Always Fun to Have Family Visit

A weekend visit from Derek's family was a LOT of fun!

Grandma Charlotte and Petie even made this trip! We had a full house but worth all the laughs and good times.

We got to celebrate Little Mack's birthday -- can't believe he's 2 already!

Birthday presents are always fun! Kyranda was ready and willing to help try out all the new toys!

A short visit to Brite Lake - we even took the dogs. I brought some bread to feed the ducks, but they must not get fed very often because they wouldn't come near the shore - oh well!

Nemo - our birthday mascot

Kyranda tries on the Nemo birthday hat.

Happy Birthday, Little Mack! We are so glad to have you in our family!!!

Busy Woodpeckers

Well, winter must be approaching in the not too distant future as I watched our woodpeckers start storing their acorns in our huge, old tree by the house. They really are interesting to watch ! The one this morning would hop around on the ground, locate an acorn, fly up onto the tree, find a hole, put the acorn in the hole and then tap, tap, tap it into place! I love nature!

Dog vs. Deer

Well, the dogs have taken to "protecting" their territory from the deer. The one mama deer with the two babies often comes around our place and she seems to like to eat something in back where the 'seasonal' creek runs. She will come right up to the fence which drives Shasta and Monkey crazy! She will keep eating as they bark hysterically but you can tell the loud noise bothers her ears.

When the babies are with her, mama deer will run along the fence with the dogs, seeming to use herself to block the dogs from the babies. Sometimes she will even make like she's going to charge the dogs.

You'll probably have to zoom in, but here are the babies just behind their mama.

Two Years in Tehachapi!

Today is our two-year anniversary in our house! What an amazing blessing it has been to have this place and this town to call our own. Shout out to Derek who has worked so hard to be able to provide our home!! I love you, honey!

Not Much New...

Not much new on our home-front. We're both working really hard and are busy trying to keep up with the jobs!

I was out in our backyard and noticed a surprise! A beautiful sunflower has sprung up in the middle of nowhere.... I love how nature does that! I certainly didn't plant it there but I do put out sunflower seeds in the front of the house in our bird feeder -- so I'm thinking a wayward seed found its way to the back and voila!!!

Probably the only other "exciting" thing this weekend was trying Coldstone's new NutterButter ice cream. Quite tasty... ymmmmmmmmmmmm

A little this, a little that

The local sheep eating some local weeds

A small blossom on my Chinese Lilac plant:


Derek and the pups "watching" football:

Labor Day Weekend

Well, I haven't seen the actual birds on my beautiful new bird bath (it looks beautiful! thanks Dad & Launa!!!) but I'm letting the little floating feather serve as evidence!


I woke up yesterday morning and raised the blinds in the living room...found a little stow-away...not sure how he got inside but I relocated outdoors with the help of some paper plates....you KNOW I wasn't going to actually touch him!


I've been wanting to add a shelf in my "garden closet" across from our front door. I got around to it today and am especially proud that I did it all by myself - no husband in sight!


Another little creature I found today. I'm guessing this is a damselfly because of the wings being closed...I did end up poking him a little.....

and he opened his wings for me:

Golden Hills Elementary: Home of the Eagles

This week, Derek started with his new class at Golden Hills. On Saturday we stopped by to drop off some boxes of books and I got to see his new classroom. What a nice campus they have...

Mountain Festival Family Visit

What a wonderful time we had when family came to visit us last weekend. We loved having everyone in our "neck of the woods".

Here we are at the Mountain Festival:





Sunday we visited Murray Family Farms - the kids loved the petting zoo...

Is that you, Bambi?

Yay! I finally could grab my camera in time to capture some pics of this year's local deer. We first saw them last week, a mama and two babies walking behind our back fence. This evening I saw a baby and mama across the street from our house. I ran and got my camera and then slowly went outside. The mother had started going down the little hill to the field across the street but the baby stayed and watched me watch him/her! I LOVED IT!!!!!!! Click on the pictures to see if you can zoom in - he/she was such a cute little guy!



Mama is on the left, baby on the right:


I peeked down into the field and saw 4 other adult deer leaping back and forth frolicking in the dry grass:

Gardening Fix

[SIGH]....I finally got a good dose of my gardening fix last weekend. Being away visiting family and friends and Big Bear the last few weekends has taken me away from my beloved gardening. But, just this last Friday and Saturday, I got to go with my step-mom to gardening school classes and it was just the refreshing time I needed. I got VERY inspired about IPM (integrated pest management) and vegetable gardening. I was also reminded of the mighty power of compost.

Sooooooooo.....we stopped by Lowes and I found this cute miniature rose tree (in the picture - my parents' garden - mine is hoping to grow up to be like their's someday!) on sale and I picked up some seeds to try and grow peas, carrots, and spinach. Also during this week I managed to pick up a small trash bin to start my very own compost pile -- we'll see how it goes, I'm sure it will take some time to get the hang of it. But it was great fun to drill some holes in it (yes, I used the electric drill!) and it already has some garden clippings, old soil, and other stuff. Now I'll just wait for my folks to brink up some "starter compost" from their garden and I'll even have little 'wormies' to decompose things faster!

Who would have ever thought that deadheading out of anxiety when getting my psych license seven years ago would have turned into such a wonderful hobby!