Creative Solutions

Most of the elevated dog feeders sold are still too low for the big boys.  Robert and I have looked into buying the ones for big dogs but the feeders are big and bulky and expensive.  It's like highway robbery.  *sigh*

So Robert and I have been looking at alternatives.  He was even going to build something himself but we actually found something better and inexpensive!!

Solution #1:  Can you tell what is this?  It's actually a table without the glass top.  Robert got it at a thrift store for just few bucks.  Being a designer he just knew what to do with it.  Flip it over and use the legs to hold the bowls.  Easy!  Simple!  Isn't he just clever??

Solution #2: While browsing in Goodwill today, I found two tall cast iron plant stands.  I thought heck, if the bowls can't fit, then I can still use them as plant stands like they were originally for.  So we bought them, took them home, and tried the bowls.  It was a perfect fit!!

This is why we love checking out thrift stores.  You never what you can find and you can always come up with good uses with the finds.  

Let's give ourselves a pat on the back!!

Bottle-Cork-Open-Drink

I'm glad that I got this LivingSocial deal for a visit to La Nebbia Winery!  It offered a chance to bottle and cork your own wine plus a tasting of its wines.  Heck, all these for $25?  I especially like that I will get to see how wine is bottled.  It's like "you drink milk but do you know how it's milked?"

La Nebbia Winery.  A winery in our backyard.  Actually, it's about 25 minutes away in Half Moon Bay on Highway 92 but close enough to call it my backyard.   I have driven by it quite a few times, but I finally had a chance to visit last Sunday.

It's little family-style winery.   It has a little wine tasting room, a wine bottling warehouse for the general public and a beautiful garden for picnics.  Note to self: make this a point of interests when I have visitors.

OK, the wine bottling part isn't quite that romantic.  A big warehouse with giant industrial tanks and a metallic equipment to fill and cork the bottles with one push of a button.  That's it?  We did get to attach the wine labels by hand though.

Since Jean and I were the first to arrive and there were only two of us, we got to spend some quality time with Kendyl, the winery owner.  She poured us each a glass of wine to start off (very nice), and gave us a a more detailed look of the bottling process including how she sourced her wine.  She let us visited her office which had boxes of wine samples from all over California. Her job is to sample them all and decide what to buy.  These wholesale wines are for the "Bottle and Cork Your Wine" days.  Those are the days where people can bring their own wine bottles to fill the wines with at $5/750ml bottle.  Note to self again: start saving wine bottles.

After Jean and I each bottled and corked our own wine, we headed to the tasting room.  La Nebbia actually produces their own wine with sourced grapes.  We got to try 12 wines from white to sparkling to red to dessert wines.  Hiccups!

Jean and I left the winery all happy.  What a nice little outing for a different experience so close to home.  Try a little, live a little.  Appreciate the small things that make up each of our days.  Cheers!

The Gopher Day

Some gopher decided to make my front yard his home.  He's been digging holes here and there.  My lawn, already not so good looking, is looking even uglier.  Well, at least he was eating up the weeds and dandelions, but boy, is he messy!!

One of Dad's friends, Mr. Huang, suggested that I sprinkle some pepper in the hole.  He said it works like a charm.  I  didn't really believe him and I wasn't ready to grind fresh pepper in the hole.  What would the neighbors say?!

But I decided to give it a try yesterday because this gopher is now bold enough to poke his head out from the ground to say hello.  Cute little thing but he is supposed to stay underground.

So, I cranked the pepper mill over the hole and hope the gopher didn't sneeze too loud and the neighbors didn't see me.  I wasn't sure what to expect.  When I checked the hole 30 minutes later, guess what?  It's been covered up!!!

Did the gopher do it? What did it mean?  Is he ready to pack up, lock up the door and go?

Strange but true.   I just have to share.