Millions of peaches... and tomoatoes... and melons...

It's been a rather busy couple of weeks around the old Brown home.

Last weekend we drove up to Cheney, Washington to deliver our precious girl to Eastern Washington University. Tara has studied hard and is thinking she will probably major in Physical Anthropology. Eastern is one of the best colleges for this. We are so proud but it is very hard not having her around the home... she is sorely missed but we are extremely proud of our lovely daughter...go Eagles!

My job has been somewhat exciting to say the least... first the announcement that HP was thinking of spinning off the PC business after not meeting forecast (but still turning more profit than anyone else in consumer PC market)... and then second, CEO Leo steps down and HP gets a new CEO, and then 3rd, I hear important news regarding my immediate manager which has important implications to me (which I cannot divulge at this time).
I did very well in HP's experts day. Work was a little too busy that day with a video shoot and a couple of fire drills that I only got to spend a few hours answering customer questions on the support forums, but I still came in 8th (out of about 200) .. but the best part is that I got several solutions and kudos from happy customers --- I love helping people.

The garden! It is spitting vegetables out left and right. The peach tree gave us hundreds of the best peaches I have ever ate in my life. We gave bags away, dried many of them, made peach cobbler, and grandpa even made up a yummy peach pie (of which I have not had a chance to eat). At the same time we harvested cantaloupes - the last one came off today. They are mostly smallish with only 3-4 getting store size - but they are juicy sweet and yummy. I have 11 watermelons on the vine and they should be absolutely yummy this next weekend. We also have about 30 pumpkins some of which will probably be too ripe by Halloween (and some will be too green). Of course we have thousands of cherry tomatoes. The normal sized tomatoes are mostly still green, but we are still getting about 5 good ones a week (I think the dogs are eating them). Lastly, I do live in Idaho and I am especially happy to have been able to harvest potatoes today. Digging up taters can be very rewarding and fun... i think taters are about my favorite plant to pick (but peaches taste better).

 Pets: we have a new addition to the Brown family home - meet Arrow the arrowana. Anyone who knows me well knows that a silver arrowana is my favorite fish, but they are hard to keep. We lost a few in the past due to them jumping out. Well, this time I fully enclose the top canopy of the tank by adding a wood back with cutouts for the filters, pumps and hoses. The little bugger can't jump out because their is no "out". He should live a long happy, healthy life in our 120+ tank. We also added a bristlenose algae eater and a pearl gourami to Tara's tank (which is being kept up by Jordan while she is away).

Other things:

• Had a lovely time reading Hosea with my friends in Care Group (church).
• Tammy is working with Jesse on a new program that is more flexible and has several advantages over his previous one.
• Enjoyed having Jesse's friend Tobbe Friday night and Saturday for fun and games.
• Took Tobbe and the boys out Saturday for a car wash and some KFC.
• Cuts more rocks, but nothing really special jumped out at me.. rock saw gave me a little grief but it wasn't anything big.
• The clothes dryer and I duked it out. I ended up winning, but not before I took the whole thing apart and put it back together again. I give it two weeks max before it starts growling again.
• Jacob, Jordan, and Jesse are into magic cards and

That sums up this last week's life in Brown town. Enjoy your life on this planet and see you soon.

It's Spring.... Lets go Rockhounding!

Well, we all had cabin fever pretty bad around the Brown home. Jordan had been bugging me for weeks to go out and look for rocks. So, we finally got out and did it.

We woke up a little early for a Saturday morning and we all hurried up to finish up our chores. By 10:00 a.m. we were off. We were not out of Boise long before our first adventure hit. Some nice lady riding a bike had a minor accident and had fallen onto the sidewalk. We stopped to make sure she was fine... she was. The only thing hurt was her pride. Once that was out the way, we ventured on.

I wanted to go somewhere remote and somewhere we had never gone before. Most of our best finds had been around the Succor creek area, and we had pretty good luck in the canyon below the Morrisonite claims. So, the next logical location would be somewhere between the two sites, somewhere south of Mahogany Mountain.

We headed down US 95 and took the southern entrance to Succor Creek road. After passing a 4 wheeler, a motorcycle and a bunch of cowboys herding cattle, we came to our turnoff. We ended up stopping for a break at this point. We let the dogs and boys out and hunted around for rocks. Succor creek has some amazing picture jasper if you can find it. We did. Both Tammy and I found same great chunks of picture jasper, while my sons found jasper with very interesting patterns.

We drove and drove slowing down at times and looking at the side of the road for any sign of good rock. It took a long time to go about 30 miles. During this whole time we only passed 2 people and they were on horseback... I certainly got my wish for a remote location.


Rough area of where we played

Eventually we stopped on a hunch and to take care of some business - this turned out to be one of the best rock sites we have ever chanced upon. The view was amazing, the rocks were plentiful, the air smelled so good - filled with the fresh scent of new sage.



Tammy with Ginger - pretty view

Off the road a little way we found rocks of deep red and green and pocketed with small, solid thundereggs filled mostly with opal. Sometimes we would find blue opel and one specimen showed fire. Beautiful stuff.

We had also found some green jasper in decent quantity and size. Lots and lots of agate - layered druzy that was built up like fire agate, some lacy matierial, a little seem agate, a little fortification agate, and lots of water line agate from thundereggs that had eroded.

After scouring the ground for a few hours we all headed up a hill to a cliff face that was pocketed with lots of holes...which is usually a good sign for thundereggs. Instead of thundeggs, we found lots of small geodes and the boys had a blast cracking them open. Most of the time they had brown or clear crystals inside, but a few were lined with amethyst and sparkled purpled. No big crystals but a lot of fun.



Jordan finding geodes

Jacob looking at a collection of small geodes

After lots of fun, work, and sun we all climbed in Jeep and headed back.

On the way, the boys got to see a Sheep herder and his dogs drive a fairly large herd of sheep across the desert.

By the time we got home, we were all dog gone pooped out.

I will leave with one last picture of our "haul".

You know... Po --Ta -- Toes, mash 'em up...

It's been a rather busy couple of weeks around the old Brown home.

Last weekend we drove up to Cheney, Washington to deliver our precious girl to Eastern Washington University. Tara has studied hard and is thinking she will probably major in Physical Anthropology. Eastern is one of the best colleges for this. We are so proud but it is very hard not having her around the home... she is sorely missed but we are extremely proud of our lovely daughter...go Eagles!


My job has been somewhat exciting to say the least... first the announcement that HP was thinking of spinning off the PC business after not meeting forecast (but still turning more profit than anyone else in consumer PC market)... and then second, CEO Leo steps down and HP gets a new CEO, and then 3rd, I hear important news regarding my immediate manager which has important implications to me (which I cannot divulge at this time).
I did very well in HP's experts day. Work was a little too busy that day with a video shoot and a couple of fire drills that I only got to spend a few hours answering customer questions on the support forums, but I still came in 8th (out of about 200) .. but the best part is that I got several solutions and kudos from happy customers --- I love helping people.



The garden! It is spitting vegetables out left and right. The peach tree gave us hundreds of the best peaches I have ever ate in my life. We gave bags away, dried many of them, made peach cobbler, and grandpa even made up a yummy peach pie (of which I have not had a chance to eat). At the same time we harvested cantaloupes - the last one came off today. They are mostly smallish with only 3-4 getting store size - but they are juicy sweet and yummy. I have 11 watermelons on the vine and they should be absolutely yummy this next weekend. We also have about 30 pumpkins some of which will probably be too ripe by Halloween (and some will be too green). Of course we have thousands of cherry tomatoes. The normal sized tomatoes are mostly still green, but we are still getting about 5 good ones a week (I think the dogs are eating them). Lastly, I do live in Idaho and I am especially happy to have been able to harvest potatoes today. Digging up taters can be very rewarding and fun... i think taters are about my favorite plant to pick (but peaches taste better).



Pets: we have a new addition to the Brown family home - meet Arrow the arowana. Anyone who knows me well knows that a silver arowana is my favorite fish, but they are hard to keep. We lost a few in the past due to them jumping out. Well, this time I fully enclose the top canopy of the tank by adding a wood back with cutouts for the filters, pumps and hoses. The little bugger can't jump out because there is no "out". He should live a long happy, healthy life in our 120+ tank. We also added a bristle nose algae eater and a pearl gourami to Tara's tank (which is being kept up by Jordan while she is away).

Other things:
• Had a lovely time reading Hosea with my friends in Care Group (church).
• Tammy is working with Jesse on a new program that is more flexible and has several advantages over his previous one.
• Enjoyed having Jesse's friend Tobbe Friday night and saturday for fun and games.
• Took Tobbe and the boys out Saturday for a car wash and some KFC.
• Cuts more rocks, but nothing really special jumped out at me.. rock saw gave me a little grief but it wasn't anything big.
• The clothes dryer and I duked it out. I ended up winning, but not before I took the whole thing apart and put it back together again. I give it two weeks max before it starts growling again.
• Jacob, Jordan, and Jesse are into magic cards and minecraft big-time ... with a little bit of League of Legends on the side.

That sums up this last week's life in Brown town. Enjoy your life on this planet and see you soon.

Finally - Randy updates his "weekly" blog

Here is some catch-up on the Brown family...

My lovely wife bought an old camper. She wants to so some camping this year and I can't say that I blame her. Sounds like a good idea to me. It's an older Ideal camper, 70s model... and it's paid for! She has been working hard to clean it up - it is very nice and roomy on the inside. We just put new tires on it.

From Jun 10, 2011

From Jun 10, 2011

My daughter graduated from Bora High - Go Lions!!!

From Jun 10, 2011

From Jun 10, 2011

Here is a garden update... complete with the garden shed (now roofed).

From Jun 10, 2011

From Jun 10, 2011

...and last weekend we went out hunting for morel mushrooms, just to get out of the house and into the woods for a few hours. We found a few, took them home, and fried them up - yummy!

From Jun 10, 2011

From Jun 10, 2011

From Jun 10, 2011

We also had a few rockhounding adventures. 2 to be exact. 1 involved bring a horned toad lizard home and then another bringing him back and setting him free :) Mostly went up around graveyard point looking for tumblers and whatever was pretty. Lots of plume agate everywhere.

From Jun 10, 2011

I'm really getting more into rocks and am having dreams of Jasper halls. I cut and polished a small slab of Biggs Jasper this week, but I need more oil for the saw before I can do much more.

There's a few more things I need to add from some recently completed projects and happenings. I'll see if I can't get more into the swing of updating this blog on a more regular basis.

Christmas

The Brown family had a wonderful Christmas! We wish everyone a happy new year for 2011!

July stuff

We travel to the Deschutes river in Oregon to meet up with family and do a little camping and rock hounding at Bigg's Junction.

Boy was it hot! It was all worth it though, I met mom, dad, brother and sister-in-law and we finally get to meet my little niece!

I finally start building a 16-12 shed. After we had the concrete foundation poured, I start getting the frame up.

June Stuff

School's out! Jordan is getting really good on the trombone and plays for the "graduation" ceremony.

Jacob gets an award for walking miles and miles at recess.

Jordan gets an award for being a smart kid.

We take a road trip to Seattle...

...to go to the Benaroya Research facility. Jordan is at the end of a medical study so we mixed business with a little pleasure and took a mini family vacation.




Also in June we had the famous Grace church Summer Bible Safari!

May stuff

I'm way behind on bloggin so I'm keeping it short 'n sweet. Here are the top items in May.

My daughter Tara got a big French award and made it into the honor society.

Here she is again going to prom... she is very happy because she went with a ton of her friends and they had a really good time.

Also in May, I scored a pretty good deal from Craig's list. I got a working T2 arcade game and a semi-working original Donkey Kong in decent shape for $500.

Easter Sunrise

For us, Easter morning started at 5:30. The boys were up very early getting into their baskets. We all scrambled to wake up and get out the door to attend a sunrise service among our friends.

We arrived on top of "the mountain" at 7:05.

It was cold. Really cold. A strong, icy wind was blowing hard and the outside temperature was a frigid 27 degrees.

We all huddled together inside the garage. Our hosts had generously prepared refreshements and heaters...the heaters were a very popular item.

We had a wonderful service as the sun rose up over the hills.


The singing was beautiful and it was nice to commune with good friends in such a lovely setting.

A Teardrop of Queenstone

Saturday called for the first rockhound field trip in 2010 for the Idaho Rock and Gem club.

The club met in Nampa at 7:30, but my boys and I decided to go at the last minute (7:45 Saturday). We ended up finding the club out in the field at the Queenstone claim - a jasper site just off highway 95 south. A lot of people showed up.




It was a beautiful day in Boise, but an icy wind was blowing at the site. A little bit of a tough start - not too bad though.

The first thing we did was march right on up past all the rock hunters and checked out the nearest, largest rock formation. There were veins of jasper throughout the old rock stacks, but most were thin and not worth the effort of picking out. Much of the jasper at this spot was brownish in color - sometimes green. Most of the good stuff must have been stuck in rock that had long since eroded away and deposited on (or under) the ground - but where?


We climbed back down, which was a bit harrowing at times, and then meandered about the hills checking out the rocks on the ground. We kind of swept back and forth across the small hills, looking for clues. The place had been picked over really good, but I ended up developing a theory that panned out pretty good for us.


I ended up finding a line pattern of the little stuff, the stuff people would leave on the ground. Jordan and I followed this pattern over the hill and hit a pretty darn good trail, once we got away from the crowd. We found blue, green, and auburn colored jasper, some of it mixed together. Very pretty stuff. Jordan found a small piece on the ground that will make an amazing cabochon - it has two strands of gold flowing through a blue medium. Most of the good stuff we found was seriously embedded in rock - a softer volcanic matrix, but still far more tougher than bare hands. We had not come prepared. We still managed to retrieve some of the nicer jasper by smashing the rocks with larger rocks - neanderthal-style!

After a few hours, the party packed up and went down the road a ways to one of very few fire opal claim called Wang Doodle. This opal was teany tiny stuff coming out of the bubbles in red volcanic rock - you know... the really rough rock that has lots of larger air bubbles in it. Well, sometimes these bubbles are not filled with air or gas, they are filled with chalcedony - usually agate, sometimes opal, and much more rarely - fire opal. Again, we were not prepared. We had shovels and a rake and turned up more than a few rocks, but we did not have a pick to break the opals out of the rock. Still, we had some fun and even found a few small opals that had some really nice fire to them!

eventually, we picked up and headed for home. Here is the rather small pile of jasper in the rough. Most of it is the brownish-green stuff that we pick up from the ground. But if you look close you can see some of the good stuff in there too.




When Sunday rolled around, I couldn't help myself, I just had to see what it would like polished. I took one of the smaller shard of the blue stuff that had broken off from my caveman smashes and turned out this rather nice teardrop...



If my sister is reading this, I'm still waiting to get at my Christmas rocks - I need to buy a new saw blade for the rock saw - about $175.

Also, just so everyone out there doesn't think that I'm a total slacker, I did install a new storm door. It wasn't all fun and games over the weekend ;)