This, That and Another Thing

 Back again, not to much to write about except my essential tremors are getting worse so almost every other word I type is spelled wrong. Hope I catch them all. If not...well that's the way it goes. We've not been doing much. The weather here has been amazing the last few days. Lows at night in high  50's highs during day in low 80's.  But that is about to change as this week we are supposed to get quite a ot of rain from the last hurricane Trudy that came up the Pacific coast.

Looked out the kitchen window the other day and I don't ever remember seeing this mountain without any shadows on it. Looked weird. Ten minutes later there were shadows. 

And later that day a big rain storm happened between it and us. The West side of the valley got a lot of rain and we got about six drops.

We've both been doing some cooking. I saw a recipe on line and thought I'd give it a try. I don't remember the last time I fixed a whole chicken in the oven. It turned out pretty good. Glazed with brown sugar, soy sauce and honey. Cooked with baby carrots and onions. 

And Bill fixed some air fryer red peppers. He likes them in sandwiches. They smell so good when they are cooking. 

he got a bunch of solar lights for the back yard. Looks pretty at night . 

And put up some bird feeders. About 10 of these birds come to eat. 

The other morning's sunrise before we went walking looking out over the Wetlands. 

Took this while waiting for my walking partner. Clear blue sky with the jet trails. 

This was after last weeks rain. The big river had at least 20 shopping carts in it. They come from the tunnels where the homeless live and end up here. See the tire too? Now that the water has gone down there is all kinds of crap here that needs to be cleaned up. The rain we are supposed to get in the next few days will probably add more trash.

It is really getting into the Halloween mood. 

Wow, like this one.

This was from our last rain. More expected this weekend.

Bill discovered a lot of cooking shows on UTube, so guess we will do more cooking for a while. He really likes "Helly" recipes - where there are a lot of  cooked hot sandwiches. So will try making a few of them, only problem after watching a couple I can't remember the ingredients and measurements for them. Need to take notes. Fixed this one for his breakfast. Lay bread down, butter on inside of piece, place ham and cheese on slice put butter side down on top.  Dip both sides and edges in mixture of 2 eggs and dash of milk, salt and pepper. Place on greased parchment paper Top with shredded mozzarella  cheese, in 375 oven for 15/17 minutes or until cheese is golden. It tasted good. 

Oh My Gosh, we can see The Sphere from the bridge on our walks.

Pictures from our Saturday walk. Just liked the sun highlights. 

Very cloudy, but didn't get any rain until late at night, more on that later. This I took from the bridge, good view of The Strip there. If you look to the left of most of the buildings you can see a white round thing. I didn't notice it until I put the pictures on the computer.
Oh My Gosh it is the Sphere. As many times as I've taken a picture of the strip and or the mountains I never noticed it before. Maybe it was not lite up so brightly . Sure surprised us (my walking friend and me.) How could we have never seen it before????

As we watched it it was changing colors. Suddenly we could no longer see it. Went dark for a bit. 

The migrating birds are starting to come back. The heron is not Hairy, looks like a young one. Hope Hairy is okay. 

Enjoying their swim.

Continuing on our walk. The beavers have been trying to dam this, but the maintenance guys keep cleaning it up. Poor beavers.

Thought this was funny, I do remember the lines that went ding. The line or  wire or whatever came out across the lanes. 

Hurricane Rachel reached us very early Saturday morning. Really poured over lots of Vegas and in the mountains. Some of the flooding on the Strip.

There is always someone who thinks they can drive through it. 

Thought this was cute. 

We are not doing much but hanging around home lately. Now that the weather has cooled down we might start getting out more. I made cinnamon rolls the other day. Well kind of made them. Used Pillsbury canned rolls, added 1/4 cup heavy cream to pan, then added brown sugar, cinnamon and melted butter to top of rolls. Covered with foil  and baked them. After they cooled I used the topping in the can and added cream, more powdered sugar, vanilla and melted butter to make a better topping. Oh yummy almost as good as the ones we get in Mexico. Of course I had to eat them all. And I wonder why I'm gaining weight.

Today I'm going to fix a roasted chicken. Haven't done that in years. Has a brown sugar and soy sauce glaze. Cooked with baby carrots and onions. Hope it turns out. Sounds good. We walked this morning. Got in 2 miles, had to stay on concrete walkways because of past rain. 

Walking and musing.

 Well wee must have ticked off Mother Nature and she decided to toast us for a few more days. Not cooling off for another week! Enough already. At least it is cooling off enough at night that Bill can get out in his man cave early in the morning and we can get our walk in before it really heats up. 

Bill busy cleaning his man cave. Boy was the whole garage really in need of cleaning. So much crap blows in there and hides under things. Glad the street sweeper came by later that day. He knew it was coming so he wanted to get it done early. 

One of the beautiful flowers on the bush we have in the side yard. it is so pretty. 

Been walking a few time. Got in two walks of 2.5 miles and today was 2.35 9round it up to 2.5 for the Walkers program.) They told us to. Today we did the 2.35 in one hour and five minutes. No wonder I was puffing. This is a weird tree we noticed next to a little creek. It is fuzzy looking. Asked AI it is a Tamarisk or saltcedar. Grows around waterways. Strange looking. It is not native to Nevada.

Got up to the big river. Haven't seen much wildlife so far this time of year. But there are three birds in this photo. The only way I noticed them was when they flapped their wings. Phone camera doesn't do too well on long zoom photos. 

Yesterday a look at our view from our backyard. Some haze in the air. The Wetlands, then the desert then the mountains. Lake Mead is behind them. 

This pond is completely covered in this green stuff, it is actually plants of some kind. Again asked AI It is Duckweed,  one of the world's smallest flowering plants. It provides food and shelter for small water creatures and is eaten by some waterfowl. 

This big  pond was completely covered with reeds last time we came by. They've really started to clean it out. They have a tractor like machine that goes into the pond and cuts the reeds, then they have to get it to land and truck them away. The water is pretty shallow. Learn something new everyday.

Today, Monday, when we got to the river we were surprised to see the blue heron. Hopefully some of the wintering waterfowl will be showing up soon. 

Oh boy, I messed up my blog the other day. My list of blogs  read needed updated to show the new blog URL's of a couple of them. Well not paying attention instead of deleting an old URL I deleted the whole "gadget" section. And setting it up and getting everything back was not as easy as it was the first time I did it years ago. New and updated method of course. I know I've left a couple off buy do not remember their names or URLs. So if I've left you off please let me know and I'll get you back.  I hate when things like that happen. I lost all my phone contacts once, but luckily a friend told me how to get them back from Google. Seems like now we don't have to remember things so we don't until OOPS!!

I've been re-reading a series of book about a National Park Ranger - Anna Pigeon, by Nevada Barr. I enjoy the books. Except she sure gets into a lot of trouble in each one. Anyway I noticed there was a TV series based ?? on the books. So I started watching it. I hate when someone takes a perfectly book and changes it so much you just vaguely recognize it. The TV would be okay if you weren't familiar with the books. The same with the series Dark Winds based on the Tony Hilleman books about the Navajo police. Same with series Reacher and Bosch. I guess I imagine what the people and places look like and then am disappointed with the TV characters and places. Those of us of a "certain age" had good imaginations when we started reading I guess. Only movie I wasn't disappointed in was Gone With the Wind. Speaking of certain age, I just realized I graduated from high school 70 years ago. Does not seem possible. Bill said 70 years ago he was jumping out of army planes. GAD that makes us old. 

Happy October already!

 Seems like the older I get the faster time goes. How is it possible it is October already, a few weeks ago it was June?! At least it has cooled down here some, getting into the low 70's at night so the mornings are walkable again. We've managed to get out there twice for 2.5 miles a hike. But it takes a while for me to recuperate! Actually missed two walking days this week, just because body was saying, don't do it. Going to try on Saturday again. However from today on temperatures will be back up in high 90's for at least 10 days. Ugh.

So a few pictures from the Wetlands. This is one of our favorite stops...but over the summer it has really changed. The reeds have overtaken the pond.

This is what we used to see from the same vantage point. Didn't even see and fish or turtles swimming around the other day. 

Some mallards swimming around in the river, but it too is almost covered in reeds. 

Looking up the river. Near the left edge can just see some of the hotels on the Strip.

We had a couple days of rain, our area didn't get too much. But of course it was raining when the roofer came to fix the roof. Ended up having to buy a bundle of shingles as the entire cap line on the roof had to be replaced. He told us the people who put on the roof used the wrong sized nails, so we will probably continue to have shingles blowing off. It was roofed 9 years ago. Of course that roofer is no longer in business. 

The piece of the tree that survived is growing like crazy, a new limb coming to life. 

And a lot of regrowth from the piece of trunk where it broke. 

Felt a big shake of house and a big boom - they are still working on  the new sewer line behind us. The shake was them dropping this huge metal piece back there. Also see the tree. It was raining off and on all day that day. From the hurricane Polo.

Bill has been really ambitious lately - here he is cleaning out the shed.Lots of stuff in there we had forgotten about. He still has the kites we used to take to Mexico with us. And boxes and boxes of Christmas stuff that haven't been touched since we put them in there. 

One nice thing about the rainy weather are the sunsets. Magical to watch. 

Yesterday morning we went out to breakfast at the Omelet House - forgot how big their servings were. That is a regular size dinner plate. Bill ended up bringing most of it home with us. So far he's had two meals at home from it. And it was delicious as are the thin sliced potatoes. $15.99 for the omelet and potatoes. Cheaper than and better than Denny's.

And of course The Sphere.

I'm going out to lunch with my friend Rona today. We worked together in LA for the school food service program. And have two testing doctor apps this month - other than that not much going on. 

I've been working on getting our information in order so when we "GO" it will be easier on our son to find things and get them closed or whatever. Lot more involved than I thought it would be. Especially with all the technology involved. 

Finally walking again

 One of our sunrises the other day.  Can't help but loving it. 

Finally it is cool enough in the morning to walk. Have managed to get out three times in last week. This is from solo walk a week ago. The sun just coming up. I don't like to walk alone out there as the homeless tend to sleep there. So stayed in the playground right behind the house.

lots of little flowers blooming all over. 

Part of one of the side walks in the playground. Other places have animal foot prints and lines show how far different animals can jump. 

One of several information boards. 

I hate to see this, Why do people do this?  It says Be Still My Beating Heart. Better than bad words, but still. 

Sun is up behind the gray clouds. 

The climbing wall for the kids. 

I got in one mile walking around it. 

Noticed we are missing roof tiles, from all the strong wind we've had lately. Called insurance company my deductible is $1500! For other things it is only $500, but for wind damage...to bad. They said call some one to come check it out and fix it. If it is really bad get estimate and send to them. Well I really looked at the photos I took of the roof and I think it is worse then I first thought. Those aren't shingles missing those are the backs of shingles that came from another part of the roof. 

From the other side of the house, that doesn't look good. Need to call someone tomorrow and see how much damage there really is. UGH. Sometimes I wish we lived in an  apartment. 

The weather continues to cool down, only going  to be in high 80's for a couple of days, but those days may have rain. Don't need that right now. That's it for now. Will try to do better with posting.