Puffed-up Black Phoebe

                 

♪All is calm, all is bright ♫ .....

In style with the season, we're having beautiful, calm winter weather. No wind and temps in the high 60's, low 70's with cool nights. Just perfect!


Great golfing weather too! It's very quiet at the resort at the moment so we're practically the only ones out there!
It's like having your own private course. And such a gorgeous one it is!
I'm usually only playing nine holes and sit the next ones out, just riding along, while James plays a few more. This gives me a great opportunity to watch for wildlife or any other picturesque scenes we come across.




              

Hole # 9 has been claimed by this Snow Goose. He's here already for a couple of weeks and all by his lonesome, poor thing. 
He hangs out in the pond next to the hole and sometimes we find him sleeping smack dab in the middle of the fairway!
This particular snow goose is what they call a 'blue-morph adult', quite different in color from the true-white snow geese that visited the RV Park last year.

              

Since the nights are on the cool side, the snakes are coming out early in the morning to warm up on the sun-warmed concrete of the cart paths.
This one's a Gopher Snake, more specifically, one of the so-called 'Bull- snake race', that are most common here in the desert.

This was a rather big guy!

They can be pretty feisty, coil up and hiss at you (and have big teeth), but this one was very mellow, it didn't even move when we got very close in order to squeeze by!
 
As you can see, the grass is dormant at the moment, the course isn't looking very vibrant anymore:

Which makes this Desert Christmas Cactus, how appropriate, stand out the more right now! 

 

Although flowering in the spring, around December, the plant grows red berries/fruits that when consumed, are said to have an intoxicating effect!

 

Even this little 'weed' is getting into the Christmas spirit, by turning a pretty red caused by the crisp, cool nights we're having.

 

Meanwhile, at the ranch, "♬ it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ♫"!

If you wonder what the heck James is doing here; he's counting down for our own 'tree-lighting ceremony .....'

Three ...two....one ...

Houston, we have the lights-on!

Inside and out!

Despite Merlin's 'help'!

 

 

Big smile for the camera.

Goofball!