Just thought you might want to see a few pics of our visit with Mike and Rachel--am I right? He's been out here visiting from his home in Chicago and, on their way to spend a couple of days skiing near Truckee, they hung out with us for a day or two.
They arrived Tuesday evening. Rachel had to work most of Wednesday (Kronos!), so Mike, with exceeding good nature, let me drag him around to show him the garden, thriving vermiculture bins, HUGE mushrooms in the yard, favorite books and other fascinating features of our lives here.
Plus, I needed help to transform our Shopsmith Table Saw into the Shopsmith Band Saw, so we spent some time out in the shop staring at the instructions (which might as well have been written in Chinese) before finally succeeding by staring at the actual pieces. Mike is a building contractor/finish carpenter and knows from tools.
Wednesday evening, we went to dinner at a tapas restaurant (Club 141) and had a great time in a cool place with delicious food including, of course, some lovely mushrooms.
Thursday, they packed up and, dressed for a ski day, posed for a few photos. After, that is, having to gasp once more at the giant mushrooms. Seriously large mushrooms (that's Rachel up there getting a closer look at a huge chanterelle). Of several different sorts.
It was fun, went by too quickly and we look forward to more times like it. Though, if Mike shows up next time with a laptop, claiming a need to "work" all day, I'll know I maybe overdid it just a bit...