PACKING UP THE WINNIE WAGON FOR A MONDAY DEPARTURE WESTWARD:))

 

HEADING WEST                -                       HEADING EAST

 

Nice full Moon Saturday night as Pheebs & I slipped outside for a walk around the front yard & a stroll through our little Cactus garden.  Only the third full Moon we have seen since leaving the South-West 8 months ago.  We generally see all the full Moons while here in the South-West but did manage to catch a couple while back in Ontario over the summer.  It’s nice here because we can just look out our windows & clearly see Sunsets, Sunrises, Moon downs, & Moon rises.  Groovy:))

THIS MORNING’S SETTING MOON REFLECTION

 

AND WHO SAID THERE COULDN’T BE 2 MOONS IN THE SKY

WITH A LITTLE CREATIVE ‘PHOTO SHOPPING’ IN PICASA I CREATED SOMETHING A BIT DIFFERENT OUT OF THIS MORNING’S MOON

Comet Ison is now visible in the low pre-dawn skies to the South-East but I haven’t found it yet due to low cloud cover on the horizon these past few days.  Pheebs & I will be out first thing Monday morning looking for it again.  It is currently passing through the constellation Virgo.

No images on the Critter Cam this morning so we are hoping we are at the end of our Skunk problem.   Just as well because had we had the trap set last night & had it caught a Skunk, Pheebe would have been sprayed this morning for sure.  When we went out she made a bee-line around to the back of the house because she has clued in on the cat food on the ground back there.  Cat food used as Skunk bait.  Close call!!

CLOUD SHADOWS ON THE SOUTHERN END OF THE DATE CREEK MOUNTAINS

Turned out to be a fine weather day.  Cooler around 60F but works great for me when I am busy outside.  House stays cool, in fact I had to put my long sleeve shirt on whenever I went in.  Used our new ?? (couldn’t find the name on it) heater for the first time this morning to take the chill out of the air.  We have tried out a few new heaters since buying the house & I must say out of all of them we are the most pleased with this infrared ?? (I’ll ask Kelly in the morning what make it is…..she’ll know)

  

 

 

AND HERE IS A RARE TORTOISE BACK CURVE BILL THRASHER:))

Spent time cleaning glass in the Winnie Wagon.  Don’t mind a bit of dust & dirt on a vehicle but I do like windows to be clean.  Loaded up some of my stuff & kept busy at a host of small odd jobs.  Kind of a constructive putter you might say.

I THINK SOMEBODY IS JUST ABOUT READY FOR A SNOOZE

And thanks to RETIRED ROD for setting me straight on how to change the time setting for my blog publishing.  Seems I need a little more ‘setting me straight’ stuff these days.

  

THIS GROUP OF PHOTOS TELL ME I HAD BETTER BUMP UP MY SHUTTER SPEED NEXT TIME OUT…CAN’T TELL IF THAT LAST LITTLE GUY IS COMING OR GOING

Took the Sirius Satellite antennae out of & off the Jeep this afternoon affixed it to Winnie The Bago’s roof.  Same idea I had with the Damon.  Tin can lid glued to the fiber glass roof & the magnetic antennae pod stuck to the lid same as a car top.  Ran the antennae wire down the side of the awning arm & through the bottom of the passenger door.  And here’s the most amazing part…..when I was all done, it worked.  Maybe that’s why there was 2 Moons in the sky.

I LATER PUT A SWATCH OF WHITE DUCK TAPE ON THAT ANTENNAE WIRE

 

AND A COUPLE PHOTOS TAKEN FROM WINNIES ROOF BY THE SHADOW COWBOY HIMSELF

Rig is pretty well loaded & ready to go Monday but it will not be an early start.  We generally only do those 4, 5, & 6 a.m. departures when we are either traveling to or from the South-West.  Imagine we’ll roll into Slab City sometime late Monday afternoon.  Will probably I-10 it to Box Canyon road east of Indio & slip down through Mecca.  We haven’t done that stretch of road along the Salton Sea from Mecca to Niland yet so tomorrow that is likely the direction we will head.  But who knows, we might slip south of Blyth again & skip through the Imperial Sand Dunes at Glamis & head north from Brawley.  We’ll see which way the wind blows us………………..

<<< TONIGHT’S SLIGHTLY ENHANCED RISING MOON (I PUT AN EXTRA HELPING OF CHEESE ON IT)

GROANER’S CORNER:(( 

How do you tell a Canadian from an American?
It used to be enough to ask him to say the alphabet. When the Canadian got to the end, he'd say "zed" instead of "zee". But 18 years of Sesame Street have taught a lot of Canadian kids to say "zee," and it's starting to sound as natural as it does south of the 49th parallel.
Another test used to be the word "lieutenant". Canadians pronounced it in the British was, "leftenant", while Americans say "lootenant". But American cop shows and army shows and movies have eroded that difference, too.
Canadians have been adopting American spelling as well. They used to put a "u" in words like labour. The main organization in the country, the equivalent of the AFL-CIO, is still officially called the Canadian Labour Congress. But news organizations have been wiping out that distinction by adopting American spelling, mostly to make it easier to use news copy from such agencies as Associated Press without a lot of changes. So it's "Canadian Labor Congress" when the Canadian Press, the national news agency, writes about it.
Some pronunciations, considered true tests of Canadians, are not as reliable as they're thought. Take the word "house" for example. When some Canadians say it, it sounds very Scottish in American ears. Visiting Americans trying to reproduce what they hear usually give the Canadian pronunciation as "hoose".
The same for "out" and "about". The way some Canadians say them sounds like "oot" and "aboot" to many Americans. And when an American says "house" to a Canadian, the Canadian often hears a bit of an "ay" in it, something like "hayouse".
But pronunciation isn't a good test because people from different parts of Canada speak differently. A resident of the Western province of Alberta, where there has been a considerable inflow of settlers from the United States, may sound like a Montanan or a Dakotan.
Then there's the ubiquitous Canadian expression "eh?" - pronounced "ay?" This is a better test because many Canadians tack it on to the end of every assertion to turn it into a question.

-------------------------------------------------------------
- Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.
- Home is where your pet is:))
- "If having a soul means being able to feel
love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals
are better off than a lot of humans."
(James Herriot)
- The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails -William Arthur Ward
- The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.
- It is not so much having nothing to do as it is not having the interest to do something....AL.

 

WOULD YOU BELIEVE SKUNK NUMBER 3

THESE ARE PRICKLY PEAR CACTUS & NOT THE KIND I HAVE BEEN PLANTING

Well I’ll be darned if we didn’t catch Skunk number 3 last night.  What is this place….Skunk central!!  No Critter Cam pics because I had to bring the cam in due to the thunderstorm.  It was still raining when I went to bed.  Les was in again this morning & picked up the Skunk.  He will re-set the live trap again Monday night.  Still no TV first thing this morning but I couldn’t go out & adjust the satellite dish.  Why?  Because the satellite dish on it’s tripod was about 5 feet away from the Skunk cage:(( 

 

OUR SATURDAY MORNING MOUNTAINS SURE LOOK A LOT DIFFERENT THAN OUR FRIDAY MORNING MOUNTAINS

After the Skunk was gone I did check out the dish & found one of the tripod legs had sunk in the mud enough to tilt the satellite dish away from the satellite.  Leveled the tripod, panned the dish slightly to the East & ‘Walla’ we were back on target.  Problem solved. 

OUR NEIGHBORHOOD

NOT A LOT OF SOLAR POWER FOR CONGRESS’S SCHOOL TODAY

 

HAVE ALWAYS LIKED THE COLOR COMBINATIONS CONGRESS CHOSE FOR THEIR SCHOOL

I know the time stamp on my published blog each night is confusing & that is because of the time zone change.  We are 3 hours different from Ontario.  If I publish my post at 9:30 p.m. now it will show as 12:30 a.m the following day.  Not only confusing to you but confusing to me as well.  Maybe that had something to do with me losing a day this past week:((

CLOUD IMAGINATIONS

  

CAN YOU SEE THE SCHNAUZER DOG PROFILE IN THE LEFT PHOTO & DOUBLE PROFILE ON THE LEFT…RIGHT SIDE IS AN OLD MAN WITH A BULBOUS NOSE TALKING-LEFT SIDE IS A DOGGY PROFILE

2 DOGS TOUCHING NOSES

LOOK CAREFULLY FOR THE GORILLA HEAD PROFILE ON THE LEFT…THE HIGHEST ROCK POINT IS THE TOP OF THE GORILLAS HEAD & HE IS LOOKING TO THE RIGHT…HE HAS AN EAR, EYE, NOSE, & MOUTH

First order of business this morning was to move all the porch furniture out of the living room & back onto the porch.  Our porch is covered but raindrops somehow sling themselves in towards the house.  I suppose the wind sometimes helps too.

THAT SLASH ACROSS YONDER MOUNTAIN IS THE ROAD LEADING TO YARNELL & IS COMMONLY REFERRED TO AS THE ‘YARNELL HILL’…PHOTO FROM OUR SIDE YARD AT 300mm

Love the smell after a desert rain.  Kind of a sweet pungent aroma in the air.  Have smelled that before & especially one time over in Borrego Springs where they have a lot Creosote bushes at the Clark Dry Lake Bed.  Coincidentally we had just talked to Les about Creosote bushes on Friday.  He recommended them as something we can grow here with little effort so is picking a couple up for us next week.  Mark over at BOX CANYON BLOG mentioned them in a comment as well.  For all you boondocking enthusiasts like ourselves you might want to check out MARK'S LATEST POST & see what him & the BOONSTER are proposing for like minded folks who enjoy the great outdoors.  Always interesting reading & fine photos on Mark’s blog.

No dirt pick ups today.  Kelly headed off to Wickenburg for groceries this morning so I took the trailer off the Jeep.   Finished tidying up around the new flower beds.  Wheel barrowed some stones around here & there & trimmed the tops off some tall Mesquite trees in the back yard so we can see the sunsets better.  Trees had never been trimmed so it was quite a struggle to cut a swath through a mess of prickly underbrush to get at the tall branches.  By 3 this afternoon I had again used up all my daily allotment of energy units & had to plug myself into my recliner for a re-charge.

  

IT WAS QUITE A CHALLENGE CLEARING SOME OF THIS VERY PRICKLY MESQUITE UNDERBRUSH TODAY

Mo from THE MOHO AND OTHER TRAVELING TALES was recently ambushed by a riding lawn mower.  She took a rock to the face which knocked her down & did some damage.  The lawnmower was not injured in the incident.  Better check out, ‘A FIGHT’.

 

WAITING FOR THE SUNSET

Going to put the Critter Cam out again tonight in the area where the Skunks have been congregating.  We’ll see if we have any more of them there pesky young whipper-snappers around.

AND YES THERE IS EVEN A HALLOWEEN FACE IN THIS PHOTO…LEFT SIDE

GROANER’S CORNER:((  Ponderings…………..     

-"I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I do" is the longest sentence?
-If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, and drycleaners depressed?
-Do Roman paramedics refer to IV's as "4's"?
-Why is it that if someone tells you that there are 1 billion stars in the universe you will believe them, but if they tell you a wall has wet paint you will have to touch it to be sure?
-If you take an Oriental person and spin him around several times, does he become disoriented? 
-Last night I played a blank tape at full blast. The mime next door went nuts.
-If a person with multiple personalities threatens suicide, is that considered a hostage situation?
-Just think how much deeper the ocean would be if sponges didn't live there.
-------------------------------------------------------------
- Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.
- Home is where your pet is:))
- "If having a soul means being able to feel
love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals
are better off than a lot of humans."
(James Herriot)
- The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails -William Arthur Ward
- The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.
- It is not so much having nothing to do as it is not having the interest to do something....AL.