Just a short note

After church today, I made some rice krispie treats, dipped them in chocolate, then drizzled white chocolate on them.  I then drove them to two families in the ward.  It was so much fun to see the smiles on the faces of the families I shared with.  I stayed to visit with one sister a little while.  We talked about gardens, kids, families, life.  So much fun.  While we were checking out the garden, we found a huge moth.  This one was black and gray. 

If you've read some of my other posts recently, you'll see that I don't have too many issues with insects.  But then again, I only pick up the ones I'm pretty sure won't do me any harm.

Then I came home and prepared some chicken for the grill.  I husked some corn, and went to pick up some friends for dinner.  We got back and I fired up the grill.  The chicken turned out very flavorful.  I enjoyed it.  We had corn and salad, then some chose ice cream or milkshakes for dessert.  It has been a wonderful Sunday. 

Here is my favorite garden shot from yesterday.

 

I also had the chance to see these baby geese while running to the store at lunch this week.  They were just strutting down the aisle in the parking lot.

Relaxing afternoon

I text messaged a good friend of mine towards the end of my workday to ask if she wanted to go for a walk along the American River bike trail.  It looked like a beautiful day outside and I was in the mood for some sunshine and exercise.  We met after I got off of work and went for a three mile walk.  Along our way we watched people fishing out on the river, waved at the bicyclists, and chatted.  We hit the 1.5 mile point and turned around.  On the way back we passed some blackberry bushes that had berries on them.  I stopped to sample the fruit.  So very good.  I ate about a dozen berries before we moved on.  A little farther down the trail we ran into some really fun caterpillars.  we admired them and moved on.  A short distance farther and we found a little caterpillar on the ground in the middle of the path.  My friend used a large blade of grass to pick it up.  I decided I wanted to hold it.  The caterpillar tickled as it crawled up my arm.  After snapping a few photos we placed it back into the bushes. 

After we finished our walk it was off to Chipotle for some salad bowls.  I love chipotle.  Then we drove back to my car .  We took a slight detour as we passed a pond with some ducks and ducklings in it.  There were 10 ducklings in all.  They were so cute.  I loved watching them swim, dive, and follow their parents. 







This one is a lone duckling searching for the family

This one is a video of the family

Solar eclipse

I was so excited when my friend told me yesterday that there would be a solar eclipse today.  I came home from church, took a nap, woke up  went to choir, and then came home and waited.  At 5:15 pm I logged onto a website that was streaming live video of the eclipse.  It was pretty cool.  As I listened to the broadcast I and heard them mention pinhole viewers, my mind quickly thought about the cereal box I just put in the recycle bin.  I went and retrieved the cereal box, taped the lid closed, cut the two ends out, and covered one end with tinfoil and put a pinhole in it. 

After making my new toy, I took it next door to show my neighbors.  They actually were in the process of making one of their own.  It was pretty cool.  They invited me to stay for dinner.  Then we all enjoyed watching the eclipse through the viewers, and seeing all the superb eclipse looking shadows on walls, the shed, the house, etc. 

Then it was time to try and take pictures of the eclipse using the viewer, and of course turning the camera to the sun ;)

 So the camera didn't catch it

 This is the view inside the cereal box

 These next two are using a big box and projecting the image onto a large sheet of white paper. 





My neighbor and I tried to get her son to come and see what it was all about.  We got one photo of the crescent on his shirt, and then he decided it was more fun to play in the box than look at the image of the eclipse.

Of course I couldn't end the blog without a photo of me using my pinhole viewer.  Don't I look very scientific ;)

Garden update #1

I have really been enjoying the drip line and soaker hose method of watering the garden this year.  It makes things so much nicer.  I walk out, turn on the faucet, and voila, the garden is being watered.  I think the plants are happy too, they are growing so nicely thanks to some water and beautiful sunshine.  I wanted to post some pictures of what it looks like now since the plants have grown so much.

 Beans and tomatoes, the carrots are finally sprouting but they are still pretty small

 corn, onions, garlic, peppers, squash

 the second crop of corn is just coming up

 I already have a few cherry tomatoes growing, and the plants are flowering.  I have high hopes for lots of tomatoes.

 this is the box with the most variety, but all seem to be doing pretty well, if only I could keep the rolly polly bugs (some call them potato bugs) from eating the plants.

 The corn makes me smile

The beans are starting to flower too.  So excited



Pleasant Sunday

I went to church yesterday where I was surprised with some roses from my friend's garden.  He said he wanted to make sure I had a happy Mother's Day.  It was a sweet thought.  The flowers are fragrant and make a great centerpiece for my table. 

  After church I drove down to visit my Aunt and Uncle.  I had a blast.  I took a bunch of photos with me that I'd brought back with me from my last visit to see family in Mexico.  My Aunt helped me to sort through the photos and put them together according to who was in the photos.  I had quite a pile of pictures that had people I didn't recognize.  I scanned the photos and then uploaded them to facebook in hopes that my family in Mexico might be able to comment and help me identify who the individuals were in the photos.  The plan worked, I've gotten lots of comments, and many include the names.  I was so excited to find that I had a photo of my great grandmother.  I can't wait to see how many other individuals are identified.  I thought I'd share some of my favorite photos.

My Grandma and Grandpa on vacation

My Grandpa, so handsome!!!!

My Grandma, she was beautiful!!! 

Grandparents 

Great Grandma



Pirating on the bay

I fell in love with sailing a couple of years ago.  I've got some friends who have a beautiful sailing ship the Aldebaran.  I had the opportunity to join them this morning for a sail on the bay.  We left the port around noon, and sailed and sailed around the bay.  I of course brought my gloves so that I could participate as crew.  I normally help run the main sheet at the stern of the ship, but today, I got to help raise the sails, man the runners, help drop sail, and haul in the jib and the jib topsail.  Lets just say I got my workout for the day.  After we sailed around the bay, we sailed over to a yacht club where we were to be the main entertainment.  We went sailing dressed in our pirate garb, as we were to attack the yacht club with our cannons.  We made several passes, I was the person who held the lighting stick while the gunners worked the guns.  I even got to light one round off.  It was pretty cool.  After our attack ended we sailed back to port and I traveled home.  It was a fantastic day, and a perfect way to end my break between semesters. 

Don't I make a great pirate :) 

 Main mast

 Captain Brown

 Cannons two and three

 Cannon one

One of the toughest pirates on the seven seas, Pirate Bob

 Captains wife

 The USS Iowa, it was the longest ship I've ever seen, and it had huge guns too.  It's being cleaned up to be a maritime museum.

Jolly Roger

Black Powder Pistol Demo

captain's turn to play



Garden 2012

Being that I've been so busy between work, school, and trying to be social I wasn't sure that I was going to attempt a garden this year.  However, the urge to get some sunshine and to have wonderful veggies to eat this summer won.  I spent the early part of last week planting my garden boxes for the year.  It was so much fun.  I realized though that I'd need to set up a watering system that I could just turn on and turn off without my supervision needed.  So this year I decided to attempt putting in a drip line system.  I didn't realize that putting all those little drippers in would be so time consuming.  By the time I looked at the third box with it's rows and rows of corn (OK like twelve rows of 9 plants each row), I decided that I'd change to a soaker hose for that box.  So I have two boxes with drip line, and the plan is to get a soaker hose this weekend for the third box.  I still have to put the drip lines out for my fruit trees and blueberry bushes.  But the garden is coming along nicely.  My apple tree has five little apples on it so far, my mandarin has about as many little mandarins, and my orange has not flowered, but I'm still hoping.  I'm so excited to have the ability to grow fruits and veggies.  They taste so much better than store bought. 

Beans and Peppers, and you can see the drip line work. 

 Tomatoes

 Drip line woot woot, the blank space has carrot seed in it.

 squash, melons, herbs, cucumbers and more drip line, oh yeah and cabbage

 corn, and the blank area next to it is more corn that will sprout and give a second harvest :)

more peppers, spaghetti and butternut squash, and the dirt area up top is where I planted onion and garlic seeds.  Gotta love gardening.  I'll update the photos throughout the season.