My Little Birds

I haven't hung my bird feeder yet for the goldfinches, but they are coming around the yard anyway...I did put out some food, and it sits on a try about a foot off the ground...but then I have three little ones who come and dump all the gravel on top of the food...however, this time I captured the little birds from my bedroom window as they were feeding off the seeds of the weeds in the yard...can't wait to finish the backyard and feed those little guys and watch them take baths and splash in the water...

 

just wanted to end with a picture of a sunset on the road by our driveway...

I have had several pictures on my camera...so I am going to download them and put them all together here...this is Caleb, 6th grade, going to be 12 in September (I know, where did the years go??) he really enjoys baseball and is having a great season this year...I think his real love is motorcycle riding although he does enjoy quad riding when the family goes to the beach...

One evening Caleb had baseball practice at the local middle school, so I met Lacey and Addie there to walk around the track.  Addie made a new friend, Emma, who is actually in 2nd grade at the same school Lily goes to...she even knew Lily...Addie loved having this friend to play with while we were able to do some walking...  they both had their bikes and rode around and around ...(I personally think that might be easier than walking! lol!)...could certainly cover more miles faster!!

Next up is a picture with Papa Ben...he does love to have little visitors...and he is anxious for them to come back when his 'momma duck' has her ducklings...they are in the backyard, in a pond that his neighbor built for him...actually my dad has a 'natural' stream that runs through his property...so the neighbor just did a little digging and moving around of dirt, added a few rocks and created a wildlife pond...it still overflows and the stream runs down to the road...it has given my dad a lot of enjoyment to go out and feed the ducks and keep an eye on them.

Today was "Grandparent" or Special Friend Day at the preschool...During recess it is NO surprise that Jalen loves the tire swing...today he had his cousin Alexa (cute smile with green jacket and pink bow...Jamie's sister - Amber's daughter...did you get that??) and Sydney on the swing with him...all I heard was:  "faster, grandma...higher, grandma"!!  After recess, we went in for story time, and a little snack, then a book fair and finally back to the classroom...the picture above shows Addie around a group of girls playing a "princess" game!....yes the cousins are in the same preschool...the teacher does a good job of keeping them separated...but then...one is a boy and two are girls...so they are predisposed to princess and then blocks!!  (although, the teacher did snap a shot of Jalen wearing some princess "high heel shoes"...with his camo shorts on!  too funny!!)

Thank you for checking in with my blog and seeing the kiddos growing up...way too fast in MHO!!  Tristan will be 2 years old in 9 days...holy moly...doesn't seem possible...he is such a little boy!!

Rain Drops keep falling on my head...or Hail drops!!

Well, it seems ever since "Spring" was officially here, we have had more hail then ever before!  Some days we get two or three big hail storms...a few times it actually accumulated more than an inch...not this time when I had my camera, and really you probably can't see it, but it was just "popping" off the patio cement...I just wanted to capture this for future reference...remember back in the spring of 2011 how much hail we received each day?  And even now, April 21 we still are getting heavy rains, cold weather...but then we get teased with a bit of sunshine...but we will take the sun anyway, anywhere, anyhow we can...right??

More Random pictures....

This is Tristan who will be 2 years old on May 1!  I had him sit in the kitchen chair in front of the window...I was able to get a sidelight picture of him..notice how one side is lighted, the other side is in shadow...gives some depth to the picture...he is sure a cutie...and talking a lot, not that I understand everything he says...but he tries!!

This picture shows Tristan facing the sun...yes we actually had blue sky and some sun on this day, April 12...almost felt like spring..it is hard to get a little two year old to look directly at the camera, especially when the sun is shining in his eyes...

 Tristan now has the sun behind him and facing me...this is backlighting...can you tell I am learning more about taking pictures?  His face is all in shadow...but it makes it very soft...

And Addie came over after preschool and joined us outside, I can't believe I actually got her to sit still for me...but first it was..."wait, Grandma..not yet..."  she had to walk down the length of the planter, go down one level, climb back up to the top level, then sit down and cross her legs...then she was ready to have her picture taken...the sun was behind her on this shot also.

Random Pictures

 First Tulips in Dina's yard, just popping up...

A candid shot of Ellie leaning against a wall waiting for a volleyball match to be over so her team can play for the championship...and when they played....they WON!!

 A picture of someone I LOVE..Tristan...he will be TWO on May 1!

Doing something I love...knitting a "Prayer Shawl" and watching Ellie's volleyball games!

Spring in Arizona

I know that I have posted pictures in the past showing our (I do feel a little possessive about these owls) the Great Horned Owls nesting in a saguaro cactus and I was so happy and overjoyed to see them again this year!  I was thinking we would miss them because we were a month earlier than last year...however, we only saw the momma sitting in the nest... the little ones were not hatched yet!

Truth be told, I don't really know if this is the 'momma' or daddy...sure looks like he/she is keeping a good lookout for predators, doesn't it?  This was a transplanted cactus and it is right off the road...between the road and a side walk....and you can imagine all the "lookers" that stop and take pictures.  In fact when Scott left one morning to go play golf at the club, there were quite a few lookers below the cactus...and then one older man was riding a bike and he was so intent on looking up at the owl, that he went off the sidewalk and into the gravel and the cactus (we have bark dust in our part of the country...but in AZ, the bark dust is all 1/4 minus rock (gravel!!).  So Scott called me on the phone to tell me about it because he knew I was heading out on my bike for a little 10 mile ride...his words to me:  "just stop before you look up at the owl"....he knows me so well!!  I, too, could be getting up close and personal to those rocks!!  ha! (true story!!)

 

I can't help but "stop and smell the roses" while on my bike ride....this was a cactus in the neighborhood with all these buds

The same cactus the very next day...isn't it just amazing?  The beauty and splendor of this place in the desert is at times just breathtaking ... I am so in awe of the colors and size of the flowers of such little prickly plants!

I am not sure, but this looks like a "mutant" cactus arm to me...an interesting fact about saguaros and what makes this one so amazing is that it can take up to 75 years to develop ONE side arm...now how does one explain these numerous arms coming out?  

A ten year old saguaro might be only 1.5 inches high!  They can grow to be 40 to 60 feet tall.  When rain is plentiful and the saguaro is fully hydrated, it can weigh between 3400 and 4800 pounds!

These blooms will only last a day or two and then they start to dry up...so you have to be quick about taking that photo...

Do you remember last year I told you about all the "Cactus Cell Towers" they were putting in the neighborhood? (You can go here to read about it and see the pictures:  http://rememberthe4ws-colleen.blogspot.com/2010/05/there-are-cactus-and-then-there-are.html) Well, one is near our driveway..in the dessert, not near a house and it looks so real.  Apparently many of the home owners were up in arms about this "cactus"...don't know what all the fuss was about because really you can't tell by just looking...and apparently neither can the gilded flicker...because one morning when Scott and I were leaving the house, there was this flicker just 'beaking' away at the cactus...I sure hope it is smart enough to figure out not to come back a second time!!  They live in the saguaro cactus...they all look like they have had golf balls hit into them...nice round holes and all compliments of the gilded flicker!  And actually, these man made cactus do have holes in them...just trying to keep it real!!

Lots of bunnies on the Mirabel golf course!  One evening about 5 pm I joined Scott in the golf cart as he played about 6 holes of golf...some of them seem to be quite tame and let you come right up to them...kind of "up close and personal"!

Whoops, hit the bunker...happens to the best of 'em, right?  Just wanted to show you the view as I sat in the golf cart...such a magnificent site...I can see why he likes to golf...he does enjoy the beauty...and it really doesn't matter what course he is playing...he looks at it as "God's Country"...always comes home to tell me about the wild life (like the 6 foot rattlesnake that was across the cart path!  yikes!!) or coyotes...or the time he met a bobcat...yes, he does have stories to tell...but then he also shares the cardinals he has seen, or an unusual flower or plant...me?  I would rather be on the bike and enjoying those sites then hitting a ball and trying to get it into a little hole!  But that is just me!!

Side trip to Palm Springs

Scott has been waiting for the building permit to come through for the Tualatin Yogurt Shack and he said it was going to be a couple of more weeks...nothing to do, so he asked if I wanted to go to Scottsdale and I jumped at the chance to get away and maybe see some sun!  And we were so blessed with sun...in fact it was record breaking sunshine temperatures while we were there...but you know, in the desert, it doesn't feel as hot as it does at home or say...in Texas or Florida!

And we also decided to give our friends, Randy and Gail Hurt a call and see if we could visit them for a couple of days.  They stayed at our house for a couple of months this last winter and were now in Palm Springs...I know Scott was looking forward to playing some golf with Randy!  Scott has known Randy since grade school...they just went to different universities...Randy is a retired high school math teacher...and now he and his wife are vagabonds...leaving the state of Oregon every year around October and heading to the sun country...we spent two nights and three days with them...sure enjoyed reminiscing and sharing stories and laughing a lot!  They are fun people!!

sitting out on their patio in the evening

 There was still snow in the mountains...however Palm Springs was getting record high temperatures while we were there, so I am sure the snow is now a thing of the past.  We spent one evening traveling through town and visiting their numerous "yogurt" stores, just to check out the competition, you know!!  and I think Scott and I decided our design and what we had to offer the public was the best of the ones we had seen!

Oh, I have to tell you about a town called Quartz Site...absolutely nothing in this town except a Burger King and a Carl's Jr. and a little shop that had rocks for sale....except come January and February there are 250,000 motor homes and travel trailers that are in this little town...just parked anywhere in the desert they want...about 600,000 people we were told and the lines are out the door at these two fast food places....I guess people stop there, hook up for water and garbage and use it as a home base and then go off and do some traveling to the neighboring cities, like Palm Springs etc.  For $148 for 7 months, they get the water hook up and garbage...not a bad deal I guess if you like that sort of thing.  We were just shocked to see so many parked side by side and couldn't figure out the attraction...and we discovered...there isn't an attraction at all!