He's Back

The missing turkey returned this afternoon. I noticed him because the turkeys were outside my living room window running around trying to peck each other. I think I understand why he decided to take a break.  

Trail Ride on Thursday

After 2 days of rain, wind and really cold days, we finally got a break just in time for our Trail Ride on Thursday. It was a beautiful day, cool but sunny; just right for horseback riding. We went to Laguna again, riding the Red Roost trail. The horses were perfect.

Bad Day at the Ranch

I've been watching the Canadian goose that has been sitting on eggs in our front patio for a long time now. Yesterday, in the rain, the goose continued to sit on her eggs, but this morning both she and her eggs were missing. I found empty egg shells in the front yard. I have no idea what happened. Did something attack the goose and eat her eggs? Or did the eggs hatch? It is so cold and rainy, I can't imagine where the goose and her young may be. It could be they are lost.

We may also have lost another turkey. This morning there were five, but tonight only four showed up.

Finally, it was so windy we lost a beautiful black locust tree near the barn. It was full of purple blooms, but the tree broke off about four feet up the trunk.

What a day.

Snake!

So I'm walking from the garage to the back yard gate and lying between me and the gate is a 4-ft. (at least) snake. Yikes! Backtrack to the car and zoom down the road to fetch Eugenio (who also hates snakes) to remove it from the vicinity. We decide it's a gopher snake, not the look-alike rattler, so not off with it's head. Instead, Eugenio throws pebbles at it until it moves off. But wait, it turns around and comes back. Eeek. Eugenio, more afraid of my panic than he is of the snake, grabs a long length of pvc pipe and scoops up the snake, moving it rapidly out of the area. I hate snakes.

That was yesterday. Today it's raining and cold; no self-respecting snake would be out and about on such a day.

Want to get creeped out? Check this websie: http://www.californiaherps.com/snakes/pages/p.c.catenifer.html

Priax Cowboys

Our new company hard hats.

"Wild" Turkeys

Who wouldn't love these faces?

Flora of Sandy Creek Ranch

It's Spring! The weather is great and flowers are popping up all over the ranch. Look at these gorgeous irises (photos 1 & 2), our lilac bush or tree (photo3), California poppies (photo 4) (they're everywhere), and the hanging wistertia (photo 5). Our wisteria have bloomed only about 3, maybe 4, times since we moved here. This was the best year so far. All of these flowers are growing on our front patio.

The Minute Commute

Here's Dennis coming home from work.

Momma Goose

One of our Canadian geese is sitting on eggs in the planter box in the front patio just to the right of the breezeway. We can spy on her from our bedroom window.

Kitty Cats

I went out to the patio in the front yard yesterday to take photos of some of the flowers that popped out this spring. Bob-B and Peaches, my friendliest outdoor cats, came over to see what I was doing and promptly collapsed at my feet. Crazy cats. In the photos are (1) Peaches, (2) Bob-B, and (3) both of them.

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Mother's Day

Dennis, Mom, Geno and I went to the Descanso Junction Restaurant for a Mother's Day breakfast. It was fun and I think Mom had a good time.

Craft Fair

Saturday, Mom and I went to the Craft Fair at the Viejas Outlet Center in Alpine. We saw some interesting art and I bought a pendant for Mom for Mother's Day. She already has a lot of my jewelry, so I thought she would like something made by someone else.

Pot Melt Results

My first pot melt wasn't exactly a success. I painted the kiln shelf with 22 coats of hi-fire kiln wash, yet the pot melt glass stuck to the shelf and fractured before I even tried to lift it out.

This is the set-up for the pot-melt. The coated (pink) kiln shelf is on the bottom and the bowl with the glass in it is sitting on a riser. As the glass melts, it flows through the holes in the pot and the large hole in the riser to the kiln shelf below. You can't see it in this photo, but I used a stainless steel round ring lined with 1/8" fiber paper so the glass wouldn't stick to the ring, which it didn't.

This is the second pot melt.

This time I put thin fire paper on the bottom of the kiln and the glass didn't stick to it. The glass turned out pretty good, but the edges that butted up against the 1/8" fiber paper were rough. I tried fire polishing the glass in the kiln, but the edges were still rough. Then I slumped the plate into a dish mold, and that looked good, too, but the edges were still rough. So then I sanded the edges with the glass grinder, washed the edges with a toothbrush, sprayed the whole thing with a liquid that makes glass all shiny when you fire it, and after all that it came out pretty smooth and shiny on the edges. So this morning I put it back in the kiln to slump it again in the dish mold. That's a lot of firing and I'm hoping it won't break. I'll have to wait until tonight or tomorrow morning to find out. A firing usually takes me 24 hours because it's usually too hot to come out of the kiln by the time I go to bed. So I normally just wait 24 hrs. before I consider it done. It's teaching me patience.

Pot Melt

I'm doing a pot melt today. What is a pot melt? Well, you take a bunch of glass, put it in a pot with holes in the bottom, set in on stilts in the kiln and melt the heck out of it. Tomorrow we will see what happened in the kiln today. I'm excited and just a little worried about the glass shop blowing up. Pot melts take a very high temperature. My pot melt is conservative at 1650 degrees. Usually it takes over 1700 degrees for a pot melt. The kiln, however, does not like temperatures that high. I hope this is going to work. Photos tomorrow.

Pea Soup Friday

Our Swedish friends tell us that Thursday is the Swedish traditional day for pea soup. I don't believe we have such a traditional day in the United States, so we're having pea soup tonight, a Friday. Mom made the soup and invited us over for dinner at her house. We do have a tradition of eating dinner at Mom's on Fridays. It used to be pizza Friday, but our diets have eliminated pizza pretty much on any day. Life is hard.

Trail Ride on Thursday

We're riding again after a few weeks hiatus--Joyce had doctor's appts. and I had jury duty. But today we're riding in Laguna. We're leaving early, so I have to get ready now

Back again....

What a great day. The weather was perfect and the trails were beautiful. Unlike Cuyamaca where the pine trees are all dead and falling over, the Laguna traila are still beautiful with green meadows and large pine trees. We went out on the Red Rooster trailhead, a new place for me although Joyce had ridden there before. There were many running streams that we had to cross. Usually Doc is a champ at crossing water, but today he felt compelled to cross a 2-foot stream with a 4-foot jump. Whee! That was an E-ticket.

We located the trail that goes out to the lake, but didn't have enough time to go all the way out there. Next week we'll pack a lunch and do that trail.

Today was Doc's actual birthday--14 years old on Cinco de Mayo. I gave him an apple for his birthday. He was happy.

Riding Lesson

Wednesday's riding lesson was great. We've had trouble with Doc throwing a fit when asked to canter when we take our lesson in the large arena. Today we rode first in the smaller round pen and he was just great--cantered on both leads without any problem. Good boy. Later we went back to the large arena and worked on roll-backs and other stuff. He was good there, too. No cantering in the large arena though. Doc loves to do schooling work. He's so proud of doing good and always wants a pat from Betsy after he does something good. He's so much fun.

Another Recap

It's embarrassing to be doing another recap because I've been MIA for the last few days. Not really missing, just really busy.

Wednesday
Wednesday is horseback riding lesson day. This morning Betsy came over to give me a lesson, but when we went down to the barn we heard shooting. Turns out the Sandy Creek Test Center was being used to test a gunshot locator devise and they were shooting into a manure pile just on the other side of the round pen. How quaint is that? Gunshots and horses don't go well together except in the movies, so we skipped the riding part and just trimmed and groomed the horses.

Thursday
Jury Duty Day. I was pretty sure I would get on a jury when they announced that there were six cases in front of the court, but it turned out they were all settled out of court and we were released. I'm good for another year.

Friday
Dinner at Mom's tonight. I made an antipasto salad and took it over to Mom's. We are trying to eat light and lose some of the weight we've gained over the last few months.

Saturday
Dennis left on his trip to the East Coast this morning. I worked all day on my website.

Sunday
More work on the website until dinner. Mom came over and I cooked (get that...I cooked) asparagus with butter-lemon sauce and turkey cutlets. No bread, no potatoes or rice or noodles. No carbs. We had Weight Watchers ice cream for dessert.