Wow, it's been a while since I visited this place. We had Christmas, cold weather, rain, cold weather, New Year's Day, rain and sunny weather. It's has been all good, and busy. However, the Girl and I did take out an afternoon to head up to Julian. We just have to do that every year, it's a requirement and we gladly pursue it.

Pie is a food staple in Julian. You just don't go for the exercise of walking up and down hills to park your car. You go primarily for the pie, or the Wrong Branch. Either way, it's the food. If you are lucky, you might find a craft show in the town hall.

This is the newest offering from Mom's Pies. It is an apple dumpling. Basically, it's an apple wrapped in pie dough. I will say, it is very good. I like pie dough and I like apples, so it was a great way to return lost calories to the body after waking up and down the hills. I will say I came home and made some for the family and we all agreed that this is a great dessert.

Julian is a fun place to go, especially if there is snow. There wasn't any yet, though I will say I was surprised. It has been cold and rainy so I expected something. It was very chilly, my ears don't do well in the cold, so I will not go back without a hat. Using the "facilities" in Julian is quite a challenge. The town hall offers toilets at 25 cents, but if you walk the half block to the park you can go for free. I discovered this several years ago, and have utilized the park, and so have others, as evidenced by the line for the single stall toilet. Oh well, it pays to be prepared. Most of the eating establishments have the required facilities, but they really want you to purchase something to use their facilities.

Here is Stick Dog not laying on the sofa. What a maroon! (Bugs Bunny fans will appreciate that) He must be part princess to have to lay on pillows like that. He had a pretty fun holiday this year. Girl came and spent a week with us, his favorite person. He got presents and loved the tree in the living room. It was almost like having a child, though. We had to remove balls from the lower branches so that he cold go under it and do what ever it was he wanted to do. I think he was sneaking things behind there.

After the holidays, I started to dig up tree roots in the back yard. Our neighbors have 3 trees that have gnarly roots that know no boundaries. These roots are coming to the surface and cause the grass not to grow, if we wanted grass. They definitely cause the lawn mower some problems, so I try to get them up before they become stump size. If I am successful with the little ones, I may tackle the bigger ones. I did manage to wear out one hand saw and had to purchase a new one yesterday. All I can say is one less root is better than one more in the ground.

Now we are working well into the new year. Property management has continued to amuse me, at times. My latest interesting story is, "what do you mean the light switch will activate the wall outlet?" . Yes, it really does happen.