Green Valley Lake Blog
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Well I am in sunny Arizona where it is still warm (but not hot) while Green Valley Lake got its first dusting of snow. Looking at it through the webcam it looks peaceful and quiet back at home.

I know alot of you are wondering if we got rain over the weekend and I can happily report that YES WE DID. We got alot of rain Saturday night. It sprinkled all day and was quite chilly but by Saturday night it started pouring. The power went out once for about 10 minutes. No surprise there!! We lose power alot. I was upstairs watching TV when the lightning started and a huge boom of thunder that shook the house. At that point I think we were right inside the rain cloud. It rained all night, sometimes heavy sometimes just a sprinkle.

The cats hid all night, since they are not used to the sound of rain.. The pine tree over our roof kept hitting us with pinecone bombs all night which was pretty spooky. In the morning I saw all these heavy, unripened pine cones all over the place. The squirrels were happy as larks.

The temperature is starting to turn more cool everyday. This morning it was around 30 degrees when I got up. My little maple tree that we planted in the spring finally lost all of its leaves. I will be anxious to see if it lives through the winter and to see its little leaves in the spring. We took real good care of it all summer and I hope it was enough.

With Halloween behind us I guess we now go forward into “the Holidays"! I will be spending Thanksgiving with my in-laws in Oklahoma. We do it country style with lots of pies and goodies.

A big THANKS to the Womens Club for the Haunted House and Trunk or Treat. There were about 10 trunkers last night and we all came with spooky, spider webby, eerie cars loaded with candy. We didn’t have too many treaters though, and even though that was disappointing, I was able to go home with a ton of candy. I am pretty sure that candy meant for someone else to eat is calorie free, so I can freely indulge.

We had some rain today. I heard the collective sigh of relief from the trees. For the most part it was gloomy all day and only teased us with a little rain but it did rain. Here’s hoping we get some more.

This weekend was one of those weekends where I remember why I moved up here. I think I spent the whole weekend sitting on my patio, soaking up warm fall sunshine, weaving a basket and listening to bluegrass. In my opinion “It don’t get any better then that".

Ok so I did go for one walk and there were alot of folks in town. I walked around the lake and talked to fisher people and fisher kids. Most struck out with getting any fish but John from Yucaipa was a happy fisherman with his string with 2 big fish on it. I am not a fish person so I don’t know what type they were but they were big. I have a picture of them on the home page. Check it out.

There were boaters out as well enjoying the last trip of the season. Remember that boats have to come out by Saturday. We are procrastinating about removing our boat so don’t be surprised if you see us out there Saturday morning dragging ours out of the lake.

From the sound of it the Haunted House was again a huge success. I had to miss it for family business. The OcktoberFest at the Lake Inn was also a huge success with standing room only. Cool.

Margaret mentioned that they need “trunkers” for the Trunk or Treat this coming Saturday. A “Trunker” is someone who decorates the trunk of their car and hands out candy to the kids. Its a lot of fun and a lot of making new friends. If you feel the urge to make the trunk of your car all Halloweeny drive downtown this Friday, get there in time to be decorated by 6 pm and join in the fun.

Hope to see you all there.

All day I thought about the one year anniversary of the fire. But that’s not unusual, I think about it every day. I am so grateful that my house was spared and my heart goes out to all those who suffered devastating loss. But there is still a lot of beauty here, and that is what I try to focus on. The beautiful oak trees with their leaves turning a bright golden yellow; when the sunlight shines through those leaves, it looks almost like a stained glass window. At night I love to take my dog for a short walk. I look up at the canopy of stars or at the moon rising over the tall pines, and I am overwhelmed at the beauty of it all. Over and over at moments like these I count my blessings and I say a prayer of thanksgiving for our firefighters who, against impossible odds, somehow managed to save my house and those of my neighbors. Thank you, a thousand times thank you.