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!
            

Well, I hope your New Year started out better than ours did!
Due to 'inclement' weather, read ice-storms, in the area just north of us, we lost power for almost 5 days! 
Courtesy of a truck that hit a sagging, ice-covered power line last Friday, which than triggered 67 (!) poles to fall down like dominoes!
The sleet and ice kept coming down for 2 more days, followed by slippery muddy soil, which made for nasty repair conditions.
At one point they had 7 crews working on it!

Fortunately we had enough gas for the generator and propane for the heather to keep us warm and we even had lights and TV in the evening.
Still, it gives you a different perspective. It's amazing how life changes without electricity!



Fortunately all this happened after New Year's so we had no problems baking our traditional 'oliebollen', while sipping Martinelli's and watching the Rose-Parade:

                                          

James was Manager-on-Duty for a couple of days, so in return we got to dine in style again at the restaurant for 3 days in a row!

We enjoyed some delicious and beautiful food and of course the festive ambiance.

 

Like I mentioned, the weather has been extremely cold for the last couple of weeks, many a night has been below freezing. 
Makes for 'cool' lawn chairs:

 

                                       
 
The days warm up quite a bit, IF the sun is shining, but when it's windy (and the wind picks up at sometime almost every day) the 'chill factor' makes for some very chilly hikes!




The ducks in the pond don't seem to be bothered much by the cold, I even spotted a 'new kid in town':

It's a female Hooded Merganser, taking her Sunday morning bath:



Not a feather was left unpolished!

So pretty!

One thing you can't do without electricity? Baking! As soon as it came back on, I made sure to get something in the oven:

                      

Left over (and frozen) sugar cookie dough sprinkled with (more)(like you need more, right?) sugar and shredded coconut, and two round 'water'-breads :

Well, just listened to the weather forecast; another 'arctic' blast is coming down! 
Cross your fingers it won't include any more icy rain and trucks slamming into electric poles!

Good luck and make sure to keep warm everybody!