Snowy Mts, Clouds, My Honda, Spring Flowers & Buds, LaGrange~The Town & Mine History, Humming Bird, Ricky Treed

Hi Everyone,
I have a variety of pictures today. Just check these links 20070402 and 20070404 and 20070405 to see ALL of the shots individually and/or to view my slide show album. Your choice, ok!!
I was down in the garden area just looking around after taking some pine needles down to dump them. I noticed that our Oaks trees are already blooming and it's early this year. Some of our chain link fencing that we used as the outer fencing the garden and then cattle fencing for the rest of the lower 20 acres, where dad had a really nice garden area, while we still had free flowing water from a spring from way up the hill above our property. He also had a few chickens, a couple of goats for their milk and mom had some guinea fowl.
Then I took a shot of our cat Lucy, because even tho she looks like she's sleeping, she was listening to every move of Kathy and me. She'd even crack one eyelid just a bit sometimes, but closed them as I was taking her picture, eh!!
Then a commercial came on tv and I had Kathy to pause the show, grabbed my camera and took 3-4 shots for my sister that just loves anything with butterflies. Just for you Jo!! ;-))
Then of course more cloud & snowy mts pictures because I love clouds and our snow is melting way to quickly!!
For those of you that do NOT know it, Weaverville has a very long gold mining history, so while I was out today on my bike and doing our weekly mail run, banking, prescriptions, etc, I drove over the west side of Oregon Summit and took some pictures of one of the Giant Monitors that was used to do some hydraulic mining and to open up the mountains for gold mining and building a new highway from Weaverville to Junction City and continue on to Arcata/Eureka area on the coast. I left most of the 'LaGrangeMine' pictures 'full size' so you could read all the history of the mine and town of La Grange, but I reduced them enough that that should open fairly quickly. This did make some of the smaller print harder to read, but if you read most of the words you'll get the drift, eh!!
I will mention a couple of points tho ... the old stagecoach highway from Redding, CA, thru Weaverville and over to Junction City was via Oregon Street out of Weaverville. That's the road I now live on and since my brother had built a 'custom/show' stagecoach vehicle with a hot DeTomaso mid-engine inside the body and was driven up front just as in the olden days, he had a wooden sign built that says 'Keefs Stagecoach Stop', that is placed on a knoll by our driveway!! ;-)) Plus, the NEW highway was opened to the public in 1940, the year I was born. Go figure, eh!! ;-))
So I hope you enjoy all the new pics and the history lesson too!!
When you get to the 'TrashTrip' pics, a lot of people don't understand that we live up in the mountains and nothing is flat with the exceptions of our house, deck and tiny yard area. Our 3 water tanks are on one level, our house on lower level, our 2 garages on a lower level and our rental house on a lower level and then our garden is on yet an even lower level AND we have to cross Oregon Street and go downhill a few hundred feet to the garden area roadway!! So everything we do around here involves going either UPHILL or DOWNHILL!! And since I've been cleaning up the grounds on our property, and my truck is a six-cylinder 'freeway flyer' a NOT a 4x4 with a big V-8, I can't just load it up with a ton of crap and drive it down into the dump area at the bottom of our garden!! I know, because I tried it ONE TIME and almost had to call someone to come pull me out!! But I had enough room to start sideways to the roadway to gain a little momentum and then I pushed the accelerator down to the floor and when I barely climbed over the ridge of the roadway, I looked both ways and just held the throttle wide open till I got back to my driveway!! This was after making 2 attempts that failed AND after letting about 15# of air out of the rear tires. And old trucker's trick to get out of muddy areas, eh!! ;-))
So I use a large Rubbermaid trash container with wheels to make many, many trips down and back up, over and over till the job is finally done, eh!! Like Tuesday the 3rd I made 2 trips and then today the 5th I made another 2 trips and that's about all my body can take in one day. But then I rake, pile, trim, clear, etc to make myself even more trips, eh!! I think win I win the lottery, I'll get me a 4x4 truck?? I just hope you all enjoy my pictures and think of me every so often, eh!! ;-))
Later, 'Viper'