Which means that firewood has to be a serious agenda item. There are winters here in the Eel River valley where we have almost no freezing nights at all. This year does not seem to be one of them. I think that counting last night we've had 3 freezes already and winter has not officially begun yet. So after walking the dog around the ranch trail this morning I unlimbered the hydraulic log splitter. My first attempt was a failure. It just would not work. Similar to the computer sometimes. Mary Alice suggested I reset the wall socket, I did, and on the 3rd try we had lift-off.

My usual limit is 3 wheelbarrow loads. Each load is 6 or 7 rounds which split up into 12-20 pieces of firewood. For variety I try and take yard debris to one of my level-out-the-lawn projects which were made necessary by tearing down the old fence and moving the fence line outward (Eastward, if you're following this on your compass). Along the house side of the old fence the earth was about 1 foot higher than on the field side, and there was a kind of ditch along the field side also. The lawnmower hated this disjunction between the new lawn and the old, so I've been working to get it all level.

Just to add to the problems, there is the water line ditch filling project. When I moved the fence line out I had water lines run out to sprinklers mounted on the new fence so I can keep the new lawn green and have it as a fire barrier. This cost more than I like to think about, and did not impress the insurance company at all. But I like it. However, it involved running hundreds of feet of line in hundreds of feet of ditch which did not quite fill in smoothly. The lawnmower does not like the drop into the incompletely filled ditches, either. I take a shovel on the walks now to modify my trail, dig up black berries, and do a bit of backfilling on the waterline ditches each morning. Each morning that I get to walk, that is. Regular readers will note that I get up and out pretty early some days. Those days are not walk days.

Today, however, is a complete day. Got to walk with the dog, did a bit of trail work, split 4 wheelbarrow loads of firewood, and took two loads of debris to my leveling project. All before lunch. What a day!.

Off again at the crack of dawn. Out the door a 7:15 a.m. for the drive to Ukiah. You who know realize that this means an 8:30 a.m. court appearance is out of the question. But I was doing something on the civil calendar (forfeiture) and it started at 9:30. Its been cold but the Alderpoint road was not icy and as the road rose up the mountain I drove through clouds and then on the backside descended through them again to reach 101 at Garberville. The sun came out a bit later and the day turned warm and pleasant. Global warming is not all bad, hmm?'

But on the home front I notice a myriad of blackberry starts coming up on the land I paid so much to have cleared of them last summer. I have to get in there with my shovel and dig them up, but when...... And the lawn is growing now that the fall rains have come. I have to get out there and mow it. The big mower is in the shop (the clutch keeps going out) but its ready. I guess I'd better get in the truck and get the mower and hope for a reasonably dry weekend that will allow me to mow my greatly expanded yard. For fire safety I pushed the fence out about 50 feet along what seems like 1000' of the east boundary of the yard. Now I have a vast new area to mow. Partly marshy, partly hillside a bit steep to mow, partly very thick grass which seems to kill the clutch. Don't get me wrong, mowing the lawn is actually at least as much fun as spitting firewood with the hydraulic wood splitter. That reminds me, the cold snap has used up most of what I split a couple of weeks ago, so this weekend its back to the splitter. I did manage to split everything in the shed-shed and found way in the back long burried under logs a big stack of kindling. As soon as its used up I'm going to sweep the shed-shed, nail the back boards back on, and then fill it up with more wood. Perhaps I'll move the spliter in there. I can't use it in the rain now due to fears of electricution (its hydraulic, but its electric). Homestead life.

Drove out of Alderpoint, nestled on the Eel River at 400' elevation, and over Pratt Mountain very early this morning so I could make an 8:30 Eureka court date. It was dark when I left, and cold. The Volvo's red warning light for freezing road conditions was on almost before I left town and began climbing the 2000' to the pass. As I got closer to the top it began snowing. Light snow flurries falling but somehow never hitting the ground. The road stayed clear of snow, ice, or slush, but the temperature kept dropping and at the higher elevations snow was dusting the trees. Stopped for a shot and if I ever figure out how to post photos I'll let you see it.

I got between Fortuna and Eureka in the late 7ams and early 8ams. There was an incredible strong double rainbow. Stopped for shots. (See above for why you are not seeing it - if I find a blog provider that makes photos easier I'll move there). Nice drive. Tomorrow its off to Willits. More later.

It was a hell of a drive. The rain never let up from Alderpoint to San Raphael. Traffic was heavier than usual as Sunday is the end of the 4 day Thanksgiving weekend, and cars were kicking up so much spray that nothing but tail lights was visible ahead for much of the trip. Stopped for gas in Ukiah - which I had been touting as the lower end of the weather system with nothing but sunshine and joy south of it - and the Shell card didn't work at the pump. To get to the cashier meant crossing 100 feet of unprotected area, with the temperature in the 40s and the wind whipping the rain down hard, and I got wet and cold before the transaction was done. The rain and wind kept up for the rest of the drive. It was a bad time for the heater fan in the '94 Volvo not to work.

Then we met the witnesses, in Oakland. That went well, and we were driving back from Oakland by going up Telegraph Av to do some shopping. One thing led to another and we ended up eating dinner at Shen Hau, an excellent Chinese restaurant on College Av. The crowd was fascinating. Humboldt is mainly working class. The well-off just don't congregate enough to seem like a majority. Marin is mainly upper-middle class with relatively few visible minorities. There is a shopping center near San Rafael which is jam-packed with well dressed, fashionable, upper-middle class people and they are virtually all white people. I went there recently to buy some new court shoes at Nordstroms, and took Montgomery to eat at the Cheesecake Factory, in part to reconfirm this statement. Still true, a few orientals, but mostly well-dressed, well groomed, white people there. Berkeley's college Ave is another UMC haunt, but the customers (and staff) in Shen Hau were from all over the world. Asians, black people, white people, mixed couples. It was a scene unlike any I've been in in recent memory. I miss Berkeley, in some ways. This was one. Perhaps its a false nostalgia, but I'm a big one for one humanity on this one world, and it was wonderful to see it in reality.

The food was excellent also. Its a don't miss if you are going to Berkeley.

Busy day. I have a trial scheduled for Monday in Marin county. You never know for sure if a trial will happen. Many criminal cases are settled on the morning the trial is to begin. I don't think this one will be, and in any event you can't make your plans based on that idea, you have to be ready to go slug it out. So Monty and I spent the afternoon putting together motions and checking out witness statements. Its a tiring way to spend the weekend. But tomorrow we drive south, meet witnesses, confer with clients, and off to the motel. The only bright spot is that the weather forecast for Sohum & north is snow, as low as 1500 feet before the storm passes over entirely, so the local roads will not be any fun for us rural lawyers to travel on our way to court. If the trial goes, I won't be doing that. I'll be snow free, perhaps even storm free, in Marin. That's the bright spot in all this prep.