Garden looking good

Guillermo put some of his tomato plants into the raised bed that he has been saving for them.  He had been waiting for this day for a long time.  Watching the weather forecast and seeing that it wasn't going to get below 46 at night now, he feels confident that the tomato plants will be ok.

Some extra tomato plants just sitting against the wall of the house.

Just a nice view from the deck.

Not so nice a view from the deck.

Gerbera daisies on our deck

Guillermo found this neat moth by one of the raised beds.  It apparently was fresh out of its cocoon.  

A picture of two ferns hanging from our oak tree out front.  It looks like the leaves are starting to come out on our oak tree now and that is good news because that means no more leaves are going to be falling.  Oak trees drop SO many leaves and they've been cluttering up our gardens and potted plants.  Maybe now we can keep all our nice plants clean of leaves.

Guillermo looking for an empty spot to put some squash plants.  Notice how green the trees are in the background!

Our Satsuma Orange tree is really blooming!  Lots of little tangerines coming!

Disgusting

On Monday, we saw a truck in the field behind our house with a load of brush in the trailer it was pulling.  We thought, "hey, that's nice, they are cleaning up the field!"  Ha - Wrong!  Next thing we know, the load of brush is dumped in a little clearing and they drive off.  Ok, we didn't like that, but I guess brush is ok.  We can live with brush being piled out there.
Unfortunately, though, the truck was back a little while later with a new load, but this time the load was old carpet, an old stove, an old bucket, a bunch of metal and what looks like an old car bumper.  Now that was disgusting.  Sure, spring clean around your own place but don't go putting all the stuff you didn't want around YOUR place by someone ELSE'S place.  If YOU didn't want it, we sure don't want it either!!!

But what can we do?  It's their private property and I guess they can do whatever they want.  At the very least, at least they didn't put it right directly behind our property.  It's over to the left a little more, right behind the neighbor's house.  All we can do is hope they don't add too much more to the pile already there.

Baby Shower and day with Rebeca

Everything went smoothly today for Laura's baby shower.  Guillermo went out and got us breakfast tacos while Rebeca and I were setting up and getting ready for the shower.  Rebeca's co-host for the shower (Meredith) came at around 10am and the two of them set up the final things for the shower.  Guests started arriving at 11am.  We ate, then played a few games, then had cake and then Laura opened presents.  The last guests left around 2pm.  We cleaned up a little and then Rebeca and I went to Kohl's so that Rebeca could buy a sweater since a cold front was supposed to hit that night.  A few pictures of the shower:

This is what people saw as they came in the front door.  Rebeca did a great job of making the banner, decorating our little lamp and making the table look so inviting.

The cake was from Costco and Rebeca and I made the cupcakes.

Playing a baby shower game - guessing the contents of a diaper.  Even though we all knew it was only melted chocolate candy bars in each diaper, we all still couldn't get past what it really looked like.

The look on their faces says it all....

Laura opening presents.

 Meredith, Jennifer, Rebeca, Laura and Katie.  All friends from high school.

Then around 5, we drove to Oma's house and took her out to eat at Cracker Barrel - where we met Linda and Jacob.  We had a nice dinner together then took Oma back home.  I'm glad Rebeca was able to visit with her grandmother, aunt and nephew!

Rebeca is here!

We picked up Rebeca from the airport today and we spent the evening getting ready for Laura's baby shower tomorrow.

I also saw 4 deer running through the trees behind our house.  They were really close!

The war goes on

Here's the latest score:

Guillermo against the squirrels it's Guillermo 10, Squirrels 0.  That is a great success!!  Here is a picture of the bird feeder Guillermo rigged up that foiled the squirrels and those squirrels just CAN'T figure out how to beat it.  They have actually given up.  Which is a good thing.

BUT

But now it's Guillermo 0 and Raccoons 5.  Raccoons have become our biggest problem now.  We have found that pole is now bent slightly and night after night, that bird feeder is either on the ground or all bent to one side.  At first, Guillermo fixed the bird feeder so that it couldn't be taken off unless it was lifted off a wire.  Well, the raccoons figured out how to do that, too.  Guillermo had enough - he put up with all of it for about a week and then said that's it.  So, last night he slept in the room closest to the deck, kept a window open and a flashlight on the sill.

During the night, he watched as the raccoons stand on top of the fence, lean over and with both arms stretched up like a bear they reach the feeder and then shake it wildly.  That makes the seed fall to the ground.  He said then the raccoons go to the ground and eat the seed.  He observed them for about an hour and now Guillermo is plotting his next move against them.  He's still not sure what the next move is, though.

We have some Cooper's Hawks that live in the trees behind us.  And we get to see them a LOT!  Today I was treated to a fantastic view of them.  There is a branch fairly close to our deck where the hawks have perched before.  (It's that bare branch that curves down in the center of the picture.)

When I happened to look out while eating breakfast, I was stunned to see two hawks sitting there making noises.  They were either a male and a female or it was a male and an immature hawk.  Anyway, it was a beautiful scene.  One of these days, I hope to get a picture of the hawk sitting there.

We had dinner with Mom on Tuesday, and afterwards went to her house and put the leaves she had raked into piles into the trash.  Then we dug up a few little plants from her yard and now they are gracing our side yard.  It sure is looking nice.

We also bought an umbrella for the back deck.  Now we need to decide if we want a little table with 4 chairs or if we want a picnic table to put under it.  

Succulents

We have 3 little plants in our bathroom window that are doing quite nicely.  

This flower looks like it's coming up out of rocks but those gray things are the "leaves".

Today, Guillermo and I took a walk around the block and were pleasantly surprised to discover that we know someone who lives on the next block!  We saw the guy outside going to his car and we kept looking at him thinking we know him.  Then I saw the lady by the car and I thought, hey, is that Barbara??  (Who I used to work with at Elrod.)  And she kept looking at me and so then we both realized that yes, we do know each other so we crossed the street over to them and we all just couldn't believe that we live so close to each other now!!  

The day with Mom

Today Mom and I did a little shopping at HEB and the rest of the time we just relaxed around the house.  We looked at the plants outside, read today's paper, watched the news, Guillermo explained one of the paintings that we bought in Spain that is on our living room wall, we enjoyed coffee and carrot cake and after dinner drove her back home.
Mom having dinner at our house.

Here's a picture we took before heading to her house.  We enjoyed her overnight stay with us.

Mom spending the night with us

I picked Mom up from her house at around 3 this afternoon and took her to our house.  Today she saw our house for the first time.  So, she's just been relaxing here, reading Jackie's book on the nook and hanging around in the kitchen while I fix dinner.  After dinner, we walked around the back yard, the front yard and then walked down the street just a little bit.  We joked about "walking to the back fence" at this house compared to at our old house.  At this house, it takes all of 1 minute to walk out the back door and walk to the back fence.  Sure wasn't the case at our other house.

Such nice weather

The first part of this Spring Break was a little cold but this last part is simply perfect.  The days are in the high seventies and the nights are in the high fifties.  For sure it's going to get cold again, maybe we'll even have a freeze.  But anyway, I cleaned off all my winter boots today and put them away.  When a cold snap sneaks in here again, it's only going to last for a few days and then it will be warm up very fast so it's time to start putting the real winter stuff away.

Guillermo has been working on the side yard..  He made this LONG planter in about 2 days and we picked up some plants from the store and I planted them in there today.  We think it looks SO much better on the side now than it used to and when those plants get bigger, it will look even better.  Doesn't it look nice?

Every day we turn on this little fountain that some friends gave us.  The sound of the water is really nice.

Not the greatest of pictures because of the heavy shadows but here is one of Guillermo's raised bed gardens.  He has really not been that happy with the dirt that was delivered to us.  It SEEMS like it's good dirt, but when it is wet, it seems kind of clay-like.

In the back of this picture there is a little fencing up which is our compost pile - with all the compost stuff on the outside and to the right of where it should be.  Guillermo took every last leaf out of the compost pile in the hopes that he would uncover his ring.  Still nothing.  He returned the metal detector to the neighbor today.  A copper band it will have to be.

Seems like spring already

Our peach tree is blooming nicely.

And you can see a bird feeder hanging on the left side of the peach tree and a little bird house hanging on the right side of the peach tree.  We had that little bird house but it was looking rough and the bird feeder we found lying in the grass just outside our yard so Guillermo fetched it in.  Then he bought some paint (red and green) and painted both things. 

These geraniums on our deck are looking very stunning right now.

Here are the peach blossoms up close.  The bees are LOVING them.

We also hung up some plants on our oak tree up front.  I'll try to take pictures of our front yard tomorrow.  Guillermo mowed the front again, and set the blades extra low to mow the area where he thinks he might have lost his ring.  Then he got the metal detector and carefully went over that whole side of the yard, with no luck.  There's no telling where that ring may have fallen off.  For all we know, it's inside the dirt of a pot he just planted.  And there are a LOT of freshly planted pots!  Maybe, just maybe, it will show up one of these days.

Happy Birthday to Mom

One day late as usual but anyway yesterday, March 11, was Mom's 84th birthday.  Totally amazing and I was so grateful that we were able to celebrate her birthday with her.  Guillermo and I took her to Schilo's Delicatessen downtown as Schilo's is a restaurant she has always enjoyed.  We picked Kathy up from her house so she could join us then picked up Mom from her house.

So, here is a picture taken at the restaurant.  It was so hard to get a good picture with so many people walking around and passing by.  This is the best picture I could get.

Then we came back to her house, set up the laptop and she skyped with her sister Edith (who lives in Canada) and then with her sister Mirli (who lives in Salzburg).   In the evening, I know she enjoyed dinner with Linda at her house.   It was a full day for her and I hope she enjoyed her 84th birthday! 

 

Oh-oh

Guillermo just discovered today that his wedding ring was not on his finger.  He was shocked and spent a good part of the day painstakingly going over, in a methodical way, the grass on the side of our front yard.  He had spent the day before raking up leaves on the neighbor's little section of grass because those leaves were all going to blow into our yard with the gusty winds they were predicting.  So, he figured the ring could have fallen off when he was putting those leaves in a can to take to the compost pile.  He checked the can thoroughly and nothing there.  Tomorrow he'll do a little more combing of the yard and then maybe undo the compost pile.  Then he might try mowing that part of the yard real short to see if that uncovers anything.

He had that ring for 36 years!!!  We can only hope that it will show up one of these days.....

Good day today

This morning I had to take Mom to her eye doctor appointment, which came as a surprise.  Yesterday, she called me and told me that she just received a call from the eye doctor's office saying her appointment next week was cancelled and that she would be rescheduled for mid-May.  Which is crazy because she had been looking forward to next week's appointment because she says her eyes are worse and she can't see as well as she used to.  So, I called the office yesterday and they told me that I could bring her in today to a different office FAR, FAR away at 9:15 in the morning.   I said I would do it.  Rush-hour traffic this morning was horrendous as usual but I got to her house and got her to her appointment in good time.

After dropping Mom back off at her house, I met Guillermo at our house and we then drove to the apartment for the very last time.  (He had gone to Las Palapas while I was gone to get Leo, who works the office at the apartment, a gift card.)  So, we met with Leo, turned over our keys and thanked him for being so nice to us as we handed him the gift card - which he was so excited about!  And that was it.  No surprises and no extra charges.  We left there so relieved and grateful for Leo's kindness.

We then proceeded to go to P.F. Changs to celebrate Fernando's birthday.  Happy Birthday, Fernando!