Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!

We drove up in a little bit of rain and slush, but the real snow began to fall yesterday afternoon and we woke up to a bit of blue sky with snow on the ground. And now it is definitely snowing! I'm happy to know that we will most definitely have a white Christmas while we're up here at Sam & Jenn's. It is the perfect place to rest, relax, enjoy our family, AND ski whenever we want!

Alternative Christmas Gift Giving

Last Sunday's annual Alternative Christmas Faire was another successful time of raising money for others - while honoring friends and family with gift cards explaining what project had been supported. It is not too late to buy alternative gifts - just use the links to the instruction sheet and "shopping list", then email me to arrange exchange of a check for a gift card.

Snow Returns to Ventura!

It's that time of year again . . . winter is on its way! We got .7" of rain in our back yard and the local mountains got lots of snow. I love more than anything to see snow on topa Topa, with Ventura's Two Trees surrounded by snow-covered mountains!

So Much For Which To Be Thankful

What a great Thanksgiving weekend we just had! It was full of good times, memorable images, and many firsts. Sam and Jenn came down to spend a few days with us and traveled to Costa Mesa for Thanksgiving dinner at April & Lindsay's - it was the biggest family gathering ever! Tom and I endured a wet and windy trip across the SB Channel to hike on Santa Cruz Island for the first time - what beautiful island views! I had to work on Saturday but it was nice that some of my Teen Council members could come and decorate the library in the afternoon. After a good First Sunday in Advent worship service, we had our first blocking session for Amahl and the Night Visitors and then went to the parsonage where we had a fun baby shower for Jacob and Heather and got to see how Mary has decorated her new home. I finished the four-day period with a nice long Sunday afternoon nap. (photos to follow)

RIP GeoCities and Hello hundleys.net

This link to an October 26 L.A. Times article is a good summary of the GeoCities history.

My first web pages appeared at an old, hard-to-remember, address in one of GeoCities' Rainforest neighborhoods. (Don't bother looking for www.geocities.com/RainForest/Jungle/8759/ - it no longer exists online). Back in the late 1990s, the only pictures on my site were pictures printed from film and then scanned into tiny files of less than 50k. Getting a digital camera of my own was great, but those first cameras were nothing like what we have today with all our big files and memory capabilities.


A few years later, the GeoCities neighborhoods were no longer necessary and our original address had changed from the rainforest/jungle URL to an easier "3hundleys" location.

After we switched our ISP to Pacific Bell/which became SBC/which became ATT, I created another site on the "new" GeoCities (www.geocities.com/venturahundleys@sbcglobal.net). I was already thinking about buying a domain in order to change the difficult web address when I got the closing notice from Yahoo, so wasn't totally heartbroken. I am sad about all the internet history that was not archived. In the meantime, I have a lot of work to do on our new Hundleys.net site.

Fall Colors, Version 2009

The past few years I've had a yearning to see fall colors, so we've been to Tahoe, Big Bear, Chicago, and Sacramento during Tom's Fall Break from school. Since we're traveling at the end of the week, I didn't feel like going too far away last weekend - so we drove up behind Ojai and found a little bit of color around the Sespe. Still a little early, but very pretty.

First Rain, pt.2

7:30 this morning: 1.5" in the rain gauge and the fishponds were at maximum fullness. The fish seemed to love it!

The New Rain Year Has Begun!

About a week earlier than past years I can remember, our first rain of the season fell this morning as a light rain. Real rain, not "heavy mist" or even "drizzle" but actual drops that splashed and caused water to run down Channel Drive. I join everyone in the burn areas around SoCal in hoping it doesn't come down too hard and fast, but actual rain in the third year of an officially declared drought is great!
It is just beginning, but as of 8:30am, we already had .20 inch in the rain gauge.

Koi & Goldfish 6 - Raccoons 0

I am so happy to have seen seven different raccoons in our backyard the past several weeks and none of them has caught a fish in our pond! Before I deepened and enlarged our fish ponds, I had gotten used to losing fish once they got to "good eating" size. As we begin to say goodbye to summer and look ahead to early fall (when raccoon raids have been the most destructive) it has been a pleasure to sit and watch the fish at their most active time. It has also been fun to have walked outside just as different raccoons have been crossing our pond bridge without trying to catch our fish! (By the time I had run inside for the camera, the raccoons were already in the tree or over the wall. I did get this lone 'coon as well as two of a group of four visiors.)

A Weekend of Celebrations

Friday was our wedding anniversary and today is Sam's birthday so I decided to scan our old photos in order to preserve them. Here is a slide show of our wedding back in 1971:

And here are some pictures of Sam:

This anniversary, we (the two of us with Richard & Nancy) had dinner at the Tam O'Shanter in Glendale and then saw Bonnie Raitt and Taj Mahal at the Greek Theater. It was nice to go home after the concert and wake up without having to pack up in the morning. Saturday was spent resting and recovering from all the great food and drink of the night before!

An Unexplained (Google) Phenomenon

I'm a great fan of Google's holiday and special event logos but today's is creating lots of comment because no one knows why they put it up. If you click on it, it automatically searches for "unexplained phenomenon" - however, the top result is this article in the British online news site, the Telegraph. Best of all are the comments and conjectures - click on the title to read them or google it yourself!
(Google has no better explanation on their Google-Logos blog.)

Smuggler's Blues, Star Wars Style

Thanks to my "wookie" friend, Annie, I'm being completely nerdy by posting this fabulous video here and on my MySpace blog. I've always liked the song and love the Han Solo character, so here's a very creative mashup:



I can't wait to see all six Star Wars movies when I play them at the library during a Star Wars Film Fest!

My Possum Friend . . .

. . . is becoming less timid. I've been leaving out apple or banana slices for this little guy every night for months. He/she eats the fruit along with slugs and snails and the occasional avocado, unless the raccoons are around. The nice thing about this guy - besides keeping the snail and slug population down - is that I often find a nice-sized avocado left on the ground for us many mornings when our tree is in season!

The Prairie

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, -
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do
If bees are few.

- emily dickinson
Until Carol and I explored the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge (4-5 miles from the Bergland cabin on Blue Lake) I had no idea how beautiful prairies can be. Until our visit to Minnesota a couple of weeks ago, I'd always thought of them as dry, flat, grassy expanses. I was very pleased to discover acres of summer wildflowers between areas of oak savannahs (until recently all but chopped down out of existence, they, along with the prairie, have been replanted and restored at this refuge. It was easy to imagine why settlers moved here - so many trees just right for building cabins and so much land available to farm. So good for the pioneers; too bad for the land!)

Looking Back at our Vacation: Blue Lake, MN

It's going to take a while to sort through all the photos but we will have happy memories of the Minnesota leg of our summer vacation for years to come. Paul and Carol were such gracious hosts, the Bergland "Blue Lake B&B (and Lunch, Dinner, and Snacks In-between)" was the perfect place to complete our city & country vacation (the guest house, our home during the visit, is pictured above)! Even though the weather was unseasonably cool (in the high 60s/low 70s in mid-July!) they kept us entertained, extremely well-fed, and pleasantly relaxed for a wonderful time that ended too quickly. The weather cooperated on our last day there - mid-80s and perfect for kayaking, jet skiing, and cruising the lake!