Short week

I have a short week this week and then 10 days of spring break.  I CANNOT wait.  It looks like we'll be having pleasant spring break weather~not too hot.  I remember some years when the heat was nearly unbearable!  Ugh.

And, we haven't had to turn on our air conditioner AT ALL (...knock on wood...)!  Since we have so many trees on the south side of our yard, they completely shade that part of the house!  That's always nice here in the desert.

My flower garden out front is growing nicely.  Once the real heat comes, however, it will be KAPUT!

Only 3 more days of school this week...YIPPIE!   :-)

Horse update

Hubby and I had a chance to stop at the horse ranch on our way back from Temecula on Sunday.  We drove over there Saturday to spend time with our son and grandkids.  I had some rocks for the grandson and we had his birthday presents, so we needed to go!  It was a beautiful weekend in Temecula ~ NO fog!  It had rained hard there on Friday and everthing was nice & green.  I'm glad we went.

The horses are all fine and still shaggy.  I only had time to run around and give each of them a couple of scoops of pellets, as hubby was getting fidgety.  He did walk over to say "Hi!" to Gigondas, but she was more interested in the food.

I'll have more time this coming Saturday to spend with them.  My grooming box is in the back of my car, and we had his car, so I didn't even have that with me.

 Sunni, of course, had to stick his big nose in the camera!

 Scout was IMPATIENTLY waiting for her snack and couldn't be bothered with any kind of lovin'.

 Quad just wanted his snack...NOW!

Pretty view of the ranch.  Gigondas turned her butt to me and went off and ate her snack, so I didn't even get a photo of her!

Well, NOW I've REALLY done it! :-(

So, yesterday I decided to take a drive out into the desert and check for wildflowers.  Everybody else is having a banner year and we've had some pretty good rain.  I headed out toward Thousand Palms Canyon, which is a huge wash and it has lots of hiking trails.  The San Andreas fault runs right there and it has a lot of palm oases.  The Coachella Valley Preserve is along this area and I figured there would be verbena out there.

I stopped at the hiking trailhead and got out.  I found verbena, lupines, and different yellow flowers among the rocks in the wash when...SUDDENLY my right shoe came off!  It just slipped off and I went tumbling down!  SPLAT!  My camera lens landed against a rock, but it appeared to be okay and it DID work later.  However, I landed on a rock with my left knee and I somehow did something to my right ankle.

I'm going to have to go to urgent care today.  There were people on the trail and they stopped to assist me, but I WAS (thank goodness) able to walk back to my car before things stiffened up.  In fact, I drove down to the edge of the Coachella Valley Preserve and took photos of the verbena along the sand dunes there (I didn't walk much...), then home to put ice on both legs.

However, my right ankle has severely stiffened up (I didn't even land on that leg...go figure...) and I'm going to have to go in today to urgent care.  I can barely put any weight on that leg.

Here are some of the photos I got yesterday, both before and after my fall...sigh...

 Pretty lupines in the wash out by the San Andreas fault

 This is right after I fell down...see the rocks?

 Verbena

The sand has blown over one whole lane of this road.  I've NEVER seen it like this before.  Another gentleman was also here, taking photos, but he was able to hike out and over the sand dunes.  I didn't even try to do that.  I went home and put ice on both legs and fell asleep watching "Independence Day".

LOTS of color at our local nursery center

We have a nice nursery center here in town, as well as the two box stores.  They never seem to have what I want and their plants don't look healthy.  So, I enjoy visiting our local nursery every now and then.  It is nestled up into one of the canyons here in town and they have been there for over 40 years.  The staff allows me to wander around with my camera and they are all friendly.

I went up there Sunday to buy some seeds (cosmos) for the back yard, but they only had 2 packages, so I did end up driving over to ...(cough, cough) Lowe's.  What a difference in the quality of the plants and their prices, too!  OUCH!  The local nursery is so expensive I cannot afford to buy anything bigger than a small pot there, but I do enjoy looking at all of their beautiful specimens.

See if you agree...