Still being crafty and still hot here

 Yes - summer is still with us. Still over 100 for a couple more days. During the last week it has set lots of hot day records. Got up to 107 one day. But at least it is cooling down enough at night that we've been able to get out and walk early in the mornings. The header is a picture I took yesterday of a coyote fox out there. It was watching us as we watched it. Thought it was nice of it to stand still so I could get a good picture. It looks well fed!

 But the last couple of walks we haven't seen any bunnies!!! The water fowl are returning. Pictures later. 

Put up my Halloween decorations. This is the finished witch pillow cover. Turned out cute.

And now I've started on a set for Christmas.  No idea what the next two will look like. This one I already had the strips for the tree cut so no brainer to use them. 

Things I've made for Halloween in the past. A door hanging. It has two more panels but couldn't get them in the picture. 

My table place mats. 

And the three completed pillow covers. Notice the one on the right matches the place mats - kind of. 

Made these a long time ago. Hard to get decent picture of them cause of the light behind them.

Not too much going on around here. Think our home air conditioner has lost all its gas again as it surely is not working right.  The energy company who installed the thermostat keeps sending me messages that I have a problem, it is getting too hot in the house. No kidding. Just too many days of hot weather this summer I guess. Will call the home warranty people tomorrow. UGH. 

Also the back wall is still not up. but they are getting closer to us. Here is a picture of the old wall that was damaged in the flood. Part of it was knocked down in the back part of the community - the part by us just had the foundation damaged on the wetlands side. So the whole thing is being replaced. They also took out the part of the drainage ditch wall right under the cinder blocks. 

Took this picture yesterday from the Wetlands. See our dead or dying pine tree on the right. One thing after another. 

About four houses down from us. The was is going up. It will be the same height as the old wall. Same color and construction just newer. 

Still have not heard from "Jimmie" about our rocks they knocked into the ditch or the chunk they knocked out of our retaining wall while cleaning up the wall debris. 

Just took these, the new wall is about two houses from us. I see they moved the porta potty closer to us. Rocks still in ditch.

These are right behind our home. By tomorrow afternoon, we should have the columns up. The lines in the ditch are shadows from the rebar. 

Just rough cement under wall foundation and our rocks along with a lot of other debris are still in the ditch. 

That's about it for now. 

HOT - so done with summer,.

Where or where is Fall. Been up over 105 for a couple of days again. Only good thing it is going down into the mid 70's at night. And no relief for another week. Will be between 100 and 105 all week.

Why does 86 sound so much older than 85...my birthday is one day before the elections so every day I'm reminded of how many days until 86! We have been managing to get out walking every other day. But we do have to get an early start while it is still in the 70's. By 8:30 it is already in mid 80's. When we stopped walking at beginning of summer we were doing 3 to 3 1/2 miles. Now we're doing good to get in 2 1/2. We also do a lot more sitting on benches than before. I'm hoping it will get better as we get used to it again. 

Our youngest son took us out to an early dinner the other day. Went to a Japanese restaurant. Haven't been to one of these, where they cook it right at your seat, for years. Food was amazing and so much of it. We both had a full meal left for the next day. So much food - soup, salad, teriyaki chicken and shrimp, noodles, fried rice and vegetables.  Fun day. 

To keep busy I am still doing diamond painting. Finished a couple of Christmas ones. And now working on another one. 

Just finished him. I wish I could figure out how to get a decent picture of them. They look so much nicer in "real life." 

Bill had several really good days in a row and he was doing a lot of cooking. First made bunuelos. Closest I can come in English is apple fritters or apple dumplings. Cut up apples and or bananas and deep fried. Sprinkle sugar on top. YUM!!! He made a lot so we can freeze them for another day. 

He also made what he calls Tortilla. An Argentine dish with sliced potatoes and what ever else you want to put in it. Like parsley, mushrooms, peas, carrots, onions. Then an egg mixture to hold it all together. He has a special set of frying pans that hook together so it can be flipped when half done.  He made enough to freeze one.Very good!

The saga with the back wall continues. I happened to noticed that many of our rocks that line the retaining wall on our side of the ditch are now in the drainage ditch. Also part of our side of the retaining wall has a chunk out of it . 

Bill called the workers over to point this out to them. Well they know nothing, they are laying rebar and foundation of wall. We would have to talk to Jimmy. Who is Jimmy? Is he on site? Know nothing. Check with the guy who cleaned all the broken cinder blocks out of the ditch. He must have done it. OH JIMMY where are you? 

Also there is a small sink hole next to the rocks.  Sink hole is probably a gardening problem. Nothing to do with wall, it was there before. Really? 

Yesterday I managed to catch the supervisor of the rebar guys, just happened to be out side when she came by. She promises to let JIMMY know. We'll see. 

Yesterday was a soccer game, Messi made a fantastic goal. Today is a NASCAR race and my favorite driver starts 3rd, hopefully he will have no problems and maybe win. And that is about it for us. 

One thing or another!

Our trimmed bushes, now they look ugly, took off all the pretty blooming flowers. See the two pine trees on the left. Well one of them looks to be dead. Seems like over night it got dry and brown. Luckily they belong to the community so they will look at it/them and take it down if it needs it. Glad we don't have to pay for it. 

A strange sight one afternoon. The sky got really dark and the sun on the mountains made them look like they were covered with snow. They looked whiter than in this picture. Half the valley got heavy rain, we got not a drop. As you can see the wall between us and the Wetlands is still not there. Nice view though. 

Put out my Fall pillow covers. 

Also rest of Fall decorations., I forgot I had this table runner found it in the bottom of the trunk I keep all this stuff in. 

A real mess taking down the wall. They also took out the back part of the drainage dish. Had to use a jack hammer to do it. They start about 6:30 in the morning. I'd been up reading until 2 a.m. so had planned on sleeping in. Oh well.

About 1/3rd of the wall has been put up already, But still quite a ways from us. Today they are doing more clean up of broken bricks and cement behind us. 

A couple of days ago. 

We managed to get a couple of walks in but now it is up over 100 for the rest of the week and part of next week. So no walking. Temps just don't go low enough at night. To keep it comfortable in the morning. Our longest walk has been a little over 2.5 miles. And I am finding I get tired a lot quicker than I did in the spring. First couple of walks took me into the next day to have any energy. Hopefully that will get better when we get walking regularly. Starting to see some water fowl returning to the ponds and river over there.