Look what we woke up to last week! 
Doesn't snow make everything look twice as pretty? The Mexican mountain range in the picture above is the one we see, in the distance, (to the right of the truck) from our spot.

See?

I took a hike to the house of the owner of the Resort, which is on top of a hill with a 360 view. 
He's only here for about a week a year, during Thanksgiving (such a waste), so I go there quite often to admire the gorgeous views of the golf course, the river and the mountains.

    

                                   

All in all, it was really just a dusting of course. It all disappeared around noon, when the sun came out.

Nice view from the resort's dining room patio ...

And than the next morning, like all that snow hadn't happened at all, I discovered some flowering Lupinus Texensis, or Texas Bluebonnet, on the trail right behind the RV.
Again, here's this little micro-climate, a sunny spot, enough moisture and ..bam!, it flowers almost overnight! 

OK, from natures little miracles we go to a culinary one!
These Polish Butter-horns are so much fun to make! A little more work than your ordinary 'drop'-cookies, but well worth the effort.
Who'd thought this:

Would become these delicious, hazelnut/sugar/cinnamon filled 'horns':

You just roll them up like little croissants!

While we're talking about little miracles, here's another one; Alpine's thrift-store, which we always visit during our monthly grocery trip, came through once again with another amazing deal!
After a spinning wheel and a loom on a previous visit, this time we scored a sleep number bed!

I know, a mattress wouldn't be something I'd be thinking of buying in a thrift store either, but it looked absolutely spotless, was 'sanitized' and on display while fully inflated so we could test it for any leaks!
We'd be thinking on and off about replacing our rather (too) hard memory foam mattress, or at least buy a better topper for it, but a sleep number bed, although sounding really good, was way out of our league!
      
                         

Well, here it was, for a fraction of the price!
Being an Eastern King, it needed a little 'tinkering', just some adjusting (cutting) of the foam that surrounds the mattresses, and it fits perfectly!



Our little helper had a hard time parting with the old pillow-topper:

In the end we kept it and put it on top of the new mattress and the topper it already came with. Talking about soft!

So far we like it, we're still adjusting 'our' numbers a little each night, I seem to be a 35 and James a 40.

According to James his hips aren't hurting anymore and I seem to be able to sleep on my 'bad' shoulder again as well as sleep a little better through the night. We'll see how it will do in the long run!

I know y'all waiting for some bird shots (I know. Who am I kidding, you ask?) so here's one lonesome Ruddy Duck for you, in his winter finery!
I always wonder when I see these 'singles' ; Did they loose a mate, ... did they lose their family, ... were they shunned ...?

On top of the 'dump' hill behind the RV Park, this young Roadrunner was warming up in the sunshine after a frisky night:

And this Hummingbird at the resort's restaurant seems to give me the 'stink' eye!

                 

 

A little hard to see, especially when the sun doesn't 'hit 'm in the chin', but I think it's 'just' an Anna's.

OK, that's all for now again, folks. See ya next time!

 

                                                      

It was James' Birthday last Monday. (His 56th, shhh!)

His idea of a birthday cake for this year was a batch of cinnamon rolls:

 

Well, that's easy .... hip-hip-hooray!

And guess what he wanted to do on this special day?

You guessed it ..... no surprise there!

                    
                        Look at that form! Not bad for an old geezer ...

Fortunately, the weather has improved greatly and it was a really enjoyable round (and rest of the day).

With the sun coming out more often lately, the temperatures have been pretty comfy, which might have coached these flowers into an early bloom on the sunny south slope of one of the surrounding hills.

They're Yellow-Cups (or Desert) Evening-Primroses.

They usually don't bloom until February but they already start to appear in some sheltered, sunny areas.
That's the desert for you. One week it freezes and the next we're having a hint of Spring to come!

Here's to show that pretty pictures sometimes come with a price. 
I'd just put myself in a good, but somewhat awkward position, on my hunches, halfway the slope, when I lost my balance and sat back down.
Not a major problem you'd think? 
No, not at all, unless you sit down in a patch of some, nearly invisible, cacti!

    

                  

See!? Well, I didn't see them! @#$%&*!

                                          

A few of the little buggers broke off and stuck to my butt while the better part of my left (butt) cheek was covered in real fine, hairy little thorns.

James thought it was very funny and came up with the following  remark: "In 'hind-side', those cacti were a real pain in the 'behind'!"

(hilarious, honey).

After spending an hour picking thorns of myself and my jeans with some sticky tape, I 'stuck' (ha) with reading for the rest of the day:

 

Earlier this week there was this hawk (?) that caught my attention because it was such an unusual small bird:

You can not see it in this picture, but it is a much smaller raptor than the 'normal' red-tails I see around here. 

-Fairly long tail, yellow eye, white spots on wings, streaky brown lines/spots on white underbelly- I'm thinking maybe a juvenile Sharp-shinned Hawk? Judy? 

(It probably will be something less exciting).

This next one I do know and I talked about him before. It's a Pyrrhuloxia or Silver Cardinal.

                This is a girl:

                                          And this is a boy:

I thought the 'Silvers' were all we had but than suddenly this week a flash of red in the bushes turned out to be a 'real' Cardinalis cardinalis or Northern Cardinal!

          

A male, for sure. So flashy!
Youngsters and females are sometimes very similar but the easiest way to determine who's who, I found, is to look at their beaks. 
Silvers have a yellow, and more curved, bill and Northern a reddish colored one.
                        

Seeing red already I think we can go seamlessly from red birds to red skies ......

James wanted to be in the shot and since it was at the end of his birthday-day I let him ..... ;-)

 

Until next time!

Jeez, what's with the weather? After more than a week of freezing conditions, well, at least at night, the rain and sleet and hail started hitting us.
In comparison to last year this is quite the winter we're having!

We're nice and dry and warm and cozy and I have a bunch of things to do inside but it's not very nice for the Casita-owners group that's having it's rally here this week.
Yes, they're baaack! 



They had about 15 cancellations because of the weather but the rest are real die-hards and are making the best of it!

                                   

They're having a busy itinerary and when I walked by our neighbors the other day I was invited to come taste some food they had made during a dutch oven 'class' they were having.
I was just having a go at some real good chicken-rice dish when someone came up to me and asked if I was Bridget?
Turns out they were fellow blogger Jerry and his wife Wanda from 'Eggrollings' and they were delivering a 'hello' from Judy, the Bird-lady from Blogger-land whom they also happen to follow!

What a nice surprise! They're only the second Bloggers I've met, so far, and really nice people.



Because of the rains there's a lot of moisture in the air and some mornings start rather foggy.

Always nice for some 'moody' pictures ....

Now, if I were a bird, I would head for this hot-water pond behind the am-phi theater during this lousy weather!

 

The water comes from one of the two hot-water springs we're having on the property and is a whopping 140 degrees!

I seldom see any ducks here though, which makes me think the water might be too hot (probably around 115 or so) for any fish or for any algae or water plants to grow and therefor of no interest to the ducks.

This female Lesser Scaup had the pond to herself.

Smart girl!

          I'd think it would be a nice place to warm up my flippers too!

Talking about ducks, we had some new visitors in the (cold) pond behind the golf course again:

I was excited to see this Cinnamon Teal with his darling wife!

And these American Wigeons:

Purty, purty, purty

Despite the weather the Yuccas are now completely in bloom.
Totally odd!?

         

But pretty!

And since there's really not much else to talk about lets bore you with some pictures of our 'special' child.
He's still doing great despite his diabetes and seems stable on his two shots of insulin a day.

Because of the cold weather he's staying indoors more than usual and has a knack for finding the tightest spots available. Here's some examples:

 

Behind the (warm) computer and the (cold) window ...

..... with your head stuck under the curtain ....

Really?

Or maybe behind the TV slide-out shelf ..... must be something about those nice new curtains!