What are these?

 

Out

How I became a dog person .... a story for another day. Today our dog Diego made my day by speaking the word OUT ... I had been trying to train him very infrequently to "sing," meaning to kind of howl a little. I recently figured out that I wanted him to obey this command when he wanted me to let him out. When Diego comes to me for something it is usually to either play, get a treat, or to go outside, so I would ask him if he wanted to go outside and in the past if he wanted to go outside he would either point his face toward the door or start walking to the door. I refused to let him out until he made some other noise besides a bark or growl. Then the other day I had an epiphany and put on a YouTube video clip of a dog howling to a siren. He just stared at the television and the speakers until the video was over and then he started howling. I praised him abundantly and let him outside. He walked away from the house and looked back at me in the doorway as if I had lost my mind. Two days later and he came to me and I asked him if he wanted to go outside, as usual he tried to get away with little intermittent soft barks ( I don't know if all dogs or other dogs are like this but Diego when told to speak i.e. bark, tries to get away with just making the motion of barking without anything audible coming out and I have to keep insisting that he BARK to get an actual bark out of him ... same thing with roll over becoming half a roll ... Anyyyywayyyyyy, this morning he gave a half-ass attempt at a howl and I let him out, thennnnn he wanted to come right back in after a few minutes and he must have had an epiphany because he looked at me right away and I said what??? and he said out not once but twice .... OWww ... OWww!!!! I laughed and loved him up and let him ooowwww(t).

Laura Marie Casas

Laura Marie Casas: Click "Collect Me" to help me win a gallery show in New York City and a $10,000 cash grant : Self - A Creative Competition

Crossing the Gila going to the Hot Spring

A Space Gallery Performance Stage

 

Winter into Spring

Grandpa Finds a Friend

American Wigeon

American Wigeon

Duck I.D.

Watching The River Flow

Crossing the San Francisco River

The First Mile

"I'm all tuckered out after walking a mile or so with my brother Pip, some horses, two dogs and two women!"  (Squeak)

For My Sister Elaine Casas Gjonovich

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_35E33WYbI&feature=fvsr

One More Angel by Raul Malo

Dr. Suess

This guy loves the blooms on the mint plants. He reminds me of a Dr. Suess character and brings a smile to my face.

Making Nocino

http://www.guntheranderson.com/liqueurs/nocinoro.htm

Rob Connoley co-owner of  The Curious Kumquat restaurant in Silver City New Mexico put a call out on Facebook for green walnuts and I had just noticed the green walnuts on our trees, so I contacted him and offered a walnut picking afternoon to him. I asked for his recipe and he directed me to several on the web. The day after he and I picked walnuts for his batch of Nocino I decided to try it for myself. During Rob's visit I learned many things from his repertoire of knowledge and also became richer personally (he had dropped 50 cents outside of where he parked his vehicle and I found it the next morning) hehe, I feel like such a little kid, finders keepers losers weepers, haha ... okay enough, I ventured further out from where we had foraged the green walnuts to find my batch to make into Nocino and found just what I needed and left some for the squirrels. (My father won't be happy about that, he wanted me to pick all of them and starve out the squirrels, send them packing away from the wires under his car that they had chewed a few years back, costing him grief and $250 plus dollars to repair.  Here is my batch of Nocino sitting in the sun.

Next year I'll make Nocino and Pickled Green Walnuts

http://18thccuisine.blogspot.com/2006/06/pickled-green-walnuts.html

Conversations with a Baby Skunk

Driving home after a visit to the lake I encountered a mother skunk and her two babies. The babies were scampering after their mama and kept getting up under her feet. Mama skunk finally moved quickly enough to get away from my approaching vehicle and one baby followed her into the grassy area at the side of the road, leaving this cutey wondering where in the heck she had disappeared to. I stopped the truck and got out to try to get a better picture and this little guy ran over to me and did a 360 degree tour of my boot and asked me "Are You My Mother?" to which I replied "No, I am not your mother, I am a Clown, and off to find her mother she went.

Cat vs. Snake

Courting Eurasion Collared Doves

Bird Romance

I'm Not Tired - Who Said I'm Tired

I had heard that taking care of the elderly becomes much like taking care of little children and babies. I experienced a taste of the truth in this today when my sister came in from outside and sat down. When I asked her how her broken foot was feeling she commented that it felt okay and that she wasn't feeling any pain but mentioned that she was really tired. Not more than 30 seconds later I mentioned to her that I was about to vacuum and that since she was tired maybe she could nap ... she quickly stated "I'm NOT tired, who says I'm tired! I then replied, "YOU said you are tired silly." She scoffed at my statement and I began to vacuum while listening to a CD over the stereo system and  ...

Serendipity

Mom!!!!, exclaimed my daughter when I answered her phone call this afternoon, Steven was just on his way out to work and he came back in to tell me that someone had broken into my car!

Nothing was stolen thank goodness. I advised her to file a police report and call her insurance company.

About an hour later she called again to tell me that she was on her way to the neighbors house to be filmed for a documentary. And the way she serendipitously got this job was because she went to tell the neighbor about her car being broken into.

I Have a Story

to write and the table will be set by tomorrow night ... the Universe holds the key :)

Enjoy New Mexico | Monthly E-Newsletter

Enjoy New Mexico | Monthly E-Newsletter

Infinite Zoom Lens: How the Opening Scene of 'Limitless' Was Created - PCWorld

Infinite Zoom Lens: How the Opening Scene of 'Limitless' Was Created - PCWorld

Silver City Farmers' Market

The Silver City Farmers' Market held a Gardening Expo / Seed Exchange / Fundraiser this past Saturday. I enjoyed it more than I had anticipated and it brought back to light the reasons we chose to spend the rest of our lives here. Carlos,Esther, Ferebe, and I carpooled. As we drove along to the Convention Center I mentioned my fleeting thought of the possibility of offering Nadya Suleman a remote place to raise her children, a place where it would be difficult for the media to be continuously in her space. I suppose a helicopter could hover there for a while to shoot some photos, or maybe the Goodyear blimp could hover and do the same, nonetheless, I am all for making life interesting. Of course my friends think I am nuts, or as they put it, "that's not something we would do." Esther even blurted out, "I'm gonna call Ralph!" 


When we arrived I didn't realize it was going to cost to get in!! But, alas it was just $1... my kind of place :)
Didn't know there was going to be food ... and GOOD food it was, Posole, Butternut Squash Soup, Spaghetti Squash with Marinara Sauce, and freshly baked whole grain breads. Many desserts were offered that I barely glanced at so that I could resist them, but I glanced long enough to see that they too would have been scrumptiously delicious. Esther and I asked the cook for her posole recipe. I was surprised there was no pork or lime included because I tasted both! Surprisingly also was the that she uses frozen hominy and she bakes the hominy, which gave it a great flavor. Vegetarian and Yum!


Andrew Dahl-Bredine entertained us with beautiful music making the event all that much better. For alink to what you may have missed click here http://silvercityfarmersmarket.blogspot.com/ and plan to be there next year.

Bug Lover

Bug Lover

Shot of the Day

EarthquakeDensityMap.png (2000×1000)

EarthquakeDensityMap.png (2000×1000)

Charlie Sheen is keeping me laughing

I Love Laughing!

Charlie Sheen Official Website | Home

Today

Atypical Metamorphosis - Learn to Fly or Crash and Die

The ability to "just be" is a grand luxury I inherited at conception and am pleased to still have.  At times in my life I have been labeled by others and am glad to know that all but very few label me as loving, kind, caring, selfless (a saint), funny, helpful, thoughtful, trustworthy, inspirational, creative, resilient, and strong. My father told me once I was a "real card" when I took a moth resting on the inside of his screen door and released it on the outside ... I embrace being a "real card" and it would be impossible for me to be anything other.   


The wind took me to the Corner Bakery in La Habra, California, at 7 a.m., a day or so ago, I ordered a scrumptiously delicious slice of cinnamon crumb cake and an old-fashioned lemonade, sat down to write and began to ponder.


Some talented woman is tinkling the ivories in the background, I sway to and fro and remember days gone by. Memories from as far back as being a pre-teen and traveling to New York from New Jersey via the bus, the trolley and the subway, sucking in the air as deeply as I could to savor the aroma of bread baking at the Wonder Bread factory; ... to the day more   recently when sitting in this exact spot sharing stories and catching up with dear friends.


As opportunities come and go we can choose to fly against the wind or go with the flow, as for me I am choosing to ... fly with the wind.

Why???

Why oh why if we have 42 acres of land does my dog have to spend ten minutes digging in the dirt meticulously making the perfect hole to lay down in ... right along the path from the back door to the garage??!!!

The Day We Met Our House

Just about every day I recognize the joy of serendipity. I was reminded of this the other day after meeting the woman who lives in the house we were going to buy and thus follows this story of the serendipitous events that brought us to Mangas Springs. The house we first made an offer on is located on Valley Dr. in Silver City. The home was owned by a local veterinarian. In July, 2004, our realtor Billy took us to see this house and we thought it was the house of our dreams. The vet was selling his home in order to purchase a home they had waited for 20 years to come on the market. 

The following weeks in August we were in Big Bear, California and we received a call from our realtor letting us know that the house we wanted was being taken off the market. We had spent our entire two-week vacation looking at different houses and they were all a bit odd except for the dream house which we put an offer on. At first I got angry and discussed different ways that we could force the guy to sell the house to us, then I cried, and then I realized that I couldn't force someone out of their home. I asked our realtor what had caused him to back out of the deal and he told me that he wasn't quite sure but he knew that someone had stolen money from Dr. Heidi and he no longer had the down payment he needed to buy the house he had waited so long for. Our realtor Billy told us to take a look at the other properties he had available on his website and let him know if we saw anything we liked.


Well, right up front on his website was the house that Dr. Heidi had waited 20 years for, and from the pictures it most certainly looked worth waiting for. So on the spot we made an offer and waited anxiously to hear if they would accept that offer. So as the story now goes, we purchased the house from the Internet without even seeing it.


The next available date that we could go out to New Mexico was Labor Day weekend so we booked a flight and reserved a car. We had asked for midsize car but when we got there they were all out of them, befittingly for the price of the midsize car they put us in a Lincoln Continental. 


I vividly recall the day we drove to the property and how absolutely gorgeous it was. The drive to the house, the drive into the property, the house, the guest house, the outbuildings, the pond, the Orchard, the windmill, the Creek, the birds, the deer, the deep blue sky, and everything in bloom brought tears to my eyes. The best gift ever! Thank you mi esposo!!!

Lichen

Do you like our lichen?

Easy Apple Cobbler Recipe

This recipe came about because of my friend Esther. Every time she would come to visit, she would make fun of me because I had apples that were starting to shrivel up. "You still haven't used those apples," she would ask.  On this day I pulled some Pillsbury croissants out of the fridge and decided to experiment with them.

Ingredients:
Refrigerator Croissants
approx. 12 small apples
1/2 stick of butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cinnamon

4 tablespoons hemp hearts (optional)
1/2 cup currants (optional)

Press enough of the croissants into the bottom of an 8x8 baking dish.
Layer peeled and sliced apples and the currants into baking dish.



 Sprinkle with sugar, cinnamon, and hemp hearts..
  Dot the top with butter








 Slice the remaining dough into strips and criss-cross on the top.
Bake at 375 degrees for 35 minutes.










Enjoy!

Dragon's NaturallySpeaking

I saw a commercial for Dragon's NaturallySpeaking and couldn't believe it! I had to order it, which I did. I can't believe how easy it is to use this product. I'm writing this right now by dictating into a microphone on the headset that came with it. This product is totally totally awesome! I just installed the software, followed the directions to help the program understand how I speak and started using it. I will watch the tutorial later to make it even easier on myself.

Dragon's NaturallySpeaking is made by Nuance. I received an advertisement via e-mail for another product they make that helps you organize your documents. Supposedly, all you have to do is scan them into your computer and it organizes them for you. When I receive it I will let you know if it is as awesome as Dragon's NaturallySpeaking is.

Harry Nilsson - Think About Your Troubles (from The Point)

Clarian Power: SmartBox Plug-In Wind Power

Clarian Power: SmartBox Plug-In Wind Power

I am tickled pink that I came across this item while researching wind power.

Several years ago we consulted a local installer of solar panels and the cost was outrageous in my opinion. The supplies along with the labor costs of installation made it unaffordable even with all of the rebates. The idea of using wind power instead solar panels came to my attention while watching an episode of "Living with Ed." In this episode he was in a competitive mode of keeping up with his neighbor "The Science Guy" and decided to install a vertical turbine on his roof. Ed Begley made installation look easy ... finding information on the episode and the turbine he purchased at a later date was NOT easy. Anyway, that is why I was tickled pink when I came across these plug and play turbines due out in the near future.

Summer Memories