Snow & Rain

So once again I am extremely surprised to say that the weather guessers were actually correct. The guessed that there would be snow in the mountains by Friday or Saturday and a dusting in the valley over the weekend. Well whatta you know, I woke up to snow in the yard and on the rooftops this morning.

Sure it was a very small amount of snow, just enough to know that it happened but not enough to hang around much past noon which is OK by me!

I was fairly certain that we would only get rain because that was mostly what it was doing Saturday night. Obviously it got cold enough to turn it to snow.

My only concern is that I took a chance and turned the irrigation system on last week and usually I would have waited just one week longer because of this type of weather popping through. Living here as long as I have I know better, it does this pretty much every year without failure. It also screws up all of the nice flowering or about to flower buds on the fruit trees. We rarely get to see their colors every spring because of the final winter storm that creeps in.

Oh well, a few were able to this year so that was nice to see the purples of the plumb trees all over town and in our yard. Some of the other bushes that get nice bright yellow colors before turning green have now probably missed out on doing so this year.

I feel bad for those that try to get fruit from their trees. It can be done and I have seen it and eaten it. Problem is that it's a ton of work. You are either fighting Mother Nature or you get lucky, everything produces and just before harvest time the birds swoop in and eat it all in no time flat!

My neighbors plumb tree for example had so much fruit on it last year that the branches were nearly on the ground. Within less than a weeks time the tree was basically emptied of fruit and completely emptied by the end of the following week. Thankfully he took the time to get a couple buckets of plumbs before the birds showed up. 

I really don't mind if the birds eat the fruit on our trees and related. We have a cherry, plumb and pear tree. The pears rarely get bigger than a big grape but the cherries do mature and mate with the pear so you get these sorta pear flavored cherries. I have never seen any fruit on our plumb though. Usually only flowers if we don't get a last blast of winter like we just did.

Passport Time

Today it was finally time to take the couple hours and update my passport. It's actually a really easy process and only $110 to complete once you have a photo and all of the necessary documentation together. For some strange reason though I have been putting it off for months!

Mine does not currently expire until June of this year and I don't have any immediate travel plans so my hunch is that's the reason behind me dragging my feet.

No matter it will be put into the mail tomorrow (thanks Cicely) and I will be all set for the next 10 years to travel outside of the country and more importantly, be let back in.

Done

So not only is this the end of my entry for today but it also marks the end of my time at home with baby Zoey and Cicely. I am super bummed to be honest but the experience has been great. Even with the scary times and the ups and downs overall, I would not give any of it up for the world.

Tomorrow it's back to work, meetings and the usual day to day duties. Hopefully soon we will all have a nice 3 or more day weekend to share quality time together again. I look forward to that and to many more great times with my newly extended family.

Photo: Goodbye old passport and thanks for 10 years of travels. From Japan to the Caribbean to Mexico it was awesome. Cheers to filling up the new one with stamps across the globe!