The Sun Got Me with pictures

This morning I decided to go with Larry and Gracie on their hike and do one of his longer ones, I decided on the five mile loop.  Larry said if he had known I was going to go for a long one he would of gotten me up earlier so we could have gone when it was cooler.  We left just before 8 a.m.

Wow is the nasty star thistle everywhere.  It was stabbing my shins where the trail goes through the weeds.  Fortunately it was only for a small part of the walk.  The last few times Larry's been out he hasn't seen a soul, today we ran into a pack of loud talkers and a couple of solo hikers.  We saw a jack rabbit and a couple of cotton tails.

Going up

I had decided to tackle the BIG hill.  It isn't as steep as the "training hill" trail that comes up from the river but is still a long steep climb.  It was wide and had lots of shade, but I still got hot and my cardio fitness apparently isn't what it should be so I kept having to rest.  We don't tend to walk slowly either.  The last time I rested I thought at this rate it would be lunch time before we got home so rather than rest I just went.   very.  slow.  one.  step.  at.  a.  time, so that I was at least making SOME progress.  Then it was down hill and up another one, but I was hot, the sun was getting warmer and by the time we hit the asphalt I was resting in the shade of the available trees every chance I needed.  But when I started seeing stars and resting didn't help much and knowing that the last mile or so had very little shade I did what I've only threatened in the past.  I had Larry go on home to get the car and come back for me.  Whoeee.  I stood in the shade for awhile and then walked on to the horse staging area where there was a water hose and I doused my head and stood in the shade of a tree and let the timely breeze cool me off.  Ticked me off because I was wearing my hat and brought water and it was before ten and the heat still took me down.  It was only in the 80's somewhere.

Now the good thing was that I haven't hiked that far in a good long time and my hips did not give me one lick of trouble or pain.  My muscles, joints and all that were good, just not good enough lung power and too much sun.  I'm determined to do it again, hopefully Sunday morning, but I plan on leaving a couple hours earlier and bringing more water.

Still going up!

The rest of the day I kept working on keeping my muscles from tightening up and I stayed inside with the a/c and out of the sun.

I took pictures with the phone, but of course it is not doing what it is supposed to, trouble with the sd card and another thingy that is supposed to transfer the pics to the laptop.  Damn "smart" phones.

Update:  After over a half hour of dinking with phone and computer...tada!  Pictures.

I turned and looked back where we had
been coming up from.

Three Years

Today is the three year anniversary of taking ownership of our "Cool Haven".  It has gone by quickly, we've accomplished much and we are enjoying the heck out of it.

One activity that has been taking up some of my time lately is I have recognized that I am a writer and that I am going to work at getting something published.  I have had people tell me I should write a book about various things I have talked about and I've always pushed it into my I could never do that box.  Well, good grief!  What the heck has this been?!  I have been writing this blog now for seven years!  Wow.  I started it in South Dakota, June of '06.  One thousand, three hundred and forty five posts up until today.  Some have been short and just the facts jack and others were informative and blah, blah, blah...the point is I have been writing.  This added onto the notebooks of stuff I've written all over the place.  So I've been researching the writing/publishing field, educating myself and writing.  I've been giving thought to starting another blog for that purpose, but we'll see.

This morning I had another magical moment with a hummingbird.  I was watering the deck pots when a hummer landed on top of the wire fence below the deck.  She looked up at me with a look of expectation ( don't laugh, I just knew ) and I slowly moved the spray over to her.  She didn't fly off so I let it sprinkle her and she lifted her beak into it and started ruffling her feathers.  Well, she had the most joyful shower.  She fluffed and shook around in the water.  After about a minute I started thinking about all the water I was using to shower one teeny tiny bird (always practical, even in the magical moments) and I shut off the water.  She shook off, ran her beak through her feathers, preened and then flew off.  A great way to start my day.

The full moon was beautiful last night and as we were heading into bed the clouds were giving us a light show, lightning was going off all over the place and we could hear a rumble or two way off in the distance.

Life is great!

We've come a LONG WAY baby!  :

Where, Where?!

My roasting pan succulent garden

This is cuttings and plants collected from friends.

 Where is the time going, I can not seem to get everything done.  I think I need to make myself a schedule and then stick to it.  I am always taking pictures, then having to download the pics off the cards and then having to edit them, name them, resize them.  Then I want to share them on facebook and on here with you guys, so then I have to think of something to write.  Woe is me.  

Then there is stuff like picking crazed zucchini and deadheading flowers, pulling weeds and taking pictures.  Then getting sidetracked by all the pretty pictures and words on facebook. Then there is crazy stuff like taking care of myself, my home, my sweetie and my dog.  Now, I do give thanks several times a day for having the privilege of being able to do all this, but I still don't seem to get everything done.  Like blogging.  I don't get to it and then forget the stories I meant to tell.

I forgot to tell you a couple of weeks ago about Larry and Gracie on their walk on the trails, the birds were rustling in the bushes and Larry and Gracie weren't paying them any attention.  When all of a sudden a bear takes off out of the shrubs just as Larry and Gracie get to them.  It was running away from them and they didn't see it for long, but what a surprise.  It had been sleeping there and Larry said if it hadn't have run, they never would have known it was there.

Japanese eggplant 

I haven't been able to get good pictures or video of it, but the baby deer are big enough now that the does have graduated them to preschool.  All five fawn get together and romp up a storm, it is funny to watch.  There are two sets of twins and a single, the wrong baby gets on the wrong mama and they get a hoof upside the head.  There were 5 turkeys hanging out next to the trees and the babies just cavorted right on through them like they weren't there.  They'll race around.  Then one will just spin and kick and contort its body in the air.

I am going to have to grate zucchini faster to make more bread and muffins.  I picked 5 last night and left the little guys for a couple days ...well, they were all big tonight and I have 6 more and one is big enough that I don't know how it missed getting picked last night.  So it begins...hahaha.

The two bush cherry tomatoes are doing really good producing, my heirloom isn't nearing ripe yet and what I thought were two early girls are not.  One is a grape tomato and one is a bush tomato and now I won't know what it is to get it again next year, because it set its fruit early, they are good sized, meaty and tasty.  The japanese eggplant is doing really great and the lemon cucumber isn't going as crazy as I thought.  Lots of blooms but not a lot of cukes yet.  We may have to tweak the water.  The grape tomatoes blooms are turning brown, so no tomatoes on those branches.

We got over 100 a couple of days but today was overcast and cooler, though still too hot.  We are getting monsoonal moisture from down south for the next few days.

Yesterday my cousin Kim and husband Brian came for a visit and spent the day.  We had good food and fun catching up.  They only live about a half hour away, are super busy, but we hope to be better about getting together.  Uncle Harley died almost two years ago now and Aunt Connie is now in an Alzheimers facility.  She is healthy otherwise, so unfortunate for a crazy, zany lady. Kim has had an overflowing mess on her plate, though she handles everything with grace!  Love her!

The flower garden is in a lull.  The glads have peaked and are mostly done, the roses are in a setting the buds for the next flowering session, so many don't have flowers right now.  There is plenty of color all over the place still and my brain is working on how I want to rework all the beds for next year.  Gardening is just another form of art to me.  I've figured out which plants aren't working for me and thinking about what I want to replace them with and how to make them all support each other instead of one taking over the whole bed or getting humongous.  I may start looking for everything dwarf, because in these raised beds with regular water, it all seems to get bigger then it is supposed to.

There have been lots of hummingbirds moving in and through as they travel and this week a pair of Orioles have discovered the feeder.  This would be okay except they cause drops of the sugar water to fly all over the place when they feed and leap off of the feeder and it is making a mess of the deck.  The hummers aren't going to like it but I may have to keep the feeder inside until the pair move on.

Shoot.  I just realized that my last post I still had the phone not texting.  On that Friday Larry talked to a tech that knew his stuff, had Larry do a couple of things and the tech said, that phone is broke.  So we toddled off to Placerville for a new phone.  Which meant more phone calls to tech support because things weren't activated, getting all the stuff put back on....good grief, days with that silly thing.  But, I can now text and all is good with it.  Two weeks it took......ack!

Now Larry is on the phone for hours every week or so with our internet provider for the house...good old AT&T.  Three hours today...that is one messed up system.  I won't bore you with the details, and it isn't over yet.  Larry has been in "modern" technical hell.  If it isn't one thing it has been another.

I'm sure I've forgotten something, but I'm sure you won't lose any sleep over missing it.

Oh, I went to the show Sunday before yesterday with a friend and we saw The Heat.  FUNNY!  Loved it.  Me.  Two shows in ONE week.  That was an entire years worth of movie going for me.

Hugs and kisses to my almost better-than-a-Mom, Mom, Miss Vickie!  She had a little pedicure today...hahaha. Sorry.  Really, sorry.  We'll see you soon!  Feel better.

The light colored ones had fallen off the bush.

Update you on the garden views.  The birds are getting all the fruit at the top of the asian pear, we hope to get at least a half dozen from the branches hanging near the ground.  Gracie works hard at keeping the squirrels away from it.  We thwarted them this year by cutting the oak branch that they used to leap into the pear tree.  They look a bit puzzled when they're up there in the oak and realize they have to go down to the ground and over.  They can't steal them as quickly or easily now.

Catching up in Pictures

Here are a BUNCH of random pictures, 

so I can get caught up!

A purple harvest!  Japanese eggplant.

My beautiful new mug
from a gallery in Oregon.  I've decided
to stick with art that is functional instead
of art I must dust all the time.

The asian pear tree is LOADED this year, with
so many we should get a couple!

Japanese eggplant

Gracie and I took a walk out onto
the trail a few days after Rattlesnake class
and we almost ran into this guy.
A nice shiny gopher snake, she didn't even seem to
notice it. It's by that rock.

Andrea and Larry.

Taken with my Galaxy s4 phone's camera.

Orchids are still going strong..

Lemon Cucumber

cucumber vine climbing into the tomatoes

turkey roost

Turkey's heading to the tree

cool panorama taken with the camera