My garden

 Chard...NOTHING is eating it!  Phew!

 Some of my cabbages...

 Another view.  I planted basil, rosemary, lavender, and alyssum in with the vegetables.

 See?  SOMETHING is eating my cabbages!  The 4 that were eaten down to the nub are now coming back, however!   YEAH!

Ripley likes to "help" me when I'm out back.

Gosh darn!  I promised you some photos of my garden and then I forgot!  So, here are a few!  Ripley loves to "help me" out there.  I put some cottonwood branches around it to remind her to "KEEP OUT", but, of course, nothing deters her!  She's almost as bad as the critters!  She does enjoy helping me, however!  The cabbages seem to be recovering from whatever was chewing on them.  We've had a LOT of rain here this last week and 3 more storms are lined up ready to bring us another 1 1/2 - 2" of rain Thursday through Tuesday.

Found a couple of old fireplaces!

There is a small, private community of homes along the road to the Whitewater Preserve.  They have "PRIVATE PROPERTY" signs all along there, but I was able to use my telefoto lens and do some cropping to get these photos of a couple of deserted fireplaces there.  I have always wanted to stop and take photos, but hubby is usually with me and he's always in such a hurry and he doesn't like to stop and view things!  THAT is why I prefer trips by myself!  (...sorry dear...)  I'm glad I stopped and took the opportunity to view them Saturday.  There was still a little bit of fall color up there.

What's really unique about Whitewater Canyon is that even though it backs up to the San Bernardino mountains, it has spots were there are...PALM TREES!  It has a microclimate, so you can see palm trees with snow on the mountains behind them!

I took a drive yesterday to see all the snow!

We had a storm roll through here Thursday and Friday.  And roll it did!  The snow level was WAY DOWN yesterday.  Hubby stayed awake from midnight until 6 a.m. Saturday morning, so I knew he would be asleep all morning.  HA!  It gave me an excuse to go for a drive, which is something I haven't done on my own now for some time.

I decided to head out to North Palm Springs to see the windmills and Mt. San Jacinto.  From there, I decided to head over to the Whitewater Preserve.  I knew after all the rain that there would be water on the road, but I didn't know how much or how little.  Besides, I could get a good view of the snow on Mt. San Gorgonio from there.

So, off I went!  I used my Canon camera yesterday because now that I found another cord to upload my photos, it is simple to do.  See?  I even took some photos with people in them!

 View of Mt. San Jacinto from Indian Canyon exit off Interstate 10

 Same view, just another windmill in it.

 This was the runoff on the road to the preserve.  It WAS passable, but there was a LOT of debris.  SLOW DOWN!  Some IDIOT barged through it.

 Nice view of the snow on the San Bernardino mountains and Mt. San Gorgonio.

 I always stop at this dead tree and take a photo.  A couple of gals were there painting.

 Lots of tents at the preserve.  The Sierra Club was having a meeting.

 There were just a few leaves left on the trees...sigh...I missed the fall display of color this year.

 One of the ponds there...

These guys were looking at the pond by the ranger station.

There was an obnoxious car following me into the preserve.  He/she was RIGHT on my bumper!  I was finally able to pull over and let the person go around.  It turned out to be the US Mail carrier!  In his jeep!  He waved to me as he came back down the road.  HE is the driver who drove through the wash there on Thursday and even he skidded sideways!  I'll try to find the link to the video and update it here and post it.  ONE CRAZY mail carrier!  Phew!

Friday Fences~011317

Just a couple more photos of fences up at Oak Glen, CA.  I'm sure this whole area is now covered with snow from our storm last night.

To visit Friday Fences, please go to:   http://gosiablogs.blogspot.com/

Friday Fences~010617

Two very different fences for today's post, but they are both from Oak Glen.  I took 2 of my retired teacher friends up there in November and we stopped at Law's Restaurant for lunch.  Along the way, I took these photos.

To visit Friday Fences, please go to this link:   http://gosiablogs.blogspot.com/

Snow!!!

I was FINALLY able to upload photos from my Canon today.  My uploader wasn't working and I don't have a slot large enough for my memory card on my laptop.  I found an extra one while cleaning my bookshelf this morning, so here goes!

We had snow here before Christmas and these are some of the photos I took.  I even drove up into our mountains to take some of these!

 This is at Vista Point, up on Highway 74, looking at Mt. San Jacinto (above Palm Springs)...

 Highway 74, looking up Deep Canyon...

 Looking past Santa Rosa Mountain on Highway 74.  This is one of the largest turnouts up there.

 This is at Pinyon, looking again toward Palm Springs and Mt. San Jacinto

 After the rain.  This area got snow on the high peaks, but I was more interested in the footprints (canine?) and the water patterns in the mud.  This is where I believe I DID spot a mountain lion footprint several years ago.  Sparsely populated...NO human prints near it, but I do this these are canine.

 I always love to see cactus and snow...

THIS is looking toward the road to my horses.  No, I didn't see them that day...

Stars and garden update and a question

Hubby bought a chimenea from Home Depot for Christmas, and last night was the first night we sat outside and enjoyed it and the stars.  Unfortunately neither one of us could get a decent fire going, so we are off today to buy some firestarting logs.  My DIY toilet paper rollers stuffed with dryer lint just didn't do the trick!

SOMETHING is eating my cabbage and has completely eaten all the leaves off my 2 chili peppers!  I suspect it is the neighborhood rats.  Almost every yard around us has citrus and the nasty buggers just love to take a bite out of a grapefruit (or something else), leave it, and find another one.  I have, on occasion, seen them tiptoe across the cable wires from the street to our back yard.

You would THINK with 3 outdoor cats they wouldn't be a problem, but NOooooooooo!  So, I'm going to set 2 peanut butter traps tonight and cover the remaining plants with their plastic planting pots (I did save ALL of them, fortunately!)

Any ideas/suggestions?  NO POISON (dog and 3 outdoor cats) and I wouldn't use it anyway...sigh...