Whales and Tales

StO came with her family last week for a visit over spring break.  A good time was had by all.  The adults went to Napa one day, we took the boy-o's to San Francisco for a look-see, and spent the sole sunny morning on the water on a whale watching tour. 

The kids spent a couple days playing x-box and had a blast sliding or rolling down the hill.

StO and I made some straight-from-the-box French Vanilla cupcakes and attempted to make the White Truffle Frosting to go with them.  Fail.  Either my white chocolate wasn't melted enough or it cooled too quickly and we ended up with some unforeseen chunkiness in the frosting that clogged up the piping tip several times.  It was tasty though.  Backup plan - frosting in a can.  Since StO has taken the Wilton class at her local Michael's, we spent more time playing with the piping tips than worrying about the flavor profile.  We decided that a large tip and a simple swirl were working the best.   No evidence (they looked bad - mostly!), but Mark said they were long gone from work by lunch time.  He also said that I was getting a reputation for fancy cupcakes.  Yikes.  So a second version is in my plans - a white cupcake with white chocolate shrapnel (a la "S'mores") topped with a White Chocolate Buttercream and if I can get it working right, some chocolate curls. 

The deck is seeing progress, although it seems a bit stalled right now.  We've gotten quite a bit of rain the past week and a half, and it's not supposed to let up until Monday.  But that's okay ~ Ralph is working on the hand rails at his shop, and they even cleaned out the gutters for us yesterday.  I think they were protecting all their hard work, but extra cupcakes for them next time.  Look - I have the frame for a pergola!

This morning, we woke up to a small surprise.  One of the trees up the hillside from the house decided to go on walk-about.  It's a pin oak that was planted in what is, at least now, some very soft ground.  It was  root ball failure, not Sudden Oak, which is an issue around here.  It obviously grazed the house - made it to the front door and torqued some gutters - but I don't think it did any real damage.  Looks like we have firewood for next year and Ralph has some more work!

Working on a new deck

So the deck that I fell through earlier this year?  Mark & I are not rebuilding it ourselves. When we redid the floor in the "add-on" room, we worked with a great contractor, Coastline Construction, Inc., and we've asked them to come back and do a deck redeaux.  Mark & Ralph went under the deck to find out just how much work needs to be done and we found out that not only was the surface rotten, but many of the posts and girders were as well.  Yikes. The chuff from the surrounding trees was getting stuck between the planks and basically acting as a sponge holding water to help destroy the underlying support.  The redwood tree is not only girdled (oops ~ sorry tree!), but the base has pushed some of the posts out of plumb.  

So earlier this week and early this morning, I managed to pull all my plants and patio furniture off the deck.  It looks so much larger without all my stuff on it.  Ralph & Sean will be taking the deck down to the concrete footings and rebuilding it from the ground up.  We're widening the deck in front of the dining room and putting a second stairway in from that end. They are also going to square up the corner between the redwood and apple trees.  I have dreams of exterior planter boxes, seating and some large planters with a drip watering system.  Maybe even a trellis near the living room.  And I already have my new grill picked out.  I don't think everything will be coming back on the deck - I rather like the clean look it could have.

The view at noon today