Hummingbirds

I moved the big bird feeder back to the deck rail and put the hummingbird feeder out on the stand.  My thought was that with the feeder out from under the eave and out in the sun I might be able to get a better picture of the irridescent colors on the hummingbirds.

Easier said than done!

It took a bunch of patience, many days, and lots of pictures but finally I got a little bit...

Finally some real color!  Ta da!

Stump Digging & Pile Moving

On our property are several old slash piles that were never taken care of.  In other words the old limbs were piled up but never burned.  Hubby decided to start getting rid of some of them by moving them to the area below our deck so they could be easily burned.

First he dug out a couple of stumps where he recently cleared and limbed.

Here he is starting to move a couple of the old slash piles.

As he began to move the slash piles he discovered that they were piled on top of large stumps!

So that meant removing the stumps from the ground with the backhoe.  This was one of the biggest!

Photo dog on a stump.

Yee haw!

Chip

We have a new little buddy that's been hanging around.  He eats the seeds that the birds scatter from the bird feeder.

He's a cutie!

Rainy Day

Early this morning (around 5am) started with a few thunder boomers. Then there was a slight rain most of the day.  We went to visit the inlaws today and spent a few hours there.  We stopped on the way and got some Schlotzky sandwiches to bring along for lunch.  They had a little cheesecake and macaroni salad from the grocery store and along with the sandwiches we brought and some homemade lemon icecream I made we had a great lunch.

After we got home I fed the bull and horses and had to put the blankets back on the horses.  They were shivering and I felt sorry for them.  But they got a nice couple flakes of hay and a big warm mash. Almost as soon as the blankets were on the shivering stopped.  Then the rain started pouring down in earnest for about thirty minutes. Looks like I got their blankets on just in time. Well, I know they were already soaked to the skin but at least the blankets were on for the really heavy rain...

The forecast looks like it will be just a bit more rainy tomorrow morning but not as bad as today.

Hubby says he saw some mountain chickadees flitting in and out of the birdhouse the other day.  Then when he got near he could hear the cheeping of babies inside!  If I can get a picture later I'll try.

So the other day I was going to make a post about our breakfast for dinner.  That's something we do every once in a while but normally it's a simple fried egg with toast.  I decided I wanted eggs benedict so that's what I made.  

First I toasted the English muffins while Hubby fried up the remaining Canadian bacon.

Meanwhile I got the eggs poaching in a bit of water with just a touch of vinegar.  I've read that is supposed to help the whites cook (congeal) faster.  I'll have to try it without to see if there's any big diference.

The eggs were perfect and then I made the blender hollandaise to pour on top.

Guess what I forgot to take a picture of?  The hollandaise on top of the eggs.  I was going to wait to post the pictures until I made it again, but I don't know when that might be.  Anyhow, take my word for it, our dinner was delicious!  

I thought I had done a post about how to make a blender hollandaise but I checked just now and couldn't find anything in my past posts. So I suppose that means one of these days I'll have to do a recipe post on blender hollandaise. It's very simple and delicious.

At work I finished my video training and started the job shadowing. I already got to ring up several purchases. The worst part was people asking questions about products and I had no idea how to answer them. The worst thing I did was ask one person "will this be on your Lowe's card?" Remember I work for Home Depot. I have no idea why I said that. It was terribly embarrassing!!! Otherwise the day was good.

My next work day will be Sunday bright and early starting at 6 am, when the store opens. Ugh! That means getting up at 4:30 am so I'll have thirty minutes to get ready and fix some coffee to bring as our local Starbucks won't be open when I leave at five o'clock. Last Sunday when I got in at 9 am there were fresh donuts in the lounge. Maybe this week there will be some more...

Okie Shades

I got a call from work yesterday.  They had me originally scheduled to go in next time on Sunday and I would be work shadowing. Since I wasn't finished with my video training yet I had to come in this morning to finish before I start the work shadowing part.  

I think I mentioned before how early the sun comes up (it starts getting light about 4:15 am).  I think the combination of the early light with my age related getting up several times a night makes for a less than restful night time for me.  Consequently today after work I basically passed out on the sofa.  I didn't even know my husband took this picture of me.  Usually when I "nap" I'm actually dozing and I'm semi aware of what's going on.  Not today!

If you look closely you'll see I'm turning into the weird cat lady.  There's a cat on my hip and another in the crook of my knees.  Plus Gus is laid out on the floor next to me.  Good ol' Gus! 

I finally decided to do something about the early light.  We don't have the money just yet to get proper shades so I got some cheap tin foil to cover the door glass.  These are the french doors in our bedroom.

Putting the Okie Shades on.  A little tape and a little tin foil.

Ta da!  I've done this before when I was working nights.  If you've never done it chances are good that you've seen it in somebody elses' window at one time or the other.

I think there's enough coverage to make a huge difference.  

Tomorrow is another day of training.  I managed to get all but 15 minutes done today so after I finish my 15 minutes tomorrow I'll start with my job shadowing.  Whoo hoo!  

Ochoco Forest Wood Cutting

We're still adding to our wood pile.  The juniper wood cutting area close to us is just about picked over so we went to the Ochoco Forest to see what we could find.  There are a lot of places with downed wood to cut but the problem is accessability.

Finally we found an area with several large slash piles that were easy to get to.

It was actually a beautiful area with tons of wild irises.  I wonder how they got here?

The pile.  If you look closely you can see the irises all over (the dark green stalks in front of the truck).

More wildflowers.

Very pretty area!  We even saw two deer trot by.  Too bad I couldn't get my camera out fast enough.

This was a round someone else had left behind.

Now we know why it was left behind.  Too hard to split.  I would have liked to take it as it was (I see "project") but at that point we had no more room.  So we left it.

On the way out we saw this cool old abandoned building.  It was at a site called the "Blue Ridge Mine".  There was more but I decided we would come back later to explore in more detail.  Click here for an article that explains a little about the mines in the area.

So far we have four cords.  We're getting there!

Lovely Evening

We have finally been having some nice weather.  We had a couple of beautiful evenings and I was trying to capture the colors on the clouds.  I don't know what the problem is, maybe my camera needs a serious cleaning, but I just couldn't get it to capture the beautiful reds and purples in the sky.  I tried several different settings and these are the best I could do for now.

In any case, like I said we've had beautiful evenings and they are very relaxing.  

I can tell we are further north because it stays light until about 9:45 pm and the skies start getting light in the morning around 4:15.  High time to get some sort of covering on the bedroom windows, even if it is just foil for now!  (I've done that before.)

Work is going well.  I'm doing a lot of video training for the time being.  Hubby started work on cutting a new trail.  It will cut off the main line that goes up the middle of the property (on the southern end), curving towards the street and then parallelling the street for the most part until it hooks up with the driveway.  I'll get some photos later.

Star is kind of showing her age lately.  I started feeding her Purina Equine Senior and I'm hoping that will help.  She is still very active and in fact we had a nice ride yesterday.   Maybe she's losing muscle because I just need to ride her more.  

Happy Father's Day tomorrow!

Antelope Reservoir

Today we decided to check out a place called Antelope Reservoir.  When we take our drive to one of the BLM areas we always pass the turn off.  So today was as good as any to take a drive there.

On the way we saw a few deer.

Once we turned off the Paulina Highway (380) it was a dirt road.  First through approximately three miles of private property, then another 11 miles or so of Forest Service land.  It was very pretty.  When we finally got to the reservoir I was surprised at all the other people that were there, considering the roughness of the road.

But we claimed one of the two picnic tables there and enjoyed our lunch and the views and the wildlife.

A chipmunk.

Ground squirrel.

Our picnic table.

Antelope Reservoir.

The dam end (and near the picnic tables).

After lunch we took a little walk at the bottom of the dam.  The dogs took a dip in the creek.

 The back side of the dam.

Looking down the creek away from the dam.

Heading back for the truck.

So pretty!

On the way back home I just had to stop to take pictures of this keeled over tree.

I like the gnarly trees.

And of course there's the lovely wildflowers.  These are all yellow.

Tomorrow I go back to work.  I'll be working four hours Friday, Saturday, and Sunday doing video training.  I hope I remember how to log back into the computer to find the training sessions.