photos of General Lee with friends or alone feel free to share! 

With Olga Morrow at the beach at Half Moon Bay California.

Olga Morrow and Bob at the Berkeley Landfill Park Flying a Kite (note the tongue is out probably because he had been chasing the trainer kite around...)

 Debra Reynolds after planting 2000 trees at UCM.

 Phil, Lynne, Steve, Olga and Sylvia at UCM for the planting of the orchard.

 Phil, Lynne, Steve and Sylvia @ UCM establishing the gravity feed water system to the orchard.  BTW - The original upgraded to well hose and is still working today!

 Olga Morrow stringing hose to tie down the fruit trees being planted.

 They just look so good together we had to post this as well.

 Phil Grzyb in Langlois - Two peas in a pod.

 With German Guests, Nina, Jan, Bjoern and Barbara in the backyard of Alameda CA.

 Queen Coda's Mom Pat and Dad Bill at the rest stop in Roseburg Oregon where Sylvia fell in love with Coda. (and General Lee began to deal...)

 Liv Ruoss with The General in Alameda CA.

 Jeff and Emily Ruoss near Bodega Bay getting ready to grill oysters.

 Scotty at Sherman Island.

 LMG @ UCM a.k.a. Greg Boyington

 Steve, Phil, Friend and Bob at the summit of Mount Wachusett in Princeton Massachusetts.

 Phil, Lynne, Bob and Friend

 Bob and Steve with ski chairs.  General Lee was all over running around on the trails as we hiked up and rode down Mount Wachusett.

 Solomon Peabody creating the Zen Garden with Lee on Security. (as usual).

 Katja Grimm on one of her many visits to UCM.

 Phil Wakefield Lake Fountain British Columbia - Ice Racing with an Illegal Gathering of Men.

General Lee - Details of his Passing

We have been blessed with bonus time of a spring and summer with General Lee.  After his spleenectomy (see March 8, 2013 blog entry) we learned he had hemangiosarcoma, an aggressive cancer that arises in the lining of blood vessels and hits all the organs. When a tumor ruptures the results can range from discomfort or on a larger scale rapid bleeding and death.  We are not certain this is what happened but our observations over the past few months align with this idea.  We strongly suspect a tumor in his lungs ruptured which made his breathing labored with the severe internal bleeding.

His passing was quick and relatively pain free.  He was napping in Sylvia's office after a good day of activity for a senior dog doing his favorite things - then another look over a minute later and it was obvious that he had lost strength and was having difficulty breathing while lying on his side.  He pivoted himself into the best airflow and tried to find a comfortable position - Bob and Sylvia were with him and comforting him as he transitioned. This last episode lasted five minutes and Lee passed as the warrior he is still fighting for life. We both felt that he did not want to leave...

It has been a roller coaster of good days and bad days during General Lee's last months.  The chemo definitely helped with extending quality of life.  He had moments so severe that he could not walk from one room to the next without an uncontrolled collapse, a harbinger of things to come.  It is devastating to look into the eye of a warrior the moment he realizes his sword arm does not work.   After a few days he would recover and walk with us down to the garden on his eternal quest for carrots - which he got on every trip :-)  On a weaker day  the climb up the hill back to the house would require a half dozen stops to lie down and rest, each stop taking from five to fifteen minutes of recovery before heaving to his feet to carry on.  On stronger days, such as his last week, he would make the trip several times over the course of a day without stopping, some times even demonstrating his old school "I am an alpha bad-ass" trot along the way. 

His final week has been a good one.  He got to stop a UPS truck in the middle of the driveway  and bark at the driver (a trick he learned from his Rottweiler mentor Bo back up on Mount Madonna in the Santa Cruz mountains.)  Growl at Cooper by way of training.  Play with his favorite squeaky toy and then leave it in the middle of his bed to taunt the other dogs (they would not dare touch it!).  He also trotted off into the woods a few times after deer in the area! On his very last day he was into his routine of circling the sheds hunting rats and rabbits - tail up and wagging happily.  He even hung out with us at the Root Cellar job site. The good life of his last months included a cooked liver every morning with either burger or rabbit as the main part of the evening meal.  The last few weeks he preferred hand feeding.

We placed General Lee in the orchard on Saturday September 14th with as much respect and honor as we could muster.  One of Lees deals was to get a carrot from Sylvia during every trip to the orchard - his final trip down to the orchard was no different. I often gave him slices of apple - we shared one with him as we placed him on his favorite blanket resting on a bed of gold!  That would be Organic Black Gold the finest soil one can buy. We placed his two favorite toys with him as well.  His treasured Orange Orangutan that he had honored and respected for eight years and would shake in excitement whenever guests came to the house and his little yellow chick squeaky toy with a very cool triple squeak.  This is the toy he taunted Coda and Cooper with. His favorite blanket was wrapped over him and fresh sage was placed on the four cardinal points as a cleansing ward.  A bag of organic compost went over the blanket followed by more black gold.  A rich grave for a fine friend and partner.  We plan to place an apple tree over him this fall and are currently in the process of choosing a variety that will be a solid producer and properly honor General Lee's strength of character and vitality.  We feel good about having our friend, who has been so instrumental to the development of UCM and our orchard, continue to be a part of the life cycle that is the orchard... 

A Warrior Moves On...

 We lost our Best Friend and Zen Master today...
General Lee transitioned at 4:30 pm.
We will miss him dearly!

Here are a few shots from our time together.  We will be adding more later as we reflect and reminisce on all the good times and great adventures we shared!
For example, here a young General Lee in the Alameda Dog Park, was wondering what tennis ball could Bob possibly be referring to?

 Always Proud, Always Attentive, Always having the family's back.

Ten years later the same vigilant and intense bad-ass dog had our backs.  Here this spring at the Paradise Beach when Kati visited.

We often spoke of how we ended up at UCM for General Lee to get him out of the City.

This video and the following were shot mere minutes after we had arrived in Langlois for good with Alameda behind us forever.  We had a good laugh this evening of how quickly General Lee got into life as a country dog.

Out of the car and into wild runabout with the mud, the skunks and the wild things!
He was a very very happy dog to be in Langlois permanently.

The General's paw print in Alameda sand...

This was used as the model for "Kitechicks Rule"

The path we walk may wash away but the memories of that walk will remain with us forever.

We Love You General Lee and will miss having you at our side... You will always be in our hearts...

Root Cellar

As Sylvia becomes more proficient at growing, harvesting and curing the bounty of the garden the challenge has become where to store all this goodness so that it will last into the next growing season.  The answer was to build a cold storage / root cellar of some kind.  On the recommendation of our earth worker we have placed a 3,000 gallon septic tank into a deep cut in the banking behind the sheds and will be covering it with earth so that it will hold a constant temperature.  At least that is the plan.

So - First you make a big hole somewhere!

Then you make it pretty.
Here we have perf pipe covered in drain rock with weed cloth on top for a French Drain.  Another layer of rock was added and then compacted to level.

The 3,000 gallon tank arrives in two pieces.  Bob painted it, before it was delivered, with a rubberized paint called "Blue Max" which creates a waterproof barrier.  Of course the only day it rained in two months was on the delivery day - so there was lots of mud to go along with the almost one inch of rain...

Cutting the hole for the door into the side of the tank was good fun - to watch... Some times money can be well spent!  

Of course after they cut in the basic shape - that left the detail and precision grinding to Bob...

So that it will fit the cool marine grade water tight door

Luke.
I am your father.