Hummingbirds in the morning

As I sit at my laptop every morning, I look outside the window at the bird feeders.  The little hummers are the first to arrive each morning.  Then, little sparrows and finches.  Starting tomorrow, I'll have to dash off to work (ugh!), but I've had 9 days to enjoy their antics.  Apparently there are 3 of them who come to feed at this feeder.  A large one, a smaller one, and I saw one with a black head.  The big one chases off the little hummingbird and they put on quite a show.  I also have a feeder in the back yard and, again, two of them seem to claim that feeder.  I went out yesterday and bought my sunflower and hollyhock and sweet pea seeds and I'll plant them today out front and in the back, along the chain link fence.  I soaked my sweet pea seeds overnight so that they will sprout faster and I've been throwing my old coffee grounds out there so prepare the soil for them!   :-)  Wish me luck this year!  We have a storm system coming in later this week, with rain forecast, so hopefully that will encourage all the seeds to sprout!

Unfortunately, while I was planting the hollyhock seeds out front, I came across an ant hill (big RED ants) and one of them bit me on the neck!  Man, that was PAINFUL!  And, of course, I have no idea how it crawled up on my neck!  I put baking soda on it and an hour later, I pretty much forgot about it.  I'll plant the rest of the seeds, including a bee, butterfly, and desert mix out front.

Thanksgiving is over

Thanksgiving is over and NO, I'm NOT going to stand in line for Black Friday sales.  In fact, I'm heading up to the mountains today.  PERIOD.  I'm escaping the crowds!

Here are just a couple of pics from Thanksgiving...and no, I didn't get any pics of the food!  It was gone too quickly! Well, apparently the other photos didn't load!   :-(

Night lights and a WILD time at the Living Desert

Hubby and I, and now our kids are all members of the Living Desert Reserve here in Palm Desert and they had a members' only night Monday night to let members and their families in to see the annual Wild Lights.  Wild Lights is their winter holiday nighttime exhibit.  The lights are FANTASTIC and Santa will be arriving Friday night!   :-)  The carousel was in full excitement mode and apparently there was a little train for the kids, too.  They open at 6:00 p.m. for this, so if you and your family want to come, I think the tickets are $10.00 each (I 'll post a link so you can see for yourself)...

ANYWAY...

We met up with our daughter & her family and our son and grandson Monday night and off we went!  You can see how much fun the kids had!

 These lights were on the miniature train tracks!

 This one you walk inside all the lights.

 Family photo.

 The 5 year old really enjoyed his carousel ride!

 The 19 month old wasn't too sure about it!

Next to the Christmas tree by the gift shop.

Here's the info on WILDLIGHTS:  Children under 3 are FREE...Military and members are $8.00, and adults are $10.00 each.  Also, check the dates below.  This doesn't happen every night...
Members / Children / Military (with ID) $8

We had some excitement here yesterday!

About 4 blocks from our home is a hill with a trail on it called "The Bump & Grind".  Every morning, during the season, I can see hikers going up and down on it.  It is fairly steep and I've never attempted it.  Sometimes, even at night, we see flashlights on it.  I don't know WHY people would want to use it at night as it is not lit and there are rattlesnakes...sigh...but, to each his own!

Anyway, whenever we hear a helicopter nearby, I run out with my camera to see what's going on.  It usually involves a rescue of a hiker on the trail.  And, yesterday was another example of this.  Sometimes a hiker slips and injures an ankle, or sometimes one of them just can't handle the trail.

So, off I went, camera in hand, down to the end of our street.  I couldn't see anybody on the ground, but the rescuers showed up on the photos.  It took the helicopter several passes before it could get lined up properly to assist with the rescue.  There is NO place for it to land up there.

There was only 1 small story on the local news about rescuing a hiker, so I really don't know what happened.  The whole rescue took about 45 minutes.

Kitten update

So, now that I'm off for 9 WHOLE DAYS, yesterday I decided to go out and clean up the kitty enclosure.  Remember, we have 2 feral kittens that we are attempting to save from extermination?  Our neighbor is OUT TO GET THEM, so we made an enclosure out of the old dog kennel and hubby put two pieces of lattice over the top.  Anyway, they seemed to be warming up to me, so I went inside to do some housekeeping.  I also decided to stop buying Purina Cat Chow (ugh!) and I switched to Taste of the Wild salmon.  I'll have to go to my neighborhood dog & cat food store to buy it, but I can't, in good conscience, keep feeding them Purina.  I read on Facebook or somewhere (I forget...) that it was causing cats to vomit and have blood come up.  I do NOT feed anything by Purina to my horses anyway, so it wasn't a big deal to switch to another, BETTER brand of cat food.  Ripley gets the COSTCO brand salmon dog food, which really looks just like the Taste of the Wild salmon brand, only it is about $12.00 cheaper for a huge bag.

But, I digress...

So, I went out to do some housekeeping and I noticed that their "cat cube" wasn't facing completely out so I moved it.  Then, all HELL broke loose!  My goodness!  They ran around.  They tried to crawl out.  The little tabby tried to crawl through the one hole by the door!  I literally had to push her away with my foot (NOT wanting to get my hands scratched).  I'm afraid I did 1 step forward and 14 steps back on their progress!  They were terrified.  I might just have to take a chair and just SIT with them for this next week and let them know I'm NOT going to eat them!

However, this morning, they were yowling for their breakfast, so they are back to normal (I guess...)

Poor little things.  I really did SCARE THEM!

Not really a cube, but I don't know what to call it.  Most of the time, they are BOTH huddled in it together!

Clouds in the morning

I woke up early yesterday morning and left 30 minutes before my usual time so that I could grab my camera, take it with me, and get some early morning photos.  We had clouds and our mountains had about 2 inches of snow!  Whoopie!  I always love to be down here in the desert and look up and see snow, so off I went!

I awoke before 4 a.m. this morning and noticed that our heater wasn't coming on.  It would rev up, but I didn't hear the gas catch and no air came out, so we are due for a call to have it repaired.  Good thing we aren't living in Buffalo!

 I drove through Shadow Ridge in Palm Desert to take this photo.

 More from Shadow Ridge.

Just the top of Mt. San Jacinto had sunlight.

Cottonwood and fence~Good Fences~11/21/14

I spotted this gorgeous cottonwood and fence up at the Big Morongo preserve last weekend.  I only have 1/2 day of school today, then my 9 day vacation starts!  I can't WAIT!!!  It is actually raining here this morning, so I may take my camera with me and get some photos from the freeway.  Good Fences for Friday, November 21, 2014.   To visit Good Fences, please go to:   http://run-a-roundranch.blogspot.com/