At Home on the Mountain

Mountain
Looking out to Monterey Bay

Months now of sheltering-in-place due to the corona virus. After living many years on top of this mountain I have come to know a number of my close neighbors. (This means people living within three miles.) Some are new, some have left. But now we have come together with our new reality. I have met a number of the newcomers, as well as old friends, as they take this forced opportunity to walk on the trail that goes past the house. We chat at a safe distance. I have had many offers of help if I need it. I would not want to live anywhere else!

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Peaceful Moments

I love my mountain. Spring, summer, fall, winter, I can think of no place I would rather be. Tonight, after a hot summer day. I have all the windows and doors wide open. When I step outside, the half moon high above casts faint shadows of the trees. Low in the west is a bright star, or maybe planet. To the east of the moon is another bright beacon in space. I do not know the names of the stars and planets, but it doesn’t matter to me. They are part of my vast universe which includes the Milky Way sweeping from south to north up our driveway.

Crickets chirp. Our small pond splashes with water cascading over rocks. Frogs croak. Voices from neighbors down the road punctuate the solitude and faint music that would be too loud for me up close echoes softly from another house.

Two years of Covid have kept me in this spot most of the time, but I have met many more of my neighbors walking on the trail past the house than I have in the past. My faithful cat companion keeps me company and talks to me. All things pass, but there is some joy in the moment.

internet antenna

In Touch with the New Universe Again

Back on the internet again after two and a half days. In some ways it was a rather refreshing break and made me realize how much I rely on it. It all started during high winds at night. Being in the mountains means we rely on a rather roundabout internet connection. So when a tree across the canyon fell on a power pole in the night, it affected the relay that sends the signal to us. Fortunately our power did not go out and the weather is cool and wet enough that it couldn’t start a fire.

Antenna pointed across the valley

Looking to the next ridge for our internet signal

Later that day the power company tried to fix the line but needed a new big pole. The only way to get one to this rather remote location was by helicopter. The road in has so many curves that a truck hauling a long pole can not get there. In the afternoon I saw a huge helicopter across the canyon circle a few times, head for the side of the mountain and then swiftly leave. I did not know at the time what it was doing. I did not find out until later that it had gone in to drop the pole. Our estimated time for getting things back online was 5 p.m.

But the helicopter could not drop the pole at the exact location where it was needed. The power company had to figure out some way to transport it there. I am not sure how they did it, but the new time estimate was 11 p.m.

Dawn came and we turned on our computers. Still no connection. I called, Loren, our internet provider, again. He was once again out troubleshooting the problem. He purchases the signal for those of us in some of these rather remote mountainous areas from Comcast. It is then relayed to locations that have a direct line of sight to send the signal on to us. In this case the location was one he had secured from a homeowner who lived on the opposite ridge. The homeowner, who has solar power as well as a land line, was on vacation out of the country. For some reason when the power was restored, the solar power and the landline had not synced properly and no power was getting through to the internet transmitter.

Myth #1: One bad night drscoinc.com levitra prescription equals a problem. There seems to be a television commercial about purchasing cialis online it every two minutes. It is quite common for patients to inject insulin to maintain normal value through their bodies, especially if one takes the necessary precautions and safety measures. viagra pills from canada Considering the remedy of this specific disease, cialis viagra for women is medically proved to be an effective anti-ED capsule. Fortunately Loren had a regular door key to access the area where the transmitter is and managed to get things straightened out by evening. But we still could not bring up an internet signal so went to bed incommunicado for another night.

In the morning I contacted him again. He checked everything on his end and it seemed to be working, but he could not get a signal from our antenna. He decided he needed to come up to trouble shoot the problem.

It was a beautiful sunny day as he sat outside by our antenna checking the signal. The good news was that all seemed to be working there. So he came in to see where the problem might be on our end. In the past he has instructed me to unplug the router, wait twenty seconds, and plug it back in to let it recycle. I had done that several times during the past two days. Aha! I was the problem! I had plugged one of the cables into the wrong socket. (I thought yellow should go into yellow and blue into blue–but no!) When it was plugged in correctly, I could access the internet on my computer!

But here was the puzzle. My husband could not on his computer. More troubleshooting was called for. This one turned out to be easy. There are two cables in the router that connect each of our two computers to the internet. When he had fixed my mistake by plugging in the cables correctly,  Loren had failed to push the other cable completely into its socket. As soon as it clicked in, everything clicked in. And here I am at last able to tell you my tale.

The simple life of letters mailed with postage stamps and phone calls on party lines has passed into history. But I will take it in stride. Oh, and did I mention? Our internet provider (Loren at Hilltop Internet) lives just up the next hill over and has a vineyard and winery as well. And, most important of all, answers his own phone whenever I need to call him.

Persimmons!

I just ate my first persimmon. It was good!

Several decades ago a neighbor planted a persimmon tree close to where our two properties adjoined each other. She had just built a new house with a beautiful view of the valley below on a formerly vacant piece of land on our mountain. She planted a terraced orchard of fruit trees between our houses. But she died shortly after and never had a chance to reap the benefits of her orchard. The trees soon became obscured by brush and mountain natives.

Our current neighbor recently cleared much of the brush and revealed what was left of the orchard she planted. Some of the trees had died. Others had lived—but barely—without enough sunshine, pruning, and TLC. But the persimmon tree—the tree closest to us—still looked beautiful and by this fall was sporting lovely fruit.

Growing up in Iowa I had almost no knowledge of persimmons. I may have known that they were fruit that grew on the other side of the world, but I am not sure I even knew that. I became more familiar with the existence of persimmons when I moved to California some time ago, but only because of my contacts with the Asian community.

When these persimmons that I can see from where I am writing this started turning a beautiful crimson-orange color, my attention and appetite were whetted. One day when our neighbor was gone, I went out and pilfered (stole?) a persimmon from his tree. What should I do now? It looked ripe but was not soft. It felt a little like a ripe apple. What do you do with a persimmon? How do you eat it?
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ripe persimmon

I did what any modern septuagenarian would do. I Googled it. I found a wealth of information. The most important had to do with the two types—non-astringent (that are shaped like a tomato) and astringent (that are shaped like an acorn). It was clear that I was dealing with an astringent persimmon. I was cautioned not to eat it until it was soft if I wanted to avoid mouth-puckering acidic reactions.

The persimmon sat on the counter for over a week. Little by little it softened, but I was still fearful. Today I took the plunge. I cut the persimmon in half and put it on the plates for us to enjoy (I hoped) with our champagne brunch. I warned my husband—who also had never eaten a persimmon—about it. I told him that I read that you should scoop it out of its skin with a spoon. But while I was gingerly scooping out the pulp, he picked his half up and ate it skin and all. So, I picked up the skin and ate it too. The whole thing was delicious!

I just went out and picked another one to put on the counter to ripen. Our neighbor may need to put a fence around his tree to keep me from sneaking over in the dark of night and pilfering persimmons.

Me Too

It may be time to tell my story too.

I grew up in a time (many decades ago) where your private life was kept private—even to your parents.

Looking back on my life many years later, I still can remember two incidents vividly.

The first happened in the sixth grade. I was in Glenda Greutzmacher’s class at Perkins Elementary School in Des Moines, Iowa. I had just started learning to play the flute. Once a week I was dismissed from class for a half hour to take a flute lesson at the school. The individual classes were held in a small room half a flight above the second floor. My flute teacher, a local man, came in weekly for the lesson. The thing I most vividly remember about these lessons was that he would repeatedly stroke my upper leg. I thought this was odd but never mentioned it. Nothing further happened.
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Then when I was around 25 or 26 and newly married another incident happened. My former husband and I had just moved to a new city. One of his friends, who I knew too, already lived there. We went to visit him and have him show us around one weekend. After an evening on the town, and there had been a little drinking involved although I did not do much, we returned to his two-bedroom apartment on a Saturday night. My husband decided to call it a night and went to bed. I remained in the living room talking to our friend when suddenly I was assaulted. He leaped on me and tried to pull off my clothes. I fought and could not believe this was happening. I managed to escape to our bedroom.

These were the kinds of events that I grew up knowing I should never mention because, somehow, I would be the one who would be seen as being at fault (for being female, I guess).

Because of this I have never told anyone about these except very recently, my husband. But now, more than fifty years later, it is time.

Cræft, an Inquiry into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional Crafts

Cræft: An Inquiry Into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional CraftsCræft: An Inquiry Into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional Crafts by Alexander Langlands
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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