Are we going to have an early spring this year?

These plants are already blooming here in the desert and I'm wondering if we will have an early Spring.  This little hummingbird seems happy to see them bloom!  I've planted lavender, daisies, phlox, and a couple other flowering plants in our front yard and the bees and hummingbirds come daily to them!  I don't know if we'll have an early Spring, but I'll be on the lookout for more blooming shrubs, for sure!

Another winter storm is on its way!

There is a severe weather alert out for a winter storm bearing down on us December 30 and 31st.  Nighttime temps down to 28 degrees, so our daughter picked ALL of her lemons off her tree and she got 2 bags full of them!  I took about 10 of them home and I've been sipping hot water with lemon and cinnamon (organic, from Whole Foods).  Sure is good!

I'm going to have to cover up my 2 year old lemon tree out front, however, so I'll make a note to do that.  It MIGHT have lemons next year (I'm hoping...).

Photo is from our last storm, about 10 days ago...the San Jacinto mountains.

After the storm last weekend

Sorry I've been AWOL...lots of stuff with family & work...AND I have two other blogs that I try to maintain daily (or at least once a week!)...

ANYWAY, after the huge storm last weekend, I took a drive through the sand dunes off the Washington Street exit near Indio, CA.  A side road meanders through the sand dunes there, which border the Coachella Valley Preserve, so there are no houses or mini-malls to interfere with them!   :-)  It's always so enjoyable to drive through the desert after a storm.  Everything just sparkles!

I'm BACK! :-)

Sorry for being AWOL (again).  I have two other blogs that I try to maintain on a regular basis.  My Deep Canyon one (http://rav4adventures.blogspot.com) and desert horses (http:deserthorses.blogspot.com) blog are the two that I now focus on.  I just don't have time to maintain three...sigh...

Please head on over to Deep Canyon if you want daily posts and deserthorses if you want info on my horse herd.

Thank you.  I WILL appear here every once in a while, but it will be sporadic.  Thank you for your understanding.  I don't wish to close the blog, but I just don't have time to do three a day.
~~Cheryl Ann~~

I've been AWOL!

My goodness!  I didn't realize until today that I haven't posted in a MONTH!  With two other blogs, and one that I TRY to post on daily, I got behind!  My bad...

We took last weekend and drove to Rancho Bernardo (before the San Diego fires).  It was a nice weekend.  Friday night and Saturday morning, fog rolled in, but by Sunday, all was clear.  It's great being only 2 hours from the ocean.  We are planning on taking some time during the summer to return.  Our son and his family joined us and we had rooms across from one another.  The Residence Inn in Rancho Bernardo has a nice BBQ setup and table right next to the pool area, so we did a family BBQ for two nights.  Then, Saturday we drove out to a park at La Jolla and walked around.

The change of scenery was refreshing!   :-)

More flower pics and some birds that come to visit them...

We have finches, sparrows, hummingbirds, and even a family of grosbeaks (and many doves) come visit the bird feeders and flowers in the back yard.  I haven't seen the grosbeaks for a few days, so I don't know if they are still in our area, or whether they have moved on to their summer habitat.  Several hummingbirds come visit the feeders.  I actually have two feeders.  This morning, finches were feeding at them.  I need to go clean them out and put new solution, so I'll do that.  Oh, and you can see how tall the sunflowers were.  That's a 6' fence out back, along the dog run.

Flowers from my garden

My sweet peas did very well this year and my sunflowers have done well, too.  But, yesterday it was 107 degrees here and Friday it was 108 and I'm afraid that is THE END of my sweet peas.  They are all going to seed and drying out.  SUMMER IS HERE!  Today, however, it should be 10 degrees cooler.  I have quite a few sunflowers and when they are done, the finches come and enjoy them, so I just let them go.  I don't have a garden out front this year...not with the drought.  Oh, well...there's always next year.  I've been throwing our old coffee grounds on the sweet peas and they have responded by climbing almost 6 feet, along our dog run fence!  :-)