Had some good, but chilly horse time today!

I left the house right about 8:00 a.m. today and drove up to the mountains.  Clouds were all over the valley and I could see (and smell) their moisture as they came down the mountain slopes.  So, off I went!

I bought 4 bags of pellets and unloaded 3 of them.  I still have 1 bag in my car because I just didn't have room for it in my cans.  We have to keep EVERYTHING in cans up at the ranch because "critters" like to eat their way into bags and destroy everything!  Maybe next weekend I can figure out where to put the extra bag of pellets...

It was COLD and WINDY up in the mountains today.  We have a storm front moving in and I could feel the temperature dropping.  Snow is forecast down to 6,000 feet Tuesday through Friday...  :-)

Here are a couple of photos from today below.  The owners weren't home and it was too windy to take any of the horses out.  Besides, they were all screaming for their snack!

 Storm clouds coming.

 Storm clouds and pretty tree.

 The trees at the ranch...in another week, their leaves will be GONE!

Pretty maple up at the ranch.

Horse time!

Am I standing in line for Black Friday sales?  NOPE!  I'm heading up to the horses!  After 2 days of turkey, we'll be having spaghetti tonight.  We actually had our family dinner Wednesday evening.

I NEED some horse time!   :-)

Beautiful morning skies here yesterday

I was all ready to leave for work yesterday morning 30 minutes ahead of time (I was SO excited it was only 1/2 day!), that I grabbed my camera and headed out to take photos of the snow and clouds.  Our mountains got a dusting of snow (about 2 inches) Thursday night!  So, out I headed to take photos of the clouds and mountains!  Can you see the dusting of snow on the bottom pic?

How do I feel this morning?

How do I feel this morning after parent/teacher conferences?  Yup...you guessed it...tired and ALREADY CRANKY!  I talked nonstop from 2:00 until 4:30 (dinner for 1/2 hour), then until 6:30.  Conferences were SUPPOSED to end at 6:30, but, OF COURSE, 3 sets of kids and parents showed up at 6:30!  FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!  I sent home a signup sheet, I reminded them daily, but, they DO NOT LISTEN!  So, I ended up staying until 7:10 and the school was dark.   At least that is out of the way.  We have conferences today also, but only until 3:30 p.m. and I crossed off the last half hour, so I should be done by 3:00.  Then, Friday is 1/2 day and then 9 days of... FREEDOM!   :-)  I have the entire Thanksgiving week off and I'm thankful for that!

Feral kittens

I FINALLY remembered yesterday to go out and take a couple of photos of my feral kittens, so here they are!  Aren't they adorable?  The little tabby is getting quite demanding about breakfast being served ON TIME, but the little black & white kitten is still thinking I might eat her! (or him).  I don't what what they are yet, as I still cannot pick them up.  That will come in time.  For now, they get 2 meals a day and a clean little box and water.  Better than being stuck in a cage heading for the pound!  They LOVE their kitty cube thing and they are usually curled up together inside it.  They have toys to play with and I find them swatted all around the dog kennel.  See how we reinforced it with netting?  If they get out and go into our neighbor's yard, they are DEAD!  She's out to get them!

Garner Valley fences~Good Fences~11/14/14

I love to drive through Garner Valley, which is just over the hills from where I board my horses up in our local mountains.  The white fences there are so pretty this time of year!  Good Fences for Friday, November 14, 2014.  To visit Good Fences, please go to:   http://run-a-roundranch.blogspot.com/

This is why I LOVE going to the mountains!

It's only a 10 minute drive from our desert home up Highway 74 to the pinyon forest, but another 35 minutes to Garner Valley and its tall pines.  Another 10 minutes from there and one arrives at Lake Hemet.  There is a privately owned campground there and a day/picnic area in a national forest area too.  We haven't camped at Lake Hemet (ever), but I would like to someday.  These were the fall colors that I saw up there on Veterans' Day.

Feral kitty update

For those of you who know the story, we took in 2 feral kittens.   A litter of 3 was born in our neighbor's yard, but she is a CAT HATER!  She complained and complained about them.  Well, I fed the mother cat in OUR yard and soon the 3 of them were...uh...pooping in her yard and she had a FIT!  Oye vei!  So, she called a company that came with 2 steel cage traps.  She was able to catch the 2 kittens (which she DID give to us) and then the 3rd kitten (which she gave to us also), but the last one escaped an hour after we put all 3 of them into our old dog kennel and covered it with lattice on top.  To this day I haven't figured out how the little critter got out!  He came around for about a week and cleaned out the cans of cat food I "accidentally" left out for him and I'd see his little white feet go scamper, scamper in the morning.  She put out traps again and caught him and there wasn't anything I could do.  They were ALL feral.  Momma cat has complete disappeared.  I have no idea what happened to her, but this little guy went to the Humane Society (to be euthanized), or who knows...I listened to his painful cries when he was trapped the 2nd time, but he was in her yard and she wasn't about to give him to us again...sigh...So momma and 1 kitten are GONE.

But, we have the other two and they are quite content to live in their cat house.  They have toys, a log for scratching, water, a kitty box (which they both use) and plenty of food.  They are getting quite curious about me, but they do NOT like the dogs!  Ugh, ugh.  No way!  One of them, the little tabby, is quite curious and wants to be friends, but her sister? brother? (the black and white one) is still shy.  We've had them now for about 3 weeks and I'll TRY to get a photo of them, but they spend most of their time in their cat house!

We have two aging outdoor cats, but I won't be able to let the little ones out because our neighbor will kill them, so they may be destined for a life inside a cat house.  Over Christmas vacation, I'll have a friend come over and build them a nice, BIG cat house and I'm afraid they will be destined to live in it.

Such a sad story...one woman's HATRED for cats!

Ranch roses

Why can some people grow roses?  I simply cannot.  I've killed every rose I've planted at our house over the last 38 years!  I've finally just given up trying to grow them and believe me, they DO grow well here in the desert!

So, I have to get my rose fix up at the ranch.  Fortunately, they have beautiful roses up there, like these:

Signs of autumn

There are few signs of autumn here in the desert.  My cottonwood tree does start to yellow, but it doesn't lose all its leaves.  The sycamore trees at the Living Desert DO lose their leaves, however, I don't get over there much anymore.

So, I look for signs of autumn up in our local mountains.  There certainly are signs of autumn up there and they will continue for a few more days?  weeks?  I'm just not sure.  Here are a few.

SkyWatch Friday 11/07/14~Mountain clouds

I drove up through Garner Valley last weekend because I could see the clouds hanging on the mountains up there and I wanted some "mountain time".  It's only a 35 minute drive from out desert home up into these mountains.  I don't always drive this way on the weekends, but this time of year, the mountains are calling!  I love how the clouds settled on the top of the mountains!  SkyWatch Friday for November 7, 2014.  To visit SkyWatch Friday, please go to:   http://skyley.blogspot.com/

Just around the ranch

It's a beautiful time of year up at the ranch.  At least THEY get a change of seasons!  Their sycamore trees and maple trees are changing colors and I imagine they will be at their peak this weekend.  I let Gigondas out for some R&R time in the arena and she rolled and ran and ran and rolled and had a good ole' time!  She was the only horse I was able to work with because I had to get back home...sigh...It seems my family just LOVES to plan my weekend hours!  :-(  I had to meet our daughter and granddaughter at Whole Foods for lunch (Jennifer bought me lunch), so I wasn't about to miss that!  While I didn't see any bighorn sheep on Sunday, I did see the two coyotes.

This coming weekend I'll go up to the horses again and we have Tuesday off school, but I'll have to stay home and finish inputting grades and then TRY to get our gradebook program to load the grades so that they can be printed on the report cards.  It is a LONG and tiresome process.  There goes my day off on Tuesday!   And, I get to babysit Tuesday afternoon until 9:30 that night!  See, my family loves to plan my "free time"!  :-)

Why did the coyote cross the road?

...to get away from the crow!

I spotted a coyote on one side of one of the roads up to the horse ranch yesterday.  He stopped and posed for photos, then moved down into a gully.  His/her companion was on the other side of the road, so I sat and watched it.  Apparently it had angered a crow, who was dive bombing it!  It disappeared behind some trees and then sprinted across the road to join its companion.  That was my excitement for the day!

 This one stopped to check me out!

 Bye, bye!

 This was its companion.  Much lighter in color.

 The crow didn't like this guy!

 Running across the road!

See ya!

SNOW!!!!

Mt. San Gorgonio has fresh snow!  This is its first snow of the season.  I took this photo this morning when I drove up Highway 74 to see if I could find bighorn sheep.  I found a herd of 4 and will be posting about them tomorrow.