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. 

Walls down and gates going up

 It has been a little more than a year since we had the flood here where we live. And the block wall surrounding the community is finally getting replaced. Part of it came down when the flood channel behind the back of the community over flowed. That why we got flooded. So a couple of days ago I heard some machinery and looked out back. The wall was being demolished. It sure came down easy.

Working on it bite by bite. 

Looking at the Wetland from our side yard. Seems strange to see everyone walking and riding  their bikes.

Just a quick picture of the blooms on this bush, they are so pretty. 

On Wednesday we were getting a lot of smoke from Southern California fires. Barely see the sun. That is a water truck, trying to keep the dust down. Looking towards the front of the area. 

Looking towards the back of our community. We live pretty close to the front.

He was moving the blocks away from the edge. That is the small drainage ditch that flooded and sent the water roaring under our house. 

Pushing the blocks away from the ditch. 

A different water truck, glad they are spraying or we would have a real mess and the wind is blowing today.

It is so weird to look out and be able to see the wetlands.

So that is the wall going down. Now to the gates going up. About a month ago there was a big power outage around our area. During the outage the front entrance gates did not work. And the back up power for them did not work either. Unfortunately during that time there was a medical emergency at on of the homes here. Not being able to come in through the front gate the ambulance and fire truckw ent to the big double gates leading into the Wetlands. They were locked with a paddle lock which the firemen cut. Much to their surprise when they opened the gates one side of the gate just fell off. So now they - don't know if the county or the community,  is finally getting ready to fix it. I imagine it is the county as that is who is rebuilding the wall. Doesn't seem to be progressing too quickly. 

And miracle of  miracles - they, the community we live in, is FINALLY putting up gates at the RV parking lots.  Several RVs have been either stolen from the lots or broken into. Including our RV that was stolen several years ago. Luckily we got it back within a few hours. The gate won't stop the break ins, but should stop the stealing. Will keep you posted on the progress. 

And that is it for today. 

Yippie! It has finally cooled down.

Finally! It is going to cool down. We had 100 days over 100 so far this summer. September and October have had over 100 degree days in the past so we aren't out of the woods for sure yet. But it looks like we might have some nice walking mornings coming. 

Have had a lot of things going on the past week or so, some good, some bad some just Oh My! First good is I haven't seen any sign of the little mouse in a couple of weeks. No little poops any where. But all my traps are still empty. Did he eat the bait and die? Or did he move out? Or is he just hiding somewhere waiting for me to relax then he'll show up again. Wait and see I guess. 

Had an exciting afternoon last week. Not the kind of excitement I want but...I picked up my phone from the counter ( it wasn't on and it wasn't charging) and it was so HOT I almost dropped it. Not good! So ended up making a quick trip to the phone store and getting a new phone. Wish they could just change the batteries like they used to be able to do. Got the same kind so it wasn't too hard to get it set up again. I've seen things on the news were they have started fire and or blown up. No thanks.

I finished another Halloween pillow. Not sure if I'm going to make a third - depends on if I can come up with an idea to use up more material. 

We had our 4-sided house/yard inspection a week or two ago. Turns out some of our bushes are too high.  They cannot be "Higher than the lowest part of the roof line" Okay! So will have them cut back this week as they will re-inspect on the 19th.  Notice how dark it is, we are getting all kinds of smoke from California. 

That is the sun trying to shine through the smoke. 

More going-ons here to write about but will stop for today. 

So much for cooling down

Well here we go again with the super hot weather. Only good thing to say about it is it isn't going over 110! Seems like the summer that will never end. Since the last week of May we've had over 90 days over 100, about half of them over 110. Four record making says, two at 118, one at 119 and one 120. Enough already!

We did have three days of below 100 a week or so ago. Silly us we thought it was turning to fall. Those three days it also cooled down into the 70s at night so my friend and I did manage two walks in the Wetlands. Our second walk I took these pictures. And boy did we over estimate our endurance. Walked almost three miles. Way to much. Need to remember that we have to ease up to the mileage. We're not spring chickens any more!

We saw lots of bunnies, glad to see them repopulating since the flooding a year ago. 

Also saw some water fowl; the water in the pond was up pretty high. 

Another bunny, he was so busy eating he didn't move as we went by him. 

And lots of flowers blooming.

He just strolled across the walk in front of us. No coyote chasing him I guess. 

Haven't seen him since spring. 

Ducks I guess.

Not sure what he is, hard to get a good picture with all the foliage around him. Sure has a long beak. 

Lots of these little daisies/sunflowers growing all over. 

Then it got hot again, so more or less confined to the house. Another of the Christmas diamond paintings. Kind of cute. Always hard to get a good picture of them. It is brighter and sparklier (?) then this picture looks. Amazing how much detail they can get into these. 

Also started sewing again. Decided I needed something for Halloween. So using one of my  table placemats as an idea I made this throw pillow cover. I might make another one if I can figure out a design. Maybe ghosts and bats. 

Can't believe it is September already.  August wasn't a good month for Bill. Seemed like he had more not so good days than good ones. He really wants to get out of here for a short trip some where. So we'll see.