Still here and most of the state is on fire

 We're still here...healthy and at least partially sane!   We don't go out much.   I run errands and hubby stays home.   And, I don't run errands often, maybe once a week.   I always wear my mask and I get in and out as quickly as I can...NO DAWDLING!

Most of California is on fire.   The Apple Fire is now 95% contained, but now Whitewater Canyon and Preserve are closed due to... flash flood danger!   We are having afternoon thunderstorms and they have been hit by rain in the fire-damaged areas.  Northern California has been hit by lightning strikes causing many fires up there.   How sad.   One of the redwood parks has been completely burned, even the visitors' center...sigh...Our president will say we didn't rake up enough pine needles...(eye roll...)

August is dragging on and on and on.   It looks like we will FINALLY get a break from the heat & humidity around the end of the month.   In the meantime, a Coopers' hawk comes every day now and sips water at the bird bath, although one day he did kill a dove and I found its...wing...in the bird bath when I filled it up the next morning!   Ugh.   

Bunny comes to visit, too.   I have 3 hummingbirds in the yard and I clean and refill their feeders often.  The bees emptied two of them yesterday.

I'm currently babysitting (taking turns with the other grandma) the 7 year old second grade granddaughter now for 2 weeks at a time.   She is doing distance learning and we take turns sitting with her making sure she is ON TASK and not picking her nose on Zoom.  She has to get dressed, eat her breakfast, and brush her teeth and get her hair up in a ponytail every morning for school.   They do the pledge and their school motto first thing every morning and then they do 15 minutes of quiet math.   She was tested on her math ability and scored at a 4th grade in algebra!   SO PROUD OF HER!   She does math problems in her head. Once in a while I see her counting on her fingers, but not very often.   She is definitely way ahead of me!   She DOES, however, need to work on her writing skills.

So, life goes on.   Our son and his family are now all the way across the country, so we communicate via Messenger.   His youngest is 3 years old today.

Stay healthy!

XOXOXOXO

Cheryl

Enjoying the koi pond up in Idyllwild a few weekends ago...That's Bodie, our dog.   He goes with us.

FIRE!

There is a huge fire (20,000 acres this morning) about 45 minutes away from us, near Beaumont and another one up in Whitewater Canyon.   YES, the canyon with the Whitewater Preserve.  The Beaumont fire was heading up toward Oak Glen and all of the apple orchards and farms, but the winds have now pushed that one east, toward Pioneertown.   The Whitewater fire is heading UP the mountain, away from the preserve...sigh...Arson is suspected as the cause of these fires since there have been NO thunderheads.   We haven't had much of a monsoon season so far this summer and August doesn't look like we'll have any storms, so we have been without rain for some time now.

We are keeping an eye on both fires.   Yesterday driving back down Highway 74 from Idyllwild we could see that the entire Coachella Valley was FULL of smoke!   Ugh!   It is drifting east over our valley and we are FULL of smoke.   People are being advised to stay indoors.   Well, with a temperature of 118 degrees here today, we will do so!

Will post updates as they become available.

Here are some links for you:

Los Angeles Times:     https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-08-02/apple-fire-in-riverside-county-grows-to-20-000-acres-winds-expected-to-pick-up-this-afternoon

CNN:      https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/03/us/california-apple-fire-monday/index.html

This one has a map of the fire area:     https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/08/02/map-apple-fire-perimeter-and-evacuation-near-banning/

The dog days of summer

All is normal here.   I'm now making art journals and experimenting with various art techniques.   One of my best customers ordered a custom art journal, which I've been working on for a month! All I have to do now is the cover and she's DONE!

Horses are fine.   I drove up last Monday and brushed them all and trimmed Quad's mane, since he had a LOT of tangles!   They just had their feet done and I'll have to get my vet out next month for their yearly shots.

We spent the weekend up in Idyllwild with our daughter and her family.   we rented 2 cabins adjoining each other, with a huge patio deck to share.   We took our dog Bodie with us and he was fascinated by the squirrels!  Most of the cabins there were occupied for the weekend and many people brought their dogs, as it is a pet friendly place.   Friday it was 120 degrees here in the desert and 94 up there and they don't have air conditioning in the cabins, so we turned on every fan and finally came out about 5 p.m. to enjoy the evening coolness.  

We are back home this morning (August 3rd) and I'll have to babysit Miss Ellie for the next 2 weeks while her mother is doing distance learning classes and she (Miss Ellie) will start 2nd grade online.   In fact, she and her mom are driving to her school this morning to pick up her Chrome book and anything else she will need for online learning.

I'll be posting photos later today.

XOXOXO

Cheryl Ann

Now on ko-fi (new)

I'm now on ko-fi, which is a website that promotes and encourages artists such as writers, journal makers, educators, painters, etc.   I just finished my profile, so PLEASE come take a look.

https://ko-fi.com/cherylann0254https://ko-fi.com/cherylann0254

And, if you "buy me a coffee", you donate $3.00 to my effort to replenish all my fabric and thread which I used to make masks these last 10 weeks.

Thank you so much!
Cheryl Ann

Just around the garden~Nature Notes~May 26, 2020

I always love to putter around my two gardens in the morning, before it gets too hot and I have to retreat indoors because of the heat.   Living near Palm Springs, CA is great for about 7 months of the year.   We never know, however, what we are going to get in May, June, or September.   They can either be hot, HOT, HOTTTT or mild.

I still have flowers blooming and now I have squash blossoms!   I planted zucchini and yellow squash in several different locations and I even have one hanging pot (which I put on the ground) full of them. 

So, here's what's blooming in my gardens right now:

 Gorgeous squash blossom this morning

 Sunflower and bee

 Look at all the pollen that bee has!

 Unopened hollyhock

One of my black eyed Susans.   I have several plants of these which came up on their own from last year's seeds.

To visit Nature Notes, please go to this link:     https://ramblingwoods2.com/

Just some odds & ends from my gardens~Nature Notes~May 12, 2020

I actually have 2 garden spots (or "jungles" as the grandkids call them)...one in the front yard and then most of the back yard.   I have no lawn in the front, except on the west side of the driveway.   The back yard, alas, does have a lawn, but I've managed to plant sunflowers, hollyhocks, and now beans & squash in various spots.   I have bird feeders set up in both yards.

I went around yesterday and took photos of the "hollyhock jungle" and some odds & ends.  It's good to view things other than the flowers every now & then.   I had a hummingbird accompany me for a while and I enjoyed seeing all the bees in the hollyhocks, but that's another story for another day.

 Front yard

 Bird bath

 Even the dead cottonwood has a certain beauty

 acacia blooms and yes, they smell sweet!

 Dried sunflower from last summer

My favorite watering can

To visit Nature Notes, please go to this link:     https://ramblingwoods2.com/

Still here , same routine

We are still here and healthy, so far.   My daily routine is this:   Wake up about 4:30 or 5 a.m., see if there is any leftover coffee from the previous day, stick it in microwave, go out and feed the birds, the outdoor old cat, and the dog, check my ETSY shop, check Facebook, mess around on my computer until about 9 a.m...

I finished 2 journals this past week, and it was good to get back and make journals.   I have TONS of fabric and I need to start using it!   They are in my ETSY shop:     https://www.etsy.com/shop/DesertsandBeyond?ref=pr_shop_more

I even started a journal with the 7 year old granddaughter, but she now has 12 pages of work A DAY (first grade), plus her own school journal to do!   That seems like a LOT of work.   Plus, she is required to do reading online for 45 minutes a day.   So, she doesn't have much free time!

I just don't see how schools can reopen.   22+ students in a classroom?   First graders wearing masks?   What about recess and lunch?   Maybe no lunch, maybe just 1/2 day of formal instruction?  How?   Their desks are tables designed for 2 per table. And, classrooms aren't large enough to have 1 child per table.   Lots to think about...

My flowers are gorgeous, but my hollyhocks seem to be fading quicker than last year.   It is probably the heat.   It will be 107 here today, then 109, then 108, then "down" to 106, then the high 90's next week.   Ugh.   It is going to be a LONG, HOT summer.   We open up the house every morning to get the cool air in and so it isn't as stuffy.

Photos of more plants from my garden: