More from just around the yard...

I didn't go anywhere or do anything last weekend, so here are more pics just from around my yard.

It was cold & windy here over the weekend, with sprinkles again.  Yesterday, however, it was 93 degrees and it is expected to be 99 by Thursday.  Ugh.  That means we may have to turn on the air conditioner (DREAD!)...

My sweet peas are KAPUT.  They didn't have a chance this year, with all the heat.  But, my daisies are doing quite well!  They LOVE the heat!

 Some of my cosmos.

 Two of the hummingbird feeders out front.  I have 2 males and 1 female who come to visit.

Bird feeders out front.  See all the trees we have?  They keep the south side of the house shaded!

Just around the yard...

Once again, I have no new horse photos and I doubt I'll get up there today.  Yesterday it was raining and today hubby wants to drive out to Whitewater, which is the opposite direction.  So, I found these photos on my camera from a few weeks ago...

Our mountains and desert got RAIN!

YES!  Can you believe it?  We got RAIN in our local mountains and it even poured in some spots here in the desert yesterday!  And, the higher elevations got SNOW!  Whoopie!  California needs all the rain it can get, so the rain yesterday was a welcome relief.  In fact, I could see how dark it was over the mountains yesterday from school, so I left right on time, headed home, dumped my school bag, and grabbed both cameras.  I've had a bad connection between the lens and my camera, but hubby cleaned it out with canned air over the weekend and it worked without a hitch yesterday!  I took my Nikon, as backup, just in case!

And, the air smelled so DELICIOUS!  Oh, boy!  That was just what I needed~an afternoon driving up the mountain road, taking photos, looking out over the desert, and smelling the air!  It was delightful!  The only problem was that all the rain on the hillsides knocked down rocks and a few boulders!  I saw plenty of them on my way up, and on my way down, a California Highway Patrol officer was removing some of them BY HAND!  ACK!  I'm sure he called for a Cal Trans truck with the snow plow on the front of it, but I didn't see one.  Oh, and our mountains above 6,000 feet got... SNOW!

I didn't see any bighorn sheep, but I might on Saturday morning...here are some photos from yesterday afternoon.

 This is looking down toward Palm Desert.

 Yes!  That is the twisting road I have to take to visit the horses.  It gets worse.  It's a very narrow, two-lane "highway", if you can call it that.  It has very few turnouts.

 RAIN!  Wonderful RAIN!

 LOTS and LOTS of rain!  These downpours move quickly across the mountains and the desert floor, but boy, can they deliver a lot of water at one time!

View looking down Deep Canyon, which is parallel to the winding mountain road.

Roses at the ranch

 The view from where the fence with the roses begins...I stand in this spot to take my header photo at different times of the year.

 This is Pepsi, one of the ranch dogs.

 Beautiful roses!  Lots of horse manure up here for them!

 Can't you just smell the roses?

Horse pics

Okay...I uploaded my photos from Saturday.  I had to leave my Canon at home so hubby could blow it out.  Apparently the camera and the lens' connection was bad and he had to blow it out to make the connection work.  I kept getting an error message.  So, I took my old Nikon with me.

 Lucille's hair...

 I sure hope the birds enjoy it!

 The colt and one of the Peruvian Pasos...

 Scout...sigh...FULL of piss!

Had a good horse visit yesterday

We left Monday morning for Vegas and got home Friday afternoon.  That only left this weekend to finish up whatever I needed to go before returning to school (BLAAAHHHHHH!) tomorrow morning.  So, yesterday morning, I got up, fed the cats, dog, and outside birds, and headed up the mountain to go buy pellets for the horses and to exercise them.  It was a beautiful, spring morning as I headed up Highway 74 in our local mountains.  I soon spotted a herd of at least 3 bighorn sheep, but, unfortunately, I couldn't pull over to photograph them.  First, there were NO turnouts near them, and second, I had 5 cars behind me, including one who was tailgaiting me!  So, on I went...sigh...I hate it how people follow you so closely you can't even slow down!

Anyway, first I took Scout out down to the arena, since I knew how pent-up she would be and YUP, she was!  I hadn't had the time to visit them last weekend before we left.  It was our granddaughter's birthday party on Saturday and Sunday was Easter Sunday...so it had been two weeks since any of them had been out.  And, she was FULL of oats!  She was hard to handle in the arena, but otherwise she walked very nicely.  I took out Lucille, who looked like a woolly mammoth, over to the tie rack, and brushed and brushed and brushed and brushed her.  MY GOODNESS!  Her hair came out in clumps!  I took her up to the round pen, and she immediately rolled and rolled and rolled.  Next, I took Gigondas over to the large corral next to her pen and she rolled and rolled.  ALL of the horses are shedding, but none of them are as furry as Lucille!

I had stopped and purchased 3 bags of pellets and salt blocks for all of them, so I unloaded those items.  By then, it was noon and it was getting H-O-T!  So, back went Scout, Lucille, and Gigondas.  I never did let out Quad or Sunni, but I may ask the owner to let them out sometime this next week for some R&R.    Drove home, took a nap, and headed over to our son's for dinner.  He has a new job up in Central California and he will work weekdays, and then drive home on the weekends with a cousin of his wife.  They are both working in the same area and will also share an apartment.

So, TOMORROW I return to school.  Ugh.  Wish me luck.
~~Cheryl Ann~~
(I haven't uploaded my photos from yesterday, and I'll do that later...)  I had to take my old Nikon because my Canon was acting goofy.  Hubby blew it out and told me it was full of dust!

Water show at the Bellaggio

 The calm pool before the show.

 The show gets started!

WOW!  I LOVED it!

Vegas afternoon

Our last night in Vegas, we spent the afternoon walking up and down Las Vegas Blvd. until we were so tired we couldn't take another step.  Our daughter wanted a t-shirt from the Nine Fine Irishmen store, so we had to find that.  It was inside the casino, along with several other stores!  I bought one for myself, a gray one...

Then, hubby was tired and cranky, so we stopped at the Bobby Flay burger place.  He had a blue cheese burger and I had a blue cheese turkey burger (the BEST turkey burger I've EVER HAD!).  We split an order of fries:  half regular and half sweet potato fries...again, BEST I've had!

We hit the street again and had to go up and down and up and down steps because Vegas has these walkways above the streets.  OYE VEI!  My knees were SCREAMING!  Especially after all the walking we had done the previous two days!!!  At one point I had to sit down and rest for a few minutes before continuing on...

We waited about 15 minutes for the water show at the Bellagio (this was about 3:30pm) and IT was well worth the wait!  Then we had to walk up another block to cross over, once again, Las Vegas Blvd to get to the Eiffel Tower on the other side and back to our hotel.  We were both EXHAUSTED, but some cheese and a bottle of Ridge's Three Valley zinfandel helped us relax for the evening!

Here are some pics from our walk.  I'll do a separate post on the Bellagio water show.

 Nine Fine Irishmen pub...

 For ONCE, hubby wasn't checking out the scantily clad girls in black leather bikinis!

 Cool music!

 Caesar's Palace...

Eiffel Tower replica, which is half the size of the original.

Spring Mountain Ranch state park

Yesterday morning we drove out to Red Rock Canyon, but instead of heading directly to the scenic drive there, we stopped at the state park, Spring mountain Ranch.  There is a $9.00 fee for non-Nevada residents, so I slipped our money into the envelope, tore off my part of the receipt, and off we went.  Neither one of us had ever been there fore.  What a treat!

We went to the end of the road, at the ranch, parked, and hiked up the 1/4 mile trail.  Along the way, there is a pond with ducks and then you angle down into the ranch.  It felt SO GOOD to get out and hike again!  There are steps going up to the top of a little mesa (we did have to stop and get our breath!), but once on top, the walking was easy.  And, the views were fantastic!  Clouds were gathering overhead and off in the distance we could see rain, and it did get dark at several spots.  It was also 50 degrees and WINDY!  I kept my sweatshirt on all day.

Here are some photos I took from the Spring Mountain state park:

 Driving up to the ranch...

 Hiking the trail to the top of the mesa...

 Those colored boulders were at the top, so it wasn't a hard hike...good for us "old folks"!

 From the top, you angle down to their pond.  Very peaceful there.

 The pond...

 Walking through the old ranch buildings.

 Wouldn't you LOVE to live here?  I would!

Leaving the ranch...I LOVED stopping here!