I was honestly concerned when my English (South Country) SIL came to live here. I had to sit him down and discuss things like unprotected flesh freezing, and not to lick lamp poles. When I went over there for the wedding, his mother warned me to bring heavy coats, because it was dipping down to the thirties at night. LOL. That's sweater weather to me, so I ignored the advise. We had a heavy frost one morning and she actually buys little cans of de-icer for the car's window glass. I had to ask her what it was. She was surprised I was unfamiliar with it and asked me what I used. UHM...........ice scrapers, drain spades, chisels, whatever does the job. Sure enough there were many accidents that morning, and sure enough after three days of it, I was freezing my butt off and hunted for pubs with fireplaces. It really does feel cold there when there is frost on the palm trees.

There was a nice lady, a minister's widow, who was a little old fashioned. She was planning a week's vacation in California at Skylake Yosemite campground (Bass Lake, to the uninitiated), but she wanted to make sure of the accommodations first. Uppermost in her mind were bathroom facilities, but she couldn't bring herself to write "toilet" in a letter. After considerable deliberation, she settled on "bathroom commode," but when she wrote that down, it still sounded too forward, so, after the first page of her letter, she referred to the bathroom commode as "BC." "Does the cabin where I will be staying have its own 'BC'? If not, where is the 'BC' located?" is what she actually wrote. The campground owner took the first page of the letter and the lady's check and gave it to his secretary. He put the remainder of the letter on the desk of the senior member of his staff without noticing that the staffer would have no way of knowing what "BC" meant. Then the owner went off to town to run some errands. The staff member came in after lunch, found the letter, and was baffled by the euphemism, so he showed the letter around to several counselors, but they couldn't decipher it either. The staff member's wife, who knew that the lady was the widow of a famous Baptist preacher, was sure that it must be a question about the local Baptist Church. "Of course," the first staffer exclaimed, "'BC' stands for 'Baptist Church.' " And he sat down and wrote: Dear Madam, I regret very much the delay in answering your letter, but I now take the pleasure in informing you that the BC is located nine miles north of the campground and is capable of seating 250 people at one time. I admit it is quite a distance away if you are in the habit of going regularly, but no doubt you will be pleased to know that a great number of people take their lunches along and make a day of it. They usually arrive early and stay late. The last time my wife and I went was six years ago, and it was so crowded we had to stand up the whole time we were there. It may interest you to know that right now there is a supper planned to raise money to buy more seats. They are going to hold it in the basement of the 'BC.' I would like to say that it pains me very much not to be able to go more regularly, but it is surely no lack of desire on my part. As we grow older, it seems to be more of an effort, particularly in cold weather. If you decide to come down to our campground, perhaps I could go with you the first time, sit with you, and introduce you to all the folks. Remember, this is a friendly community."

I enjoyed your blog so much!!!! I had no idea you had such a huge ranch...my goodness, where you find the time? Loved seeing all the critters and glad to see the donkey with the frozen ears is doing well. Your daughter is brave young lady. I would have been scared to death to face another cow. But like my rancher uncle once said, "Edna, if you get bucked off, get right back on that horse. If he bucks you again..bite him on the ear". Edna

I'm not Bill but I like looking at tile jobs. I can see where she'd be disappointed but I think that if she could carefully pry off the tiles that make the vertical part of the border outside of the liner (away from the field) and replaces those with subway tile turned vertically so that it looks like there is a continuous "border" that wraps around the liner rather than a discontinuity between the field on the inside of the border and the field on the outside of the border, it would look okay. It may not be exactly what she envisioned but I think it would still look intentional. It's still not 100% ideal to have that top course of tile cut the way it is but I could probably live with that as long as the border didn't look so piecey.