So it has been raining all week since I got back from Portland and it is still pouring down. It has been the coldest weather I can remember in Marin – there has been snow at the higher elevations. I spent most of the week building my brothers new mast for his moore 24, building my tool shed and making a new boom. Unfortunately the rig fell down when I was borrowing the boat in Hood River last August and it has taken till now to get a new one. Over the winter our boom was stolen from the boat at the YC it always amazes me when someone steals boat parts. On Wednesday we put the rig up and measured for a forestay which Svensens built for me thursday morning and delivered to me thursday night. I picked up the bare aluminum boom extrusion on thursday night and was all set to build it over night in my bedroom as we had a race today (saturday).

 Bro decided on friday morning when we woke to torrential rain that he was going to wuss out and didn’t want to go sailing after all. So I spent the day working on other jobs one involved wet sanding a gelcoat repair which surprisingly (sarcasism) had not flashed in the cold damp weather. A change of clothes later and it was time for a hot date on a friday night with my nephew. Seeing as I don’t own a TV I watched the news – it had rained 3.75″ during the day yesterday and the creek in San Anselmo was to the tops of the banks they sounded sirens for people to move to higher ground. My brother and sister in law got back having failed to go to the movies as when they got there the movie that was advertised on sfgate wasn’t showing. An eventful friday night.

This morning I awoke to no rain and around 10 knots of wind – a perfect day for a sail! Bro called to apologize for not going sailing and asked if I wanted to go clay pigeon shooting instead. Sounded fun. So off we went to Sonoma and found that it was too wet for clay pigeon shooting but we could rent a dog and go hunting. So I told Bro I would pay for hunting for his birthday and we were given Boogie the pointer and bright orange baseball caps to wear. I was happy I was wearing my hunter wellies as the fields were pretty muddy. We walked for 2.5 hours in total – up and down levees, along an old disused railway through short grassland and thick shrubs. The dog was running all over the place. I learnt the difference between a flusher and a pointer. Last time I went hunting I had a flusher – a dog that flushes the birds out whereas the dog we had today was a pointer. Pointers find the bird and hold it until you come all and flush the bird out for yourself. The dog freezes and the bird and dog stare at each other it is pretty amazing. The dog found two birds in one bush which was on a steep embankment. Bro shot one bird – it exploded in feathers and aimed at the other one and then promptly lost his footing and missed as he fell on his ass. We looked for the bird for 15 minutes and couldn’t find the one that had been shot. Not cool but we couldn’t find it so off we went again determined not to go home until we had a bird and hour and half later still no more birds. We were heading back to the lodge and decided to look for the bird bro had hit one more time. Boogie eventually came bounding through the brush carrying the pheasant we were happy as it isn’t cool to kill a bird and not eat it. Just as I was about to put the leash on the dog with the one pheasant in my hand he found another bird. So we ended up with two birds to take home – we had them plucked there and we put two chicken looking things in the back of the truck. As we drove down 101 we could see the boats that had gone out for Three Bridge rounding Red Rock.