Saturday, May 22, 2021

Grad Pics

Grace and I went into Yosemite on a Wednesday nite to take graduation pics for her grad ceremony.  It was a beautiful day and we got tons of great pics.


 

Wednesday, May 19, 2021

Cherry Lake Camping

Jim and I decided to do a last minute Cherry camping trip.  It's early in the season and the weather can totally unpredictable in the Sierras this time of year.  But it was warm and dry!  We had some thunder bumpers but nothing that brought rain.

Snow plant and rare Weiner snoot!
Those are Jim's shorts hanging over the back of the boat.  He had to wash them because he spilled a whole bowl of tomato soup on them!
At the magic fishing whole looking out onto the lake.  Lots of drift wood for fetching purposes.
Hiking to the Magic Fishing Hole.  Dogs on leashes so they don't jump into the fast moving water.
We took a hike to the Magic Fishing Hole but it was running too fast to fish so we walked back over the hill and fished farther out.  We got a fair amount of hits, fish on and kept 3 for my dad.  We also fished a little from the boat up against the log pack.  And that's when we had drama....Astrid stepped right off the back of the boat onto a log, fell off the log and landed in the water in the middle of the log pack.  Jim fished her out!

Harlequin Lupine - so beautiful.  There were lots of wildflowers.
The Turd loved the endless supply of sticks and fetched until we made her get on the boat and take a rest.

Afternoon snack on the back of the boat.  We always had to share a seat with at least one Labrador.
No one had camped in our spot yet this year so there were tons of sugar pine cones all over.  I took the action of collecting most of them and stacking them into a wall right outside our tent.  It was a fun project until late at nite when we heard a crashing and thought it was a tree coming down....  Jim went out to investigate while I laid in my sleeping bag and fretted.  Turns out it was the pine cone wall going over!



This pic us not indicative of the weather.  This was early in the morning heading to fishing with the wind on the boat making me cold!


We forgot our tea mugs and had to make do using beer cans in koozies! The aluminum was HOT on our lips so we had to be super careful.


Sporty fisher lady!


Other highlights of this trip:

Astrid had to go out at 4:20 am on our second day to POOP!   She was so excited about it that she came running back into the tent and mauled me!

The engine got plugged with mud (where the cooling water comes out) and the engine got hot.  We had this trouble before and it is bees that build nests with mud in the tube where the water comes out causing it too clog.  Likely mason bees.

We saw two eagles that hung out around our camp.

Tuesday, May 18, 2021

English Muffins

We are always looking for ways to use our sourdough starter discard.  I had tried an English muffin recipe a couple months ago and they were yummy but a little flat.  I tried a new recipe and loved the way they fluffed up when cooking.



Wednesday, May 12, 2021

Joshua Tree

After 14 months of a pandemic and being completely vaccinated, Jim and I decided to take a quick trip to Joshua Tree National Park.
It was so cool to see all the different plants.  And we saw tons of wildlife including a coyote, lots of lizards and birds, a couple snakes and tons of jackrabbits!
We had to take several short hikes because it was too hot to do a long one.  We hiked to an old mine area and an old home.  It's crazy to think people chose to live in this harsh desert climate.

We saw three different cholla plants including a cholla garden which was wall to wall with teddy bear chollas.





This is what we were there to see - Joshua Trees.  These trees only grow an inch a year and can be 150 years old.

At nite, I journaled the plants and animals we saw.  I have been journalling my hikes all year and I am sad to say I am not improving.  We also played a lot of kings in the corner.
This is the view from Keyes Point - it looked over into Coachella and Palm Springs and was a lot cooler than the rest of the park.  We had a picnic lunch here.





Desert Paint Brush
Paper bag plant