Welcom to Oregon

Today, I left the state of California to go on vacation in Oregon at my grandparents. I flew alone. When I got to Portland, my uncle, my cousin, and my grandparents were there waiting for me, but, they were all wearing t-shirts with my face on it. It was really embarrassing. From the airport, we went into east Portland to find a restaurant, it took a half hour and when we got there it was closed. We finally decided to go to my uncle's house and have pork tacos.

After lunch, my uncle and I burned a pile of brush and played pool. Then, one of my cousin's friends came for a sleep over and then, we had hamburgers for dinner.

Death in the Family

Today, our 8 year old chicken Blackbird died (8 years old is twice as old as a normal chicken's life span). Blackbird was an Ostralorp.

We bought Blackbird at Half Moon Bay Feed and Fuel in the spring of 2003. Blackbird has lived in 5 different chicken coops at two different houses (plus the temporary house when we were moving). The other chicken we bought with Blackbird was Julia. Julia was a buff Orpington, but sadly Julia died in 2007.

Wild Goose Chase for the Perfect Spring Chicken

Yesterday, I woke up needing new chickens. A French Maran and a buff Orpington. I called my local pet shop feed store (Sam's Downtown Feed) and asked them if they had any chickens for sale. They said that they did. Two minutes later I told my mom to get out of bed because Sam's was having a chick sale. When we got there, the said that we had to preorder them, We didn't know about that. When we got into the car, I asked my mom if we could go to the feed store in Almaden to see if they had any chicks. We went there and they only thing they could show us was a book full of pictures of chickens. From there we went to feather haven- a feed store in Morgan Hill- to see if they had and chickens, they did, French Marans. My mom didn't just want to by one chicken, because it would be lonely, so, I said lets go to the Gilroy feed store just down the road, she said yes. On the way there we passed a western store, "we just had to go in". I got a new pair of boots. Finally, we got to the feed store in Gilroy, they had buff Orpingtons. We decided to get one Buff Orpington in Gilroy, then, go back to feather haven and get the French Maran. On the way back we stopped at U-haul to get a box for them to stay in. We named them when we got home the french Maran's name is Michelle and the buff Orpington's name is Rita.

Sailing (with wind)

Yesterday, I went sailing with my grandma, grandpa, uncle, and my cousin. It was windier than usual. We sailed most of the way. We started of in Berkeley. Then, went around Yerba Buena island and docked at the fairy building. At the fairy building we had gelato and we to the farmers market. When we started sailing back to Berkeley, we were around Pier 38. I looked to the right of the boat. I saw this big grey things just under the surface of the water. It started coming closer to the surface. I was a giant grey whale 20 ft. away from the boat. Everybody on Pier 38 screamed when its blower blew. It was really amazing.

Typewriter

I was watching the Sting the other night. When my dad came home, he told me to go see what is on the back table. It was a Brother electric typewriter. When I plugged it in, it worked. The only thing doesn't work on it is the correcting tape. I looked all over for correcting tape but I couldn't find any. Finally, my grandpa found one on the Internet. It seems that the people that work in the office stores don't know what typewriters are.

Photoshop CS5

My grandparents arrived today. With them, they brought Photoshop 7.0, CS2, and CS5. I upgraded my 6.0 to CS5. My grandpa showed my how to make a panorama out of multiple photographs. I also figured out how to make objects disappears from photos by hitting the delete button.

Snow! Snow! Snow!

During the the week of February 14, it rained 2 inches. It snowed over 3ft. in Tahoe and snowed 6 in. in the Santa Cruz mountains. Hwy 17 was never closed, they had snowplows. Mt. Tam got 5 in. of snow too, so did Mt. Diablo and Mt. Hamilton. That's a lot of snow in unusual places.

No Horse (for now)

After a year of vet bills and training bills, we finally sold our half of Django (our old horse) to our friend that owns the other half of Django.

Shooting

Last Thursday, my dad and I went shooting to try out my brand new 22 caliber riffle. The riffle has absolutely no kick and the lever action is very smooth. We through two boxes of bullets.

Disaster on Skyline

On New Year's Eve day, my mom and I were going (horse) riding with our friend Curt at Skyline Ridge open space preserve. When we got there we all got out of the truck to get the horses out of the trailer. The first horse came out perfectly. Then, my mom went into the trailer to push out the second horse. But, he was not untied, as he was supposed to be. He started to back out of the trailer, but his rope became taught. He sat on his back legs and then lunged forward. His front legs went up, then down, and his hoof went right down into my mom's face. She was bleeding by her hairline her, right eye, and her left eye. Our friend Curt helped my mom at first. About five minutes later, an Open Space ranger drives into the parking lot. When she looked at my mom she decided to call the fire department. About five minutes later, two fire trucks came in, followed by two additional rangers. They decided to take her to Stanford Hospital. Then, the sheriff and an ambulance arrived. Shortly after the ambulence left with my mom, Curt and I took the horses back to the barn and from the barn we would go to Stanford. When we got to Stanford Hospital my mom was almost ready to go home. They told us that she had a broken nose and they gave her stitches in three places. The next day she had two horribly black eyes, a swolen nose that was various shades of yellow, green, and mulberry which matched the shirt she was wearing perfectly. Talk about accessorizing!

Today, she has big purple things under her eyes.