It's a funny old world!

One week I can't imagine what to post here; the next week there is a total diversity of things to share.  I don't know; maybe I just can't see things sometimes.  Anyway, here's what's going on out here in Nevada.  I ordered a chair mat, a plastic thing that will smooth out the bumps under something you want to move.  In our case it is a refrigerator that can't be moved over our tile floor.  It came with instructions.

You've got to assume it wasn't written by a person for whom English was not his first language.  The other side had drawings showing how you roll out the mat and put weights on it to get it totally flat before using.

The next thing I wanted to share was a photo my wife took of the foothills just north of Mt. Charleston.  This was taken on the last day of March at about sunset.

 I've got to tell you those hills and mountains surrounding us are a large part of the reason we've been living here for over 15 years!  

The final thing is a little surprise I got just this morning.  We have a couple bird feeders and have a fair number of birdies that show up to dine.  This morning I found a little gift from one of them.

Yep, it's a egg!  We are thinking it is a pigeon egg but, trust me, we aren't experts!  Here is another photo with a tea spoon next to it to show it's size.

What a deal!  Of course my wife wanted to know if I wanted breakfast as soon as I showed it to her.  No, not this time!  Anyway, that's our excitement around here lately.  I hope you are having as much or more fun.  Thanks for stopping by.  Keep washing those hands!

Quiet times!

It's nice and warm these days but what do you expect of summer in the Nevada desert?  Duh!  So far it isn't being too rude.  I think it has topped out at 115F (46C) according to our instruments.  Here it was 93F (34C) but in the small print you can see it was 01:19 in the middle of the night! Isn't that a bit much?

 

 

The heat sure isn't bothering the birds and their hunger.

That photo was taken mid-afternoon and you can see the regular seed is pretty much gone.  The thistle is now under attack with a couple birds waiting for their turns.  

Like I said, it's pretty quiet around here.  Keep washing those hands and keep safe!

Quiet Days

 Things are pretty quiet out here in rural Nevada.  Like most of the Southwest US we've been under a heat warning which, around here, means temps around 115F (46C) though Death Valley which is 50 miles away got up to 130F(54C) the other day.  

I went into town to get gas the other day and looked over at this group of birds sheltering under the plant trying to keep out of the sun.  They even have their mouths open trying for a little more 'cool' air.

We also are getting a lot of smoke from the fires over in California.  It doesn't smell like smoke but there is a haze and you can't see the mountains like normal.  Heaven knows how many thousands of acres are destroyed and how many more will be!  

 

This was our sunrise this morning.  You could actually look at it with your bare eyes!  I haven't done anything to that photo except reduce the size.  As I said, you can't really smell the smoke but it is certainly there.  There were a couple balloons flying but they were too far away to photograph.

Bars are closed by the coronavirus pandemic.  Some, in the really really rural areas, are being allowed to open but none in our town.  We are going out to lunch as usual.  Well, except for wearing masks and tipping quite a bit more than usual!    California had rolling blackouts recently and we were warned that we might have some but so far not.  Of course I'm happy enough about that!  Gee, I might have to sit here in the dark with my wife and a candle.  Horrible!

Our daughter, who is unmarried, is always asking my wife what we find to talk about.  I guess it must feel strange to her but for us, there's always something.  A couple weeks ago my wife took the car to a doctor's appointment.  She didn't make it a mile before she saw something that she just had to tell me about and she called me.  The same thing happens to me:  if she isn't along I just see so many things I want to share with her.  Weird, I know, but at least I'm pretty sure that sitting in the dark with her would be ok.

The election is getting closer and closer and I'm worried.  All this crap about the postal service not being able to deliver ballots; removing sorting equipment; allowing things to sit around spoiling (and in the case of baby chicks, dying) because it's been de-funded is so stupid.  I swear I've moved to some 3rd world country where they just can't afford modern convienences like mail service.   Of course having Steve Bannon arrested was interesting.  I wonder if Mr. Trump will try to pardon him before his trial just in case Biden wins the election.  It fits in with lots of other things he's done.

Gotta go.  Keep washing those hands, wearing those masks and, if you are eligible, VOTE!!!

Final Thoughts and Welcome Home

So I've bored everyone with our visit to Australia and New Zealand but I'm not quite done yet!  There are a few things that we learned that might be helpful to others.  These aren't pearls of wisdom and are in no particular order so expect a lot of jumping around!

The first thing we learned is that the distances are great so unless you have lots of time you are going to be flying from place to place.  The good news is that it is relatively inexpensive compared to air travel in the states.  The bad news is that a simple trip from say, Brisbane to Adelaide will pretty much take up a day.  Between time to get to the airport, time in security, delays, the three hour flight than all that other stuff all over again - it's a day.  Adding to the 'interest' is their use of time zones.  Some are east-to-west as in North America but they also have north-to-south zones.  Politics; don't you just love it?

You may as well resign yourself to not seeing everything unless you take a long time.  We are comfortable with traveling for a month and it wasn't nearly enough time.  We would have loved to spend another week or 10 days in New Zealand and perhaps 15 more days in Australia.  We could have seen at least a few more places but that is a 2 month journey easily.

People were friendly and I only had to ask a couple people to repeat themselves because of conflicting accents.  Both countries use English but sometimes one wonders!  If you are male, I hope you like being called 'mate'.  TV is as mindless as anywhere; once in a while you find something good though.  We were determined to view the Southern Cross Constellation.  Everyone said 'Oh yeah, I see it all the time' but that wasn't a lot of help.  Then one night we found a program talking about astronomy and they gave perfect instructions for finding the Southern Cross!  That very night we found it for the first time.

For those who enjoy alcohol, I'd keep to the beer and wine.  Distilled spirits tend to be expensive to my eye.  Here in the states we have Foster's beer and Yellow Tail wine in many supermarkets.  In Australia you seldom see Yellow Tail and I didn't find Foster's at all.  That's not to say there aren't many tasty beers and wines; it's just not the ones we find here.  Oddly we found Peroni beer from Italy on tap quite often.

In general things seemed expensive.  It wasn't uncommon for lunch for 2 to set us back $50 AUD.  Granted that is around $40 US but still; it's not like we search out expensive places!  A draft beer was usually $7 AUD ($5.50 US)but in one pizza place it was $12AUD  ($9 US). 

Since we like to travel light we need to do lots of clothes washing.  Sometimes you can do it in a sink and wring things out enough to dry overnight; we did that a couple of times with clothing items that we purchased with that specifically in mind.  However, we also stayed in two self-catering apartments and each had a washer and a dryer.  One of these was just set up for someone who wanted to stay at the beach for a week or so; the other was in a block of condos that were rented out when not being used by the owner.  They each worked out well.  The condo even had great views.  Also we stayed in an Ibis hotel that had a laundry room (free) on one of the floors.  It had only 3 washers and 3 dryers but we had no trouble getting our laundry done.

So hopefully that's all you'll hear about our Australia & New Zealand adventures.  After another 15 hour trans-Pacific flight and a hop from LA to Vegas we found our rental car and drove home.  Yes, we have discovered it is cheaper for us to rent a car and drive to Vegas then rent another in Vegas when we return than anything else!  Even the long term parking at the airport would run $300 for a month.  This way our car get to stay home in the garage and we save about $200.  What's not to like?

We came home to find a pretty good crop of weeds that grew thanks to some rain that occured while we were gone.  Happily there is a young man in the neighborhood who was happy to pull some weeds and make some money in the process.  Let me tell you, that's a deal we both liked!  Pulling weeds at 13-14 is much easier than when you are staring 70 in the face.  This photo of a hawk who decided to visit our bird bath has a nice background of some of the weeds.

We like to walk when we are home.  It is good for our health and it keeps us in shape for our travels!  We usually see rabbits, jack rabbits and assorted birds.  However once in a while we get coyotes; this guy and a friend of his were just across the road from our house.

Of course there is always time for a glass of wine in the back yard at sunset.

Yes, we do love to travel but being home is pretty good too.  Thanks for stopping by!

Back to dull

I promised to get back to more normal stuff but we had one of those special things happen the other day.  This is when the cactus gets buds and sometimes blooms.  I've been watching them and they have just been hanging out.  Then we came home from the store and found FLOWERS!

We have two plants in our yard - that we put there - weeds aren't counted!  Both cacti have had buds but this one decided to bloom.  You have to keep an eye on it.  Within two days they were dried up.  What you can't see in the photo is a bee that was busy with the flowers.  That bee must have one heck of a sense of smell because there just aren't many places for the little guy to live around here.  I imagine he was even happier to see the flowers than I was.

I had to take this photo of our bird feeder.  It shows most of the birds we get on a regular basis.  Pigeon, dove and finch.  There are a couple varieties of dove and finch but that's it.  Cowbirds come through twice a year and kind of take over the place but they don't live here.  There are black birds but they don't really care about the feeder.  And we have hawks - they like the feeder for the hunting opportunities.  We have seen a burrowing owl on a couple occasions but it's been a couple years since we have seen them.

It's funny but if you would have told me 20 years ago that I'd like watching pigeons I wouldn't have believed it for a minute.  Funny how things work out sometimes.

I get to go into Las Vegas next week for an MRI.  My left arm has been bothering me for about four months.  It seems like it should be a pinched nerve and working through the local doctor-xray-specialist hoops I'll get my neck tested to see if in fact that's the problem.  Of course then we get to decide what to do about it.  We've been making plans for the summer but I'll probably want to put them off if I can get back to feeling good.  Since the first of the year I've gotten a full nights sleep maybe twice.  Sleeping three hours then wandering around for a while then getting three more stinks!  Of course getting up in the middle of the night and wandering around sometimes wakes my wife so her sleep in screwed up as well.  (A motivational factor that every husband will recognize!)  It does make one thankful for some of the wonders of modern medicine. 

Gotta go do something even if it is wrong.  Have a good one and thanks for stopping by.

WOW!

Holy guacamole Bat Man!  Really, it's almost a month since I posted.  Who the heck wants to read something like that?  Well, sorry but I am a lousy correspondent via snail-mail so I guess expecting me to be a better blogger might be kind of wishful thinking.  So has anything been happening?

In a word, yes.  Most importantly my wife had some dental surgery planned IF this one blood test came back right.  As it turned out, the test suggested that the surgery should be put off so that got canceled.  Of course, having that sort of thing going on still involves trips to the lab, the dentist (in Vegas) and plenty of phone calls to the insurance people, etc.  It's not a minor deal even though the surgery was canceled.

So then there is the great bed purchase investigation.  We have had our bed for eight years and it is increasingly annoying.  It's not a standard size (2 inches too narrow er, 5 cm?) anyway that means sheets don't fit; it is foam so it is hot; it weighs a ton so can't be moved.  Ask my wife, I'm sure she has four or five other reasons to get rid of it.  Of course, shopping here is limited so after checking the local options, it's off to Vegas.  Off to Vegas five or six times that is!  Every bed place wants to sell you a Tempur-Pedic since they are two or three times the price of a regular mattress.  Happily for me, my wife really liked this one mattress that we saw early in our search.  Unhappily (in this case), she believes in investigating the market place so we had to hit six or eight other sales rooms.  FINALLY we got back to the first place and bought the darned thing!  Then, of course, it takes an act of Congress to the it delivered.  I love living out here but the once every 2 or 3 week delivery schedules are kind of 1870's.

Also on our list was our trailer.  Last time we used it we has a couple things that bothered us.  The big thing was that the linoleum in the main room was lifting up around the edges.  We loved the stuff when we had animals because it was so easy to clean.  But you've gotta agree that having it lift up is a bad thing.  Plus we had half a dozen other minor problems.  We scheduled a stop at the dealer so went over to Vegas a day early to get there at a reasonalble hour.  That was a happy thought.  We stayed, as usual, at the Las Vegas RV Resort on Nellis ave.  The spaces are kind of tight but it's all paved (level!), clean, 24 hour security, kind of every thing you would like in a city RV park and it was $30.  Can't beat it. We didn't have anything to eat so went out to a local place Aces and Ales.  It is a nice little sports bar-pub that has a huge selection of different beers and some not-bad food.  We each found a different porter to drink and some pub-grub to eat.  What's not to like?  To make it even better when my wife texted our daughter our whereabouts she responded "I'm on my way".  Well, I guess the way to the girl's heart is via a pub.  Who knew!  So we had a nice little visit with her.  Dropped off the rig then off home.

Of course we had to go get it a couple days later.  Back to the Resort for another night.  This time off to dinner at Casa Di Amore for an interesting experience.  The good:  the decor is 'classic Vegas' done well, the food is respectable.  The not good:  there was a huge birthday party of about 20 people making the place both really crowded and really loud.  We were lucky and got a booth on the edge of the room but it was still really loud.  And, of course, the service wasn't great since almost all the servers had some part of that huge party.  It's a place we might go back to but the clam linguine was kind of short on clams and whatever I had was forgetable since I've forgotten what it was! 

The good news about all this back and forth is that we got two breakfasts at Blueberry Hill.  We hit on this place years ago when we were visiting Vegas and it's still pretty good.  My wife loves the crepes and they have lots of other stuff.  Not cheap but it is Vegas!  There are several locations and I'm not enough of an expert to prefer one to the others.  Still, if you want breakfast that is good food and not on the strip; it would be my go-to place.

Having had the RV in the shop there are, of course, things we needed to do as well.  Highly technical stuff like putting Protect-All on the roof, replacing burned out light bulbs, replacing the anode in the water heater:  stuff like that.  It all takes time.  How did we do all this crap when we were working?  Oh yeah, we didn't have an RV.  Replacing the anode did have it's high point.  Ok, it's not tough, socket on the anode and unscrew, right?  Well, I kind of forgot that we'd used the trailer and there might be some pressure buildup in the water heater.  Result?

Yeah, I'm pretty covered in the crap that was in the water heater.  The impressive thing is that I'd taken the old anode out a few days earlier and had rinsed the heater.  Apparently I'd not done a very good job!  LOL  Anyway, it's cleaner now! 

On a less dramatic note I spent a day wandering around Nye County (here!) with some folks learning about testing our ground water for nuclear particles.  The Fed's had been doing it but now the county has taken it over so they wanted to show us all what a great job they are doing.  Actually it was kind of interesting.  The water testing itself is totally dull; it's the wells that are interesting. 

The photo is of our group checking out one of the wells supplying water to the town of Beatty, NV.  That little well house is really well insulated and from the parka in the foreground you can tell why.  It was darned cold up there!  That was a public well that is always in use so the water is always 'fresh' from the ground.  In other wells, it required hundreds of gallons of water to be pumped out before you could be sure that you were getting water from the groundwater source.  Apparently water in the pipe gets contaminated FROM the pipe so you have to pump it clear.  One of the wells being tested is in a place called Oasis Valley.  There is a spring nearby so it's relatively 'green'.  The unusual thing about that well is that some scientist from UNLV checked the water and there are elements in the water whose DNA is unknown.  Who knew water had DNA?  But apparently most water has stuff in it whose DNA is common; not like yours or mine but common for water.  Anyway, this place has DNA that just doesn't fit in with regular water.  The guy who noticed it will probably spend his career working on that little unknown thing.  Who knows what it might be!

Also on the naturalist side of things, our annual cowbird invasion has come and mostly gone.  I've no idea where they live in the winter or the summer but in the fall they come through here and pretty much take over!  They are late this year but there were plenty of them.

They are much more aggressive about the bird bath than our normal pigeons.  There would be a dozen standing on the lip of the bath and three or four more bathing.  They are the only birds other than pigeons that we've seen actually bathing.  Don't know what the deal is but if it works for them, ok.

Well, that's enough for this post.  I'll do another soon (I hope!) so until then, thanks for stopping by.  Take care.

Going to the birds

We are home for a while so there won't be a lot of photos from exotic locales.  One of our favorite occupations is to watch the birds out at the bird feeder while having a meal.  Sometimes we have quite a selection but other times it's mostly pigeons like this.

Then when this guy comes most every other bird takes off.

We think it's a sharp shinned hawk though it wasn't willing to turn around for a better photo.  Oddly one of the finches was unwilling to leave the feeder.   Maybe it figured it was safer hiding behind the feeder than taking off. 

We aren't as bird crazy as some people though.  My wife and I like to walk in the mornings.  During the warm months that means before sunup.  There is a house down the road where the real bird people live.

Yes, those are pigeons covering the roof of their house!  There were more on the electric line behind the house but that wouldn't fit into the photo.  Sorry about the quality of the photo; I took it using my phone.  They must have quite the bird feeder! 

That's all for today.  Happy Labor Day to those in the U.S. and thanks for stopping by.

Photo Op

We had a visitor to the bird bath the other day; a young hawk.  Needless to say there weren't a lot of other birds hanging around!  He didn't stay long but did hang around for one portrait.

The birdbath is attracting attention these days.  It's getting warm outside and everyone needs a little water.  We even had a crow stop by one day.  (No photo, he was shy and quick.)  Plenty of the ordinary birds:  pigeons, doves, sparrows and finches are the most common.  Once in a while we spot a newbie but this isn't exactly on the way to anywhere!

I mentioned the fun with the septic tank.  Found a photo that gives one an idea of the job.

This big old tanker truck with a tractor on a trailer was just the thing.  The top of the tank is about four feet down (1.2M) so we were all glad the guy had a tractor.  No one knew exactly where the openings were so he used a tool to probe around in the ground then proceded to dig in exactly the right place.  You've gotta say it might be a stinky job but he sure knew what he was doing.  Yes, the black thing in the photo is the 'straw' they use to suck up the sewage.

I said it's getting warm.  Here's the latest from the Fox news in Las Vegas.

That's 39C-41C for our highs and around 27C for lows.  Needless to say we are running the a/c a lot.  It is basically 24/7 now for a while.  We like to walk around our neighborhood but when it is this warm we either go really early or not at all.  A new alternative is for us (wifey needs exercise too) go to the gym.  Yes, I said  gym.  It's not a word you've heard from my mouth (keyboard) before but there it is.  As part of my medical care under Medicare (health plan for oldies here in the states) I have a gym membership.  I haven't used it much but these days a treadmill in an airconditioned building is better than walking in the neighborhood at 05:30 or so.  I tried out a stationary cycle; found muscles I didn't know I had in 2 miles.  I tried out an eliptical stepper thing; yep, more muscles I didn't know I had.  Finally tried the treadmill; at least I can do that!  I strained my foot back when we were in Ireland and 15 minutes on the treadmill make it quite painful.  There is something about the surface that is harder on my foot than ordinary walking.  Still, gotta move it or lose it.  They also have strength-training machines.  These are weird machines I've never seen and can hardly figure out how to use even when I'm reading the directions!  I tried two of them:  one for your chest and one for your abs.  I guess they are ok but it's another episode of 'old dog, new tricks'.  As though the new pc wasn't enough.

That's it for today.  My spouse wants to go to the gym again.  Stock market hint:  buy Advil!  Have a good one.

It's not ALL about our travels!

Though today seems like it might be!  I've spent quite a lot of time selecting photos to load to Flickr to share with the family and resizing them in the process.  It takes time but hopefully is worth it.  However, there are other things going on at the old homestead. 

For example, we had a special visitor last night at the bird feeder.

The doves are typically here late in the afternoon.  The bunny isn't usually here!  While we were in Ireland the weeds grew quite a bit in our yard and I'm hoping that Mr. Bunny is eating some of them.  Well, when he isn't filling up on birdseed. 

This morning I was all energetic; I've no excuse.  Sorry.  But I made breakfast of toasted cheese sandwiches with prosciutto and a bit of mustard.  Pretty good if I do say so!  The butter was just from the fridge so the browning was kind of spotty but it didn't bother me a bit.

Then I got started dealing with some pieces of pork sirloin that we bought a couple days ago.  We got this long plastic tube with about five pieces of pork sirloin in it.  Each was somewhere between one and two pounds (something under a KG).  I froze some but two were headed for the smoker.  I used a rub of salt, brown sugar, chili powder, onion powder and garlic powder. 

I smoked it for three hours using a combination of apple wood and hickory chips.  Then we brought them in and put them covered in a pan in a 225F oven for another four hours. 

We had to try a bit from the one on the right; it's pretty tasty.  Two forks pull the meat apart nicely so I'm thinking it is done.  Now the trick is not to dive in right away but let them rest.  That's the hard part!

That's all the news for today.  Have a good one!

I am not dead

Stealing the title of my post from Croft is just one of the things that's kind of lame about these days.  It's being a nice quiet winter with a few bumps in the road.

Like lots of people my wife and I caught the bug that is going around though it was pretty mild for us.   My version included going through about a box of Kleenex a day for a week.  My wife's version was more about coughing her poor head off.  We spent quite a bit of time hiding at home and preparing comfort food for each other.  There are a couple other physical problems we are dealing with but this isn't that kind of blog.  Life in the fast lane!

We did manage to find some salmon that we smoked.  It's not the same as the wild caught Pacific salmon we used to get in the Pacific Northwest but it was pretty good.  This is farm raised Atlantic salmon; it's got more fat but I guess is easier to raise.  We took a filet that was about a pound and a half (.5 kg) and cut it into sections that were about the same thickness.  Then we marinated it for about three hours then smoked it for about five.  Pretty good stuff.

We also had time to do more bird watching.  We bought a new hummingbird feeder; the first one we've ever had that has a perch for the birds.  Amazingly the hummers are happy to sit down while eating.  I never knew!  Anyway now we are sold on perchs for the hummers.  We had a group of six at one point but I was slow; only got three in this photo.  Still, it's a new high for us.

Every now and then I have to get a photo of the mountains around here.  They really make the place special even if I am too lazy to look around for a position without the light pole in the way!

So, you see, you haven't missed much by my lack of blogging..  It's pretty sad when cooking a piece of fish is the big deal in your life.  Hopefully we can get things going here in the near future.  Thanks for stopping by.

Well, this is different!

Ok, how about a kind of dull story?  Usually my wife and I drink decaf coffee because she has a problem with the caffeine.  Today she didn't want any coffee so I decided to drink some instant with caffeine (Starbuck's Colombian) that I bought for our daughter-in-law back in 2013.  Turns out there were six packets left and I've had them all.  I'm actually high!  I'm so wired I can't believe it.  This is like being drunk without the alcohol.  I'm amazed.  Ok, it doesn't take much for me but really this is bizarre.

There is a danger of this becoming a bird blog but I've got to share another bird photo.  Our new hawk friend showed up again yesterday but not for lunch. 

He came by for a bath!  What a deal.  Like I said, it doesn't take much for me these days does it?  LOL  Anyway it was great seeing this lovely creature enjoying himself. 

To balance all the bird photos I've been posting; here is one of a shadow I spotted this morning.  We have this little wooden figure of a coolie carrying water.  It's been in the family for quite a while.  It's just a cheezy souvenir kind of thing but it certainly has sentimental value.  It also casts a great shadow!

Aren't you glad you don't have to earn your living carrying water in barrels?  I am!  Have a good one!

Deja vu all over again!

Happy 3rd day of the new year!  I'm sure most people are like us:  up to their ears in leftovers.  Wow.  Even when you try to reduce the proportions in a recipe there still seems to be a lot.  Of course there are those times when my wife says 'should I make a smaller amount of X' and I say 'no, that's really great.  I can deal with the leftovers'.  Hmmm.  Does the word 'idiot' spring to mind? 

We were happily dealing with some of the afore mentioned leftovers yesterday at lunch when my wife looked outside and saw another hawk-pigeon interaction.  Yep, another pigeon lunch for the hawk. 

This time at least he/she was dining on the rocks so we didn't have a bunch of blood to clean up!  I was shooting through the venetian blinds so that's the reason for the blury parts of the photo.  The hawk was keeping a pretty good eye on me!  Apparently it prefers to dine in private.

It's a pretty bird though.  Because of the varigated chest feathers we assume it is rather young.  After being sure the pigeon was no longer going to escape the hawk took it's prey off over our wall out into the desert to finish eating.  You might think this would give our back yard a bad rep with the local pigeons.  Nope!

This was taken 3 minutes after the previous shot.  Pigeons sitting on the electric line as though nothing had happened.  Hmmm, kind of sounds like some people.  Turn your head and what you can't see didn't happen. 

Can you tell that things are a little quiet around her these days?  My big deal is hoping this old laptop keeps on running for a while.  I'd like to go directly to a Windows 10 model but that might be a while.  As in so many things only time will tell.  Thanks for stopping by.  Have a good one.

Current Day = Quiet times

Just like the rest of the U.S. we are preparing for Thanksgiving.  It's just going to be my wife and I so we found a 7 lb. (3+ kg.) turkey!  Usually they are at least twice as large.  It should be an interesting experiment.  Happily we have most of the raw ingredients we want; the grocery store will be insane until it closes on Wednesday night.  Hopefully I'll remember to get a photo of the bird before we devour it.

We've had some pretty good weather lately with highs around 70F (21C) so we sit outside in the evening watching the sun set.  The other night we had a hummingbird join us enjoying the sunset.

Here's a shot of the last full moon rising above Mount Charleston just at sunset.

This is a pretty desolate area but it sure can be pretty!  We are agreed that if it weren't for the mountains surrrounding the basin we probably wouldn't be living here. 

Last photo for the day:  we had a young hawk stop by to bath.  The other birds sure stayed away while he/she was around! 

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a good one.

Happy Veteran's Day!

Established after World War I Veteran's Day (also called Armistice Day or Remembrance Day) it's one of my personal favorite holidays.  Thank you to all vets and certainly to all current active duty service members.  I'm proud of my service and proud of all you do.  I've spoken of the service records of my family and my wife's family.  We think some form of Universal Service should be enacted.  Every person would owe the country two years of service.  You could choose between military service or various civilian services:  hospital work or a free clinic or running a food bank or teaching - anything that helps you grow and helps our society.

Bass Pro Shop in Las Vegas had a nice sale on the Masterbuilt 40" Smoker - I just couldn't say 'no'.  I've been reading the My Old RV blog for a long time and Andy loves his smoker.  It's all his fault that I had to buy this thing.  It is pretty amazing.  Ok, it's electric which some might consider wrong but I just don't have the personality to keep adding wood or charcoal to a fire for 8-10 hours.  Sorry, I've tried it but just don't get it done!  It also has a remote so I can smoke food and fool around on my computer at the same time.  Cool!  We had a chuck roast hanging around so I tried smoking it:  pretty good but I've got to admit the shrinkage astounded me.  I'm climbing a learning curve on this one.  Hopefully I'll even learn to take photos of some of my attempts!  Anyway, here's the new baby.

We've been experiencing some pretty nice weather; much nicer than much of the country.  So we go sit on the patio in the evening and enjoy the sunset.  Or, last week, the moonrise.  I got this photo of the moon just rising over Mt. Charleston while the sun set turning the mountain an amazing color. 

When we look the other way we find a hummingbird just hanging around 'his' feeder.  This guy is pretty territorial and chases most other birds away.

Hope you have a good one.  Thanks for stopping by.

Just a photo...

I don't have much to say this morning but I wanted to share this photo.  We had a little bunny visiting this morning at the base of the bird feeder helping to clean up seed that has been spilled on the ground.  He was pretty cute and seemed to get along fine with the doves who are our more usual visitors.  Notice how everyone kind of blends in with the rocks.

We have a cloudy day today.  It's kind of nice for a change but it doesn't smell like rain so I'm thinking we won't get any.  As 'The Weather Channel" says "Dry conditions will continue."

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a good one!

Not a lot going on!

It's smmer in the desert so outside activities aren't as popular as on the shoulder seasons.  If we haven't taken our walk by 07:00 it's going to be pretty sweaty.  The extra attraction is that we see more wildlife; not that there is a lot.  We see bunnies and jack rabbits mostly.  Aside from finches we mostly see doves, quail and the ocassional hawk.  If we walk in the desert, away from any of the houses, we might see a coyote.  Of course walking on the roads we get to check up on what the neighbors are doing to their houses and all but that .  I think we prefer the wildlife.  So we are staying inside a lot.  The tv is interesting to all of us. 

It's really odd what gets the cat's interest.  He spends a lot of evenings either on my lap or my wife's.  (Yes we watch tv most evenings at least before the sunset.)  Every now and then there will be some sort of animal segment on and he is ON IT!  He's almost 19 and doesn't hear very well and I'm not sure about his vision but he does know what he likes.  One time he even went around behind the tv to see where the animal went when he disappeared. 

Here's my excuse for sitting at the computer so much these days.

This was day before yesterday about 6 p.m. - the one on the left says 105F the one on the right says 101F.  That's 40C & 38C for the rest of the world.  One remote is on the north side of the house and the other on the south.  We usually have a difference like this.  Happily the interior temp is 78F (25C).  Makes you feel for the folks who lived here before the invention of air conditioning.  Our local museum has one of the houses built by an early pioneer.  They managed to find some spare railroad timbers and built the house from that.  Those huge chunks of wood actually did a pretty good job of insulating the place.

That's all I've got for today.  Have a good one!

Going to the Birds

Yeah, I know it isn't much but I am pretty much out of news.  We took the cardboard that our new closet was shipped in off to the recycler.  It filled the bed of the pickup.  I used two of the boxes to hold all the little stuff and flattened the rest.  It was pretty impressive.  Our recyclers location is in the same place as the landfill so that was kind of interesting.  Even in a small town like this the landfill is a huge operation.  Did I think to take photos?  Duh, no. Sorry about that.

It was chilly this a.m. 18F or -8C.  We had a flock of doves in the backyard this morning.  It was kind of a nice change from the pigeons we usually get! 

In the front yard our borrowing owl was all puffed up trying to stay warm.  Don't know why but he seems to have adopted our culvert as a home.  It seems kind of big for such a little guy but he's been here a while.

We did manage to get the annual insult-the-pet picture.  Doesn't he look happy?

Well, I guess that's it for today.  Have a good one.

Done! And boy does it feel good!

Ok, no more whining about the closet.  It's done; most of our clothes loaded into it and, gee, we have a lot more room.  Well, that's what organization does for you.  Here are a couple shot of his and her's sides.

You will notice that there are quite a few empty shelves; if you could see into them, there are empty drawers too.  Let's hope we don't go buy more 'stuff' to put into them!  I already have half a dozen shirts I should be giving away.  Anyway, you won't have to listen to any more whining about the closet except possibly for the trip to the recycling place.  All those boxes need to be broken down and carted off; I'm thinking a full pickup load of recycling.  You know I might whine about that.

In other news, Las Vegas is expecting some snow; mostly rain but in the higher elevations it might be snow.  They don't talk much about us but we are higher than Vegas so if it comes this way I might have a snow photo or two. 

Yesterday the birdbath was completely frozen.  It started to thaw around the edges and the pidgeons started fighting over the little slurps of water.  It was kind of funny but I couldn't let it go on.  I broke some of the ice away and filled it with water.  Calm was restored.  AND I was smart enough to go out and empty the water at sunset so they have a full bath this a.m.

I also must announce the suspicion of a bird casuality.  Let the picture tell the story.

The circle of life and all that.  I can't think that one of these birds flew away.  Maybe our friend the hawk visited but I didn't see it.  Anyway, there you go.

Gotta go.  Have a good one!