Tuesday, October 27, 2026

Walking and cooking

 Getting out to go walking at 7 a.m. Doesn't get as light as early as it did a few weeks ago. Sun just coming up. Love to go when it is like this,. 

Once the sun gets up in the sky if there are no clouds it feels hot even if the air is cool. 
Just a few of the machines behind our house parked for the weekend. Another year of sewer work still to go. UGH. Tried to take a nap earlier and the bull dozers are going  past one after the other. And the dump trucks. 
A blue heron on the other side of the bridge. Almost missed him cause they are almost never on  this side of bridge. 
las Vegas looking towards Henderson. Less than a walking mile from our back yard. The rains last week changed the river, there didn't used to be so much dirt between the weeds and the water. The flowing water was over the weeds on the right. 

This is where we expect to see the birds, on the north side of the bridge. Another blue heron and a black crowned night heron (I think) He was a long ways away. Only saw him because he flapped his wings. 
This was a surprise. Great Egret! maybe. 
Looking up the river towards the mountain I see out of my kitchen window. 
Well we had a bit of a mess in the garage. How it looked before. Notice Bills Man Cave  equipment - microwave, coffeepot, toaster, bread box, etc. 
The whole shelf with the RC planes on it collapsed with everything underneath it. While Bill was pulling the remains down and cleaning up the area a couple of men who live in the park came by. One saw the airplanes sitting in the driveway and asked about them. Bill said he no longer could fly them and the batteries were not replaceable so he was going to toss them. The man said he would take them all  and the other helped to pull out the shelving and took the boards and  plywood away. So once the wall was free of debris we went to Lowes got wood and Bill built new shelving. There is a handy man who live here so we called him to come help put the new shelves up. To heavy for Bill to do it on his own, plus he can't see the screws real well to afix them to the wall.  
We've been watching cooking blogs on UTube so thought we'd make a few things. Bill made French Toast -YUMMY! 
I finally put our Corning Ware dishes away and now have out the dishes we bought in Mexico -years ago - out to use on a daily basis. You know that set of dishes that is just to pretty to use daily. Well by gosh we are going to use them before someone else sends them to the thrift store. Each piece of this set was hand painted and signed by the painter. They are Talavara pottery.
Just had to post some of these. Imagine looking out your hotel window and seeing this. 
A cute one. 
NOPE don't like this one. If you look really close right above his head on the mountain is a tiny red line, that is where the wetlands is. When I made the line I thought it was bigger. Oh well.
Out for another walk. We now have 86 miles in this year, since January. If we get to 100 we get a reward. Only 7 more walks of 2 miles each so we should make it. Though it is getting harder for me to do. I wear out quicker now than a year ago. Almost always have to take a nap on walking day.  The mallards are starting to show up. 
A coot? 
Black-crowned Night-Heron  A little better picture of him. He likes that rock.
Another cooking day. Sandwich on sourdough, ham and Swiss cheese. Bread dipped into egg, salt and pepper with dash of milk. Sprinkled with mozzarella cheese and cooked in oven. Very good.
Our son came over and took us out to dinner for Bill's 90th birthday. Really enjoyed that. 90 years old - WOW - Next week its my turn to get a year older, will be 88. At least we made it and are still getting out and about. Just slower. 

Tuesday, October 20, 2026

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. 

Monday, October 12, 2026

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.