February decided at the last minute to be a wet month, so of course, it had three and a half weeks of dry to make up for. We had a brief respite yesterday, between a rainy morning and a rainy evening, in which the clouds were ridiculously puffy and gorgeous, the temperature was perfectly Californian, and the sky was a deep and clean blue.

So I took advantage.

I’ve wanted to go up on the roof of the big hangar for some time now, intending to go one of those nights when we have the perfect sunset. But it’s getting late in the year, and I’m just not around at sunset time these days. I’ve been up there before, so I know the tricks of getting there. One of the tricks is not to go in midsummer, when the stench from the pigeons in the building can knock you flat a hundred feet away from it.

I’ve done a lot of exploration and inspection on this site, but I didn’t get the photography bug until it was almost transferred. Sure, I took pictures, but they were mostly the evidence type, documenting the condition of the place when we handed it over. Still, documenting this site is what gave me the photography bug, and I’ve wanted to go back and do it over again now that I have a better eye and some good equipment. I have access to almost everywhere still, and I have permission and maybe even a little justification, as I sort of work for both agencies. Nobody blinks an eye to see my truck parked outside of an abandoned building around here.

When I was first doing my building inspections, my standard gear was my camera, my flashlight, a stick to battle the cobwebs with, and my dog to send in first and roust out the creatures. Angus has been in almost every single building that I have, up stairs (but not ladders so much,) down in basements, and in the spooky parts. We’ve run into bees, possums, tons of feral cats, raccoons, and echoes of squatters. So when I entered this hangar, it was with my two dogs, who were delighted with the pigeon stench. As soon as I started heading up the steel staircase though, Ringo said, “To hell with this!” and high-tailed it back to his nice, safe truck. Angus was right with me, and I pointed the flashlight for him once we got in past the ambient light.

Up six stories of stairs we went, the last ones narrow and steep to the roof access. On each landing was a nice selection of coyote turds; seems that they’ve been snacking on the pigeons. Good for them; someone has to keep those down. I’m sure the foxes have been up there too, and I wouldn’t be too surprised to see them out on the beams of the ceiling, five stories above the concrete floor, headed for the nests at the perimeter.

Angus has been out on the roof before, but he didn’t want to step out this time. That was OK with me; there are no railings around the top of that building, and it’s a long way to fall. So I let the door shut behind me, thinking that he’d go on back down like he used to, and I stepped out into the brilliance.

I walked around the whole perimeter of the roof, just dumbfounded at the view. The Sierras were impossibly close, and snowy down to their ankles. The usual haze was gone and I could see both ends of the runway as if through a telescope. I couldn’t bring myself to get closer than about three feet to the edge of the roof; my old fear of heights has a very distinct demarcation. I snapped what felt like hundreds of photos, but on review, turned out to only be 75 or so. I suspect that the air traffic control guys were wondering what the hell I was doing up there, as they’re too new to know me, but if they called anyone about a jumper, whoever they called wrote them off.

When I finished and wound up back at my original access point, there was Angus waiting for me at the door, sort of worked up into a lather. Once we started back down, it was clear why; my good and faithful dog’s recent arthritis has made it pretty hard for him to go back down the stairs, and I had to coax him, showing him the way with the flashlight. Neither of us are very fast going down stairs now.

I’d have liked to take some picture of the inside of the hangar to show some scale, but I didn’t have my tripod with me, and the light level is fairly dim in there. Besides, I was about ready to gag on the pigeon aura of poop, dead birds, rotten eggs and old feathers, which I carried about with me for the rest of the day. Disgusting, but still worth it for the sights.

I put together some panorama photos from each side of the building, which I’ve posted over on my Flickr page. They’re just too big to post here.

I think I was handed my chance on a silver platter this weekend.

My water manager has been talking for a couple of years about making our contract position a regular job. The site’s expanding and there’s a ton of retrofitting to be done, and it’s becoming a full-time job, which he doesn’t have time for. He’s been handing more and more of it to me, and I’ve stepped right up and done it all. Each time I get a job done well, my reward is more work, and that’s escalating.

I’ve been teasing him about writing the job description for the position he talks about, which I know he’s working on. Well, half-teasing anyway. He tells me that I’m the one he wants to fill the position, but that it’ll have to go out to open bid. Well, of course it will; this is a government agency.

I keep telling him that if he wants to make me bullet-proof, to throw in some requirements about the environmental side of the site, which is my rapidly expiring day job. It does make sense to make someone accountable for knowing about those issues, and while the water operator isn’t a normal sort of category for that sort of person, they’re not making any other new positions any time soon. Since the place has recently completely transferred, they’re going to have to throw the environmental stuff in someone’s lap, and it might as well be mine.

So on Friday, amidst other conversation, he dropped the bomb that he wanted me to provide him with some language to put in the job description. Language regarding potential environmental responsibilities. Well, how about that? I got a good chunk all written up and emailed off to him on Saturday, and we’ll see where he goes with it.

The one thing that gives me a little guilt about this is Big Jeff’s role. Our contract’s up in July, and they’re planning on hiring to replace that, which will cut him out of a big chunk of money while he’s gone (if he’s still gone then, and we don’t know yet if that will be the case.) My rational side says not to feel too guilty about it. After all, we did discuss the possibility before he left. He said he’d compete for the position too, and I wouldn’t feel at all bad about going head-to-head with him in that situation. After all, my day job is going away and I have a family to feed. He’s got a perfectly viable job to come home to. It just feels a little underhanded; one the one side, I’m expanding our business by doing a lot of consulting under our current contract, but on the other hand, I’m working our contract out of existence.

The other part of the chance the manager gave me was more of a hand in retrofitting our site. He’s been picking my brain about backflow preventers for some time now, and I do know my shit about those, but this time he wanted advice on meters. We’re going to put them in the whole place, and I’ve never worked with them.

He wanted a complete recommendation on sizes, types, brands, and prices. By today. But, of course, my one and only text book that has anything about meters in it has disappeared, and none of my vendors publish prices online or are open to call on the weekend. I was amazed by how little was findable on the web, even with hours of looking. So I ordered myself a good chunk of reference manuals, wrote up a preliminary recommendation outlining what we need to look at specifically, and asked for more time. I think I did a decent job of it, considering that what he’d asked for wasn’t exactly something that I could produce on such short notice.

What really amazes me though, is this opportunity to develop this site from scratch. Most water systems are cobbled together as sites expand and as things break or money becomes avalable to upgrade. Almost all of them are composed of mismatched parts and developed from mismatched policies. I’m getting the chance, and as a relatively junior operator no less, to have my hand in developing policy and getting everything working from one base point. I’m planning it as if it’s my own system already. I may be jumping the gun with that, but it’s the best way to work, and it may be mine for the next twenty years. I want to design the best system I can while I have the chance to make suggestions.

So, expect more water geekery in the near future. I’m doing a lot of homework for the site, and it’s riding pretty high up in my head.

Because they were pretty, and I wanted them:

No other reason. I’m really much more of a houseplant person, heavy on the orchids and bromeliads, but every once in a while, I like some cut flowers too.

I’m not a farmer’s daughter for nothing, even if said farmer didn’t technically become one until after I’d moved out of the house. My dad grew almonds for about ten years, and they’re still one of my favorite crops. And yes, Dad did grow for that famous packing company. We always liked those ads.

Blossom season is coming a little late this year, due to our weird weather. Usually they’re blooming like crazy by the last week of February, but this year, they’re just starting to. It’s my sign of Spring, even if it did snow up in the hills last night.

The different varieties bloom at different times. I think I remember that Dad had Carmels, Nonpariels, and Mission almonds in his orchard (correct me if I’m wrong, Mom.) They harvest at different times too, and some have harder shells and some are softer. The Missions are a real pain in the ass to shell by hand–they tear your thumbs up something fierce.

As I drive through the orchards this week, it’s clear that these farmers have different varieties planted in their rows too, as you get a checkerboard pattern with one variety in one row and another that hasn’t bloomed yet in the next.

So, maybe it’s a little cold out, but the bees are happy, and as long as it’s not frosty enough to freeze the buds, the farmers are too. Which is fine with me. Next up are the peaches.

I was running ninety miles an hour again today, which is good. It keeps my motor warm and my belts flexible.

But I dashed out of the office for a minute to give the dogs a potty break, and took a second to take my photo for the day. I haven’t missed one yet, even if some of them have been mighty boring.

The almond trees, my sure-as-shit harbringers of spring, are a little late this year. There are a few blossoms here and there, but the late cold has them all confused. And has the bees annoyed.

But I could see some of the flowering plums on base, and they were popping like crazy already.

It wasn’t until I started taking pictures that I realized that the pink, while pretty, wasn’t what I was after.

No, I found myself photographing bees.

And that was fine.

Not all of my friends are invisible.

JJ and I are teaming up to take care of Big Jeff’s animals while he’s gone (and by the way, he’s still safe for now.)

Today we needed to get hay and bring it back to JJ’s place, where the horses are staying. I warned him that I’ve become a geek with a camera. He rarely lets me do the heavy stuff anyway, so while he unloaded the truck, I snapped pictures:

Isn’t he hot?

He is from the front side too. I’ve loved this man almost since the day we met, although it’s never been in a sexual sort of way. He really means a lot to me though, and I’m lucky to have him in my life.