What to post??? How about blue sky?

I was going to post a couple of pics of the frozen water troughs up at the ranch, but after reading other blogs, ya 'all seem to be TIRED of snow and frozen water, so how about these photos to warm you up? (tee hee!)

Little blue house (continued)...

I'm just fascinated by this little blue house! :-) Now, every time we drive to Joshua Tree Natl. Park, I'm going to have to stop and visit it! Why, it even has a mailbox and portable lanterns. I haven't discovered the outhouse, yet, however....hmmm.....maybe it has indoor plumbing? Here are more pics of the little blue house, the little pink one, and odds and ends around them! And, it is in such a beautiful area! It's nestled right up against the hills. There's even a water reservoir nearby!

Oh, and I've added a poll question: Have you seen the new True Grit movie? Hubby and I saw it during Christmas vacation. We LOVED the actress who played the young woman...she's quite mature!

Little blue house revisited

On our way our of Joshua Tree National Park, I had the opportunity to stop and further explore the little blue house which I posted about last week. This little house sits on the main road into the park, from the west entrance. Despite the "Keep Out" sign, I crept around it and found a second little house behind it! Wowza! Two for the price of one!!!! Hubby was resting out in the car, so I had time to do a ittle exploring! I'll be posting more pics this week. I'm so intrigued by its history and the little pink house on the property...who lived there? What happened to them? Why did they leave? Where did they go?????????? These little houses are right down the street from the now-deserted horse ranch, which is also on the road to Joshua Tree National Park.

Want a saddle??? Joshua Tree Ranch

There's a deserted horse ranch outside the west entrance to Joshua Tree National Park and since we went in and out of that entrance on Saturday, I had an opportunity to stop and look around. Yup. Want a couple of saddles? Of course, you would have to climb to the top of the posts to get them! The gate to the ranch is locked and there are no horses there and there was no activity...another sad sign of our current economy. Apparently this was once a thriving ranch. I found their website and they did boarding and gave lessons and took people into the park on horseback. Now it sits empty. It's near the little blue house ("Rattlesnake Ranch") and I'll be posting more photos of that later this week.

Return to Joshua Tree

Hubby and I returned to Joshua Tree National Park yesterday. He had the day off work and I asked him where he wanted to go for the day and he said JT, so we packed up the car and headed off very early that morning. We arrived at the park about 7:30 a.m., just as the sunlight was coming over the mountains there. There were no clouds in the sky and, you know, it just wasn't as dramatic as last weekend, with the clouds moving in. I stopped at the visitor's center on our way out of the park and bought a couple of books there, including one with color photos of snow and storms. WOW! What beautiful photos! I believe that 90% of taking a great photo is just being at the right place at the right time. Unfortunatly, 90% of the time, that doesn't apply to me! BUT, hubby did say that we should watch the weather forecasts and if it seems like a good sunset is coming, we could race up to Joshua Tree! HA! Race is right...it's about an hour from our house! Oh, well...Today I'm taking the XTerra up to see the horses and make sure they get an extra meal (like they need one!!!!).

3 years and just news from around here...

I did my first blog post on January 5, 2008 but forgot to post it that day as this week has just been CRAZY at school! It was the first week back from Christmas vacation. The kiddos were competely OUT of it Monday (teachers, too!). It's hard to come back to school and work after a two week break! I had 5 kidlets absent Monday! By Thursday, however, they were all back. One boy now has a little brother. Another girl's mother is pregnant. They have 40 horses on their ranch and now two have been killed. They now have motion detectors around the ranch. Isn't that sad...somebody killed two of their horses. She told me her dad trains them for the circus (I think she meant rodeo?)...I'm not sure and she's only 9 years old. But, her sadness is real. She loves ALL of their horses and tells me when one has a baby. One of my colleagues had a baby in November and Mery returned to work this past week. She had a little girl (her second child), so we gave her a nice baby shower on Friday. Most of the teachers I talked to couldn't WAIT for this weekend! We got used to having our own time and being able to visit family and friends! Fortunately, we have a 3 day weekend (MLK birthday) next weekend and a 4 day break in February! Oh, I took this photo on my way into school yesterday morning. The sun was hitting Mt. San Jacinto just for a couple of minutes, then it went back to being brown, but isn't the sunlight pretty?

Rock climbers Joshua Tree National Park

When we went to Joshua Tree National Park last weekend, there were rock climbers throughout the park. I spotted these two when we were leaving Barker Dam. I stopped the car, leaned over, grabbed my camera, rolled down the window, and pointed and clicked. There were cars behind me and I didn't have much time. Guess it was a lucky shot!