We headed back to Sacramento in late January and we encountered some rather surprising high desert snow north of Palm Springs. We spent February in Sacramento and then in March we returned to Sutter Creek, in the Sierra Foothills east of Sacramento. We had watched five cats in Sutter Creek last summer and we were invited back to watch them again. The cats seemed to remember us and they were less skittish and more friendly. We had gotten to know Sutter Creek in the summer, and early spring is a different environment. A little creek runs through the property, and what was a trickle in the summer became a raging torrent in the winter.
In early April we spent a week in Carmel with a group of long-time friends. We rented a beautiful house that was roomy enough for the nine of us. We enjoyed our companionship and we took several long walks along the beach, as well as touring the nearby old mission. We spent Charlie’s birthday back in Oakland with Andy. We went out for both brunch and dinner and in the meantime we went to the wonderful Oakland Museum of California.
We returned to Sacramento for a couple of weeks and stayed at a house in the beautiful Elmhurst neighborhood, an area that we had not explored before. Then, in May we went to Ojai and watched two cats, Buff and Bama, that we have watched before. Our friends were on vacation for a few weeks so we took care of everything for them. They have a beautiful yard with several bird feeders so we were serenaded by birds every day. They also have cameras in several places throughout the property, and let us know that they saw a racoon raid their owl box one night and took 2 owlets while the mama was out hunting. Unfortunately, the racoon returned to finish off the last owlet the next night. We discovered the tamale vendor at the weekly Ojai Farmers Market, so we had delicious tamales every Thursday. While we were in Ojai we had several opportunities to visit family in nearby Camarillo.
We are now back in Sacramento and we are changing our approach to travel. We have rented a small furnished apartment for a year and we are going to use it as a home base. We found that we were doing more and more pet sitting and returning to Sacramento between sits, so it makes sense to have a place to land where we can keep our things. We will still be doing lots of pet sitting and travel. We are already scheduled to spend August and September back in Sutter Creek, and we are planning a trip to the East Coast (New England and eastern Canada) for about a month in October to attend some sheep and wool festivals. After that, who knows? We really like our apartment. We have stayed here several times before and it is right at the edge of the Fabulous Forties, one of the nicest neighborhoods in Sacramento and a great place to walk. An added plus is that our place is within walking distance of CVS, Trader Joe’s, the local lab for drawing blood, an independent grocery store, and a Fedex office. Pretty nice.
