December Wrap-up

December has been a busy month.  It's almost finished and I have yet to think about New Year's resolutions...other than the annual "I WILL lose weight".  Still have to pay my car registration fees as well.  I still have a day!

My son turned 21 this month.  I still think of myself as about 27 so how can I have a 21 year old kid?  We had all the birthday hoopla - he had more than us as it should be.  He celebrated for about 4 days between friends and family.

And someone who is ALWAYS underfoot in the kitchen got in the way during birthday cake decoration - or at least that's the story.  He did eventually manage to lick off all the frosting.

We dog-sat twice in December for my son's rambunctious puppy, much to the dismay and disgust of our 2 cats and the old-man Jake dog.  Puppy-ness is cute, but it sure takes a lot of energy out of everyone else!







 We had all of the usual Christmas activities.  I feel as though I spent the month listening to horrendous music in stores, shopping, cooking, washing dishes, planning, planning, planning, more cooking, more shopping and GADS!!!  More dishes!  I also managed to fit in my job.  I'm sure they were happy about that.  Why do retailers play the worst renditions of Christmas songs?  Do we REALLY need to listen to the latest singers trying to fit 15 warbles into each word of "The First Noel" or shall we say "The first ir ir ir ir ir ir ir ir ir ir ir st No o o o o o o el el ele elelelelelelel".  My ears hurt.  And if I have to listen to Jingle Bell Rock one more time someone might get hurt.


We wrapped up the festivities on the 26th with a Chili Cookoff.  Chili chefs were myself, my daughter, and my brother.  The rest were either working all day or scared of the competition.  Some fierce competition...














This one was a chicken based chili.  Lots of cumin and jalapenos.

 

The others were a beef based one with toasted cumin - excellent flavor.   And I'm pleased to say that I had the winning chili... thanks to my room-mate's new cookbook.  But they were all worthy of winning!  I'll post the recipe separately so that it will print better.
 

Winter in the Desert

Two years ago, or was it three, I spent the day at a rugby festival held locally.  My daughter and I and the occasional rugby boy manned the T-shirt booth all day.  It was COLD!  We were both in multiple layers, gloves, hats... she melted my fleece gloves getting too close to the propane heater.  This year is a completely different story.  It's a beautiful morning.  I'm not at the rugby fest...though it's going on today.  That's my boy in blue in the photo.  Rugby is a wonderful sport if you haven't ever seen it.  Once you get the hang of the rules it's great!  But not for today... we have other plans.

 I've been outside admiring my salad greens growing on the front porch, petunias of deep midnight purple and burgundy on the back porch and the orange bell peppers ripening on the bush in my garden.  T-shirt weather.  T-shirt and shorts and bare feet weather.  I love it.  Mooch has grabbed "the kitty chair" in my bedroom and is taking his morning bath prior to a long nap.  Peaceful day.  It's a day for a good long book read on the back porch but I think it will end up being a day of shopping, putting up a christmas tree and baking (there's a birthday going on tomorrow!)

May your Saturday be as peaceful as I feel right now!

Mutt Lucks

Ever heard of Mutt Lucks?  My dog is very happy with them at certain campgrounds.

He is at Sunset Crater in northern Arizona in the above photo.  The ground is cinders - of varying sizes and are very sharp to the dog's pads.  Within a few hours the dogs are limping around and licking their paws excessively.  Not my dog.  Although he didn't like these at first, he now patiently offers his paws to have them put on.  Heavy duty leather on the bottom and ripstop nylon on top with velcro to go around the ankle.  Need a pair?  Try REI.

Colors of Fall

Here in the low desert we don't get a huge amount of fall color.  Things start to look a little less crispy and begin to green up a little in the cooler temperatures.  It's time to plant petunias, marigolds and other fall flowers.  Yes, I know easterners think petunias are a spring plant - but here we plant them in October.  They don't like the heat very much, though with enough daily water they can survive it.  This year though, I did get a taste of fall color.  I visited my brother and his family in Tennessee just as the colors began changing.  So not the full blast of yellows, reds and oranges... but a taste nonetheless.

One little red tree amongst the green.

Yellow just starting to show around the edges.

Reflections give me a bit more color.

And a last bit of red and orange...

Beautiful, but we have our own color here in the desert...

Reds, greens and blues...

Yellows and more blues...

And golds...

Bane of the Peppers

I've been waging war on these suckers for the past few weeks.  Tomato Hornworms.  Big, squishy, and wiggly when you pry them off the plant.  I have no clue where they hide during the heat of the day, but dawn and dusk they are rapidly consuming my various peppers.  I was squeamish about them at first, but when they stripped a beautiful plant of all its leaves and buds I got mad.  Now I have my worm-stomper flip flops right by the back door. I pry these guys off my peppers throw them to the dirt and stomp.  The one in the photo above was the size of my index finger.  I've pulled them off when they were a half inch long.  They turn into Sphinx Moths.  I felt bad about all the Sphinx Moths being caught by my hunter cat as they never seemed to survive the encounter.  Now I tell Mr. Meeps that he is a great hunter (just leave the lizards and geckos alone please) and that he should target the moths.