January 10th: Heading into the New Year

 

I continued to enjoy the Christmas season while it lasted. I made some more cabbage rolls, which are a traditional part of our Christmas season. And of course we had our pork and sauerkraut New Year's Eve. 

Moonlight beach tree

I walked down to the beach one evening because I wanted to see the huge pine tree by Moonlight Beach that was decorated. That's a peace symbol on top. It's visible from miles around. They must bring in a very large crane to decorate it. The diamond at the bottom is about 4 feet tall. The window on the left is the second story of a house.

Swami's Self Realization
Fellowship Christmas decoration 

While I was on the way, I walked past Swami's Self Realization Fellowship Entrance. I hadn't seen it at night and was very impressed with the decoration. The hanging blue lettered sign reads "Joy to the World".

Hummingbird

Once the amount of daylight dropped, my humming bird attracting Inca Lolly plant on my balcony stopped blooming. I hadn't seen a hummingbird for a few weeks. One showed up Christmas morning and even sat on a branch long enough for me to go down and get a picture of it. 

It seems to be hanging around the neighbors Bougainvillea. The Bougainvillea  continue to bloom which is really nice because I see them out my large living room window. It's fun to watch the hummingbird hovering from flower to flower. Now that the daylight is getting extended I'll see if I can get my Inca Lolly to start blooming again. I really enjoy watching them come to my balcony.

Bougainvillea outside my window looking down

White Pelican

The weather has been great for walking and bike riding, Almost always sunny and temperatures around 65 degree. I've been going to the San Elijo Lagoon a lot. One morning I was walking along an inlet and saw a very large bird. It was swimming toward me and as it got closer I realized it was a white pelican. White Pelicans are larger (9-10 foot wingspan) than the brown pelicans. I've never seen one here before. Two rangers showed up and started closing the path where the pelican was. Turns out the pelican was injured and apparently couldn't fly. Someone was coming from Sea World to rescue it. White Pelican info

I was reminded of a picture we took while boating in Ontario, Canada when we were doing the Great Loop. We saw huge flocks of white pelicans getting ready to migrate. They are beautiful when flying. They fly in formation and when they turn you can see a black stripe on the bottom of their wings. White Pelicans in flight

Yucca Plant starting to open

In earlier blog posts I've had pictures of the very tall flowering spike of a yucca plant at the lagoon. After several months it finally started to open. 

I was able to get several pictures over about two weeks as it continued to open. 

Yucca Plant spreading
open further, January 3rd

This morning there was a colorful bird that seemed to like the high perch. I couldn't identify it.

I don't know how much more will open up but I'll report again.

Yucca plant January 8th

Front of iPad

I finally bought a case for my iPad. It is a dark blue and I found it hard to spot on my black countertops and dark wood tables. Wendy suggested the obvious solution. Stickers. The Cricut machine came through again. It turned out great! And it is much easier to spot.

Back of iPad

The December 13th blog included the picture of my new birthday present puzzle. Here it is again. 

I have found it to be a real challenge. I actually spend some time almost every day working on it. Many of the pieces are the same shape but different color patterns. It took a very long time just to get the frame together because I had several pieces in the wrong places. 

Next I tried adding to the inside of the frame. With 1,000 pieces I found it almost impossible. I needed a new strategy. I recalled Karen and Craig's 5 year old nephew said he doesn't start with the frame, he just starts putting the pictures together. Sounded like a great idea. I finally got 7 pieces of cardboard and separated the pieces by color. 

It's still a challenge, but now I am making progress. This one will keep me occupied for quite a while longer.

I went for a walk the other day on the trails northeast of  Matt and Wendy's house. The sky was crystal clear. Looking East I could see several mountain ranges, some snow covered. 

I even noticed an informational sign at a nice viewing spot. 

One reason I chose this trail was to pick up some of the giant pine cones. They will make great starter kindling for Rebecca's fire pit. 

The mug is in the picture for a size perspective.

We decided it was best not to travel back and forth to Studio City given COVID19. As Rebecca pointed out, if we'd happen to get in a car wreck, we wouldn't even be able to get hospital care! The situation around LA is very bad. The vaccinations can't come soon enough. 

Trevi and London

I miss getting together with Rebecca, London and Trevi. We Facetime very often which helps. Here is a picture of the pups from last Christmas. In the mean while, all of our projects are on hold.

In these trying times I believe we need to find humor and enjoy it. Cheryl Webb, our Canadian boating friend sent this Minion cartoon. Linda loved the Minions. I'm sure she is enjoying it with us!