Well the 1^st two weeks of work went pretty good.  Thursday April 30^th was my 1^st day.   My first duty of the day is to drive around the course and check the tee boxes and greens to make sure they are in good shape. On the tee boxes I fill divots with a sand & grass seed mixture and pick up broken tees. Lots of bending in this effort. Great exercise to start the day. I also check the tee boxes and greens for “gifts” left over night by our local geese populations and shovel these “gifts” off into the sage brush. This I refer to as the morning Goose Poop Patrol. There are 3 tees and 3 greens the geese seem to favor so not that big a deal. I get to be the first one on the course in the morning and see the day begin with wild life – geese, jack rabbits, mule deer and lots and lots of ground squirrels. On my second week I ran into two bull snakes. I am told these guys eat the ground squirrels and will kill rattle snakes that are in the area. So these are the good guys of the snake world. The snake picture below is about 4 feet.

I also pick up range balls on Thursday and Sunday. Kind of fun doing this with the cart and ball picker but on Thursday I shag the balls that are hit into the brush. Again good exercise but gets kind of tedious. This past Thursday I shagged 15 gallons worth of balls.

My regular schedule is working Thursday thru Sunday and have off Monday thru Wednesday as days off. But on Monday and Tuesday, May 4^th and 5^th, there was a high school golf tournament that I worked. Not much of a problem with players, some of the parents needed some marshaling but nothing too bad. Some of the players had some real nice and smooth swings, others not so much. The best swing I saw was from a young lady who hit it pretty far and always right down the middle.   Some of the players traveled as far as 4 hours away to play. This shows how remote and unpopulated the area of north CA is.

With the tournament my first day off was Wednesday May 6th and I had lots of catching up to do with work around the house. I agreed with Vicki I would take over all the washing, cleaning and cooking with this live style change. Only fair. She works a regular 40+ hour week and I work 20 to 25 hours per week. So Wednesday I did the wash and cleaned the trailer. I also did a complete inventory of the food we have on hand so we could come up with a shopping list. Vicki finished up work at 3:30 and we drove to Klamath Falls, OR to grocery shop, buy dog food, have dinner out and buy fuel. With no sales tax in OR and cheaper fuel prices I think this makes sense. This is close to a 2 hour trip one way. It was really a nice drive over to OR and we saw some deer. While we were eating dinner at the Black Bear Diner it hailed. Luckily it was over by the time we left Black Bear. Black Bear Diners are up scale chain of dinners in Northern CA. The food is very good with good prices. We always enjoy eating there.

We did not get home until 10:30 and the drive was uneventful. But we were looking out for deer on the drive home but not one was seen.  It was a long day.

My following week was a normal week and I am getting settled in my duties and getting to know the guys on the course. One of the guys is a member of the Likely Fire Company. If you recall from a prior post Likely has a population of 75 folks. He was wearing a T shirt one day and I asked him if they had these for sale. Yep for $15. I am thinking this will be a collector’s item someday.

Saturday was Likely’s opening day tournament and Vicki and I played in it. Cost was $20 per player. We came in 2^nd in the mixed foursomes division of which there was 4 mixed teams. We played well and shot an 80 with the 1^st place team shooting a 76. AND I behaved myself, at least I think so. Vicki was still talking to me at the end of the round. We won $75, YAHOOOO. So we netted $35 so maybe this will be another source of income…… We played with the Sheriff of Modoc County and one of his deputies. We did not know this until the 5^th hole. Pays to behave until you know who the folks are you are playing with. We enjoyed playing with them and they tied for 1^st in the men’s division.

For Mother’s Day there is a couple of things to report. As normal a good friend of Kyle’s sent Vicki flowers that arrived on Friday. He has been doing this every year since Kyle’s death nine years ago. What a great guy. With us being out in the boonies Mark and I were concerned if it would make it here and on time. Mission accomplished but then I am not surprised. Mark served our country in the Air Force and he was a boomer. He operated the refueling pod on aerial gas stations.   Lots of responsibility there coupled with danger of flying around with thousands of pounds of fuel. Thanks Mark!

After my Sunday work on the golf course we went to big town of Alturas to have a late lunch / early dinner at an Italian restaurant. Good eats while Vicki had two glasses of wine and I had ice tea. What’s up with that?!  

With Geoff living about 400 miles south of us he could not make the trip but did call Vicki in the evening. We had a long call with him on Saturday also.

Monday I did my chores around the house and just vegged out as Vicki did her 8 to 5 job. Today, Tuesday we are having rain. Kind of nice to see but it is rather raw with the temps not getting out of the mid 40s with clouds hiding the mountain tops.

I got my shirts for Likely Place so I guess I am official.

Seems like we are adapting pretty well to living here. The folks that live here in the summer are all really nice and good to talk with. After the golf tournament Vicki and I sat out  on the deck and got to know them. They talked about their life living here and the wild life with bob cats and the occasional mountain lions in the area. Always interesting to hear about different areas of our country from the locals.

Well that is about it from Likely, CA.

Something to keep in mind:

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” – Ferris Bueller