Total Eclipse of the Moon

A good fried of mine in Spokane, Washington is an astronomy buff sent me this information about tonight's total eclipse of the Moon. I'm working so I will be able to go out on my break and take pictures.... hope I snap a few pictures worth posting about!

Here's a really bad picture of the beginning of the eclipse. I did take some video I will post later if it's any better..

Picture this....

Here are a few pictures I took this past week in Cocolalla and Sandpoint, Idaho.
The first picture of the rainbow was taken from our place in Cocolalla. The second is taken in Sandpoint at the City Beach and dock. Last picture is Cocolalla Lake just below our place but I had to borrow our neighbors view (another story). BTW-Cocolalla means cold water.

Here in Idaho....

It's raining...how rude is that. I do have to say it is much needed with all the forest fires here and in Montana blowing smoke up this way.

No pictures for this post as my Cannon software is not working. I did have some great pics of Sandpoint and the Cocolalla valley and lake from the top of our property, too. Dang. All I have is my wildlife camera and I think I've seen enough deer and bear pictures for a while. Maybe if a moose shows up I'll post that. Ok I'm gonna post one more picture of a deer and the turkeys together, that's a new one.


You know, sometimes I get creeped out walking around the ranch alone. Ah, yes...the imagination of running into a mother bear or crazy moose just frightens the pants off me. I'm always looking in the dirt for foot prints and listening for rumbling in the brush. I know the horses would start snorting and prancing around and dogs would be barking but I know that doesn't scare the moose...not sure about the bear though.

Sneakin a Peek

Ok, my husband and his brother along with a few other hunting buddies put a wildlife camera up at the top of our property in Idaho. Of course we entice them with corn and a salt lick year round. We downloaded the pictures and only one day picture came out half decent, the others were night pictures and if you look closely you'll see a set of eyes in the dark and towards the front a tail.

Gilroy Garlic Festival #2

Gilroy's Garlic Festival started back in 1979. I remember being in my 20's and going mainly for the atmosphere... I think I've been about three more times since. I haven't been recently as I'm not a "crowd" person, that combined with the heat of August puts the kabash on it for me.. I do love the recipies so I use them when they are online or in the Gilroy Dispatch newspaper.

Gilroy Garlic Festival

Look who visited and judged the Girloy Garlic Festival right down the road. None other than new food chef Guy Callie.More later must run off to work.

Balcony and a sea view.

That's all I need to complete my perfect morning to go with my biscotti and coffee. I finally learned to make some decent French press coffee and these mini biscotti are from Trader Joe's. Yummy! I guess I'll just day dream about the balcony and sea view until I get to Sicily.....

Life on the farm

Since I'm on a roll taking pictures and videos this week here are some shots of the ranch in Morgan Hill, CA.


Where's the fruit? This is a 100+ year old loquat (medlar) tree.


And yes, I brushed up against the cactus and had about 50 pickers in my pants leg...














I've lost my nuts?
A squirrel family snatched every last one of the almonds off two trees.


I missed the first crop of figs, dang birds didn't help either, so looks like I have a bit of a wait for the next batch.


One of my Dad's friendly garter snakes in back of the pond. It did stop me in my tracks until I realized there weren't' any rattlers.














On Golden Pond...more like sludge pond. It even has an island in the center and if your brave enough to cross the foot bridge you can get a good look at the five huge Koi. My Dad just put in $500 worth of snails to get rid of the yuck in the pond...

I'm missing EVERYTHING !!

So here I sit in California bored as a cork today and everyone and their brother is visiting up in Idaho. My schedule never coincides with anyones. I'm missing our neighbors who live in Iowa that came out for their vacation, my husbands daughter and her family's first visit and our other neighbors' wife who works like I do in California. Well, boo-hoo for me. Ok, I'm done whining.

Yesterday, I did happen to go to a huge birthday party for one of my Filipino co-workers, her daughter turned 18. Celebrating the 18th birthday is a big tradition for the Filipinos, like a quinceanera for the Spanish. They start with a prayer and good wishes, then a dance where the birthday girl is given a single rose by 18 males when it's their turn to dance with her and lastly 18 females light a candle and each give a short speech or wish for the birthday girl. There is food galore, pancet, a huge roasted whole pig, every kind of cooked rice, Filipino stews, fish, shrimp and cake...Yummy!

I took movie pictures at the party so now I just need to get it transfered to a CD, but I'm finding out that my computer does not have a fire wire port nor does my camera have an iLink cable. So I'm now going to pester everyone to find a computer with a firewire port and then I'll go buy the cable. I've just learned new questions to ask when purchasing a video cam...300 bucks later. OUCH!



Jewell Lake video

Oh, and almost forgot... we finally got a canoe up in Idaho!!! It looks just like the red one in my post "Can U Canoe". We paddled around Jewel Lake, it's so beautiful. I didn't catch one fish using a lure, I'm a bobber kind of fisher person but I did manage to hook myself. I had to use pliers to rip out the hook it was in so deep. God forbid I have to go to the hospital...I did a pretty good job of it but it hurt like hell about 20 minutes later!




Well, off to finally get dressed at 1pm.....hey, it's Sunday already.