Feb 24th - A Slow Day

I didn't do much today. Kathy went down and helped with the food give away at the little church down the block.

This morning we went to the Farmer's Market in downtown Oakland, maybe 35 blocks from here. It is interesting if you do nothing more than just people watch. Today's bonus was that the musician in the center of the Market (they have always had a musical group of some type) was good. In my humble, tone deaf, classic country and western loving, opinion. He played mostly blues.

In addition to liking the music I was amazed at his coordination. At times he was playing the guitar, a harmonica, and a tambourine on each of his feet, simultaneously. When he started tapping his feet, the tambourines, to different beats, while playing the other instruments I was just in awe.

It even got better when a couple stopped with a child. The little boy stood still but was focused on watching the musician. When the musician would finish a song the little boy would bend one knee a few times, like he wanted more music. When the guy saw this he did a bunch of children's songs (like the "wheels on the bus").

A different standard of living - A few weeks ago I mentioned that the guy who owns the property next door had hired someone to come in, remove the trash, and "peel off" the top layer of soil, along with all the grass and weeds. It was just bare dirt. Now it looks like this.

The biggest piece is a cooler. Most of the smaller pieces are just trash. There are even a couple of toilet plungers. The people on the other side of the board fence on the right seem to think that this is their personal dump. The fence is at least 8' tall and they just throw trash over the top.

Across the street from Drew's is a community center. At his end of the center there is a ball field. For the past several days men have been working over there. I'm not sure what they are doing, maybe improving the ball field. It didn't appear to be all that rough. They have stripped off all the sod and hauled in many semi-dump truck loads of black dirt.  They have worked the dirt they stripped off to the point where it was full of small clumps of sod. I though their method of screening, while labor intensive, was interesting.

They has a section of chain link fence on a frame. They use the bucket on the BobCat to hold up one end of the fence section while the guy with the backhoe dumps dirt on it. The clumps of sod roll to the bottom and the dirt falls through. It isn't all that fast and considering that you have a BobCat a backhoe and a 3rd guy standing around to occasionally shake the screen, the cost per yard isn't cheap.

The weather was great again today. I bet many of you are getting tired of hearing that but it has been a warm winter, even for here. Today's high was 70 and last nights low was 52. Next weeks highs are supposed to be in the 50's, and it is supposed to rain a couple of days. I think that is more normal "winter" weather out here.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.