Catching Up

I went to New Mexico when J got home from Afghanistan in November.  Here are a few pictures of my trip.

The first place we went to was the "Old Apple Barn".  It is only open during certain times of the year, and on my last trip to NM, they were closed.  I was expecting a big selection of apples, cider and fudge.  Things that you see when you to go an orchard in MI.  What it ended up being was a store selling a lot of knick-knacky types of things.  There was a few bags of apples and a small area of fudge.  Definitely not what I am used to.

We also spent a day in El Paso and took a walking tour that was supposed to show us all of the important  historical transportation sites.  The highlight of the trip was seeing the "Occupy El Paso" people with their tents in the middle of the town; they were for the most part standing around doing nothing.   

And a few sites from the walking tour:

And then finally, K2's hoard has now moved into my "storage" room.  In preparation for her upcoming move, we went shopping yesterday morning to buy things she will need for her house.  We had a bunch of gift cards that needed to be spent.  We got things like cookie sheets, towels, knives, glasses and things like that.  She will also be taking my dining room table (I don't use it here because it doesn't fit in the kitchen and the wood is a different color than the furniture in what is the "dining room" in this house).  She is also taking the entertainment center you see in this picture; what you can't see is that the sides are corner curios with glass shelves.  Those are going too.  This is a good opportunity for me to downsize-just pass everything I don't use on to her.  The cd player and surround sound are staying and we'll be putting them in the new entertainment room, i.e. K2's old room.  She's all set on dishes (with her set of Polish Pottery and Japanese Pottery) and now just needs living room and bedroom furniture.  We'll know more of when the move will occur next week.  Should be in the beginning of February.

My Choices

J sent me some pictures of the things that he can purchase at his vacation location to bring home (except for the Oriental rugs-they were "very busy" and as such, not my style).  We've had some missteps with souvenirs from his travels over the years so now if he has the opportunity, he sends me pictures first.  I should backtrack.  Because we've been on the move all over the world since 1996, this is the first time we have had all of our belongings in our house with nothing sitting in a storage facility.  In some instances, this worked well,  but now that we have everything, some of the items picked up along the way that were in storage now had to find a home.   If something ended up in the office, it more than likely wasn't my taste, but I can't rid of the things.  Hence the reason for asking if I like it before buying it.

I had to veto the stuff in the first picture.  He brought me a tea set from Kyrgyzstan when he was there, so I don't have a need for cups.  Not too mention these cups are pieced together and because I don't know what type of glue they use, I would never use it.  I am now picky and only want things that will be useful, I have too many things that just sit on shelves these days.

I guess this box is about the size of a hope chest, so I'm not sure how he would even get it back, but if they sell them, then I'm sure there is a way.  While I do like it, it's just too big for the amount of space I have.  Not too mention, I have 2 smaller ones from another trip he did over there.

This is the same; I think the box is too big for the amount of room I have.

I told him the boxes in the next picture were good.  While everything in my house tends to be in the brown family, I told him I actually prefer the colorful box.  It looks more representative of the area he is currently at.

More boxes.

These plates and cups were okay, because the handle is the only piece glued on.  The goblets would be a no. 

The same with these bowls, one piece, so it would be a yes.

These bowls were approved as well.

So, I'm not sure which things he will end up bringing back, but he knows which things have the thumbs up.

A few pictures

In June, we planted three pepper plants, jalapenos, serrano's and some other kind that I cannot remember the name of.  The plants have taken off and we have more peppers than I know what to do with.  I've dried them, chopped them and froze them and now I'm to the point where I just throw them in the freezer whole (too many to chop), but J didn't realize the plants would grow so big.  This is actually after I have cut them down somewhat.  The fence is 6 ft tall.

Also in June, we planted some trees.  An avocado, grapefruit, key lime, lemon and an orange.  The avocado  bit the dust, but the lemon now has 1 lemon growing on it.  I did have before pictures, but my computer crashed this week and I had to wipe it clean and start all over.  I was able to back everything up on discs, but because I think I picked up a virus somewhere, I'll just leave them for J to work on when he gets home sometime soon. 

On another note, I did get a new camera and I'm trying to figure out how to use it, so maybe my pictures will start to shape up.

Randomness

And my final post for the day.........

When I got home from Montana, the babies were gone, however, the birds were still coming back at night.  I decided to give them a few days and then take the nest down.  When I looked out this morning, I saw this (and I was not amused by the situation--I figured I missed my chance and a new family was moving in)

After they took off, I got the camera and ladder out to take a picture so that I could see if there were eggs (again), but I got lucky and the nest is empty (the new family was probably scoping out the accommodations and they must not have been to their liking).

And the nest is now gone.  I don't know what these birds use as glue, but it took a bit to get the nest loose.  After cleaning all of the gunk off, the "glue" has stained the paint.  I'll have to figure something out to get rid of it.  And now we have this:

During one of J's visits, we planted some peppers and basil.  When I got home, my basil had been growing like a weed. 

I decided to make pesto without the pine nuts.  It went from this:

To this:

And here are a few of the peppers:

Because I won't use them up quickly, I decided to dry them:

They should be done in the morning.  The jalapeno plants still have a lot of peppers on them, so if drying them works, that will be what I do with the rest.

Funny thing, while I've been typing this post, the mom and dad have come back and are now in the spot where the nest was.  Neither appears to be moving. I hope they don't decide to build another house.  I was able to snap a picture, but you can't see them very well.  I opened the door to scare them away, but I can see that didn't quite work.  It would be my luck that they have a new nest built by morning. 

The babies are almost grown....

Here are two of them on Tuesday of last week (the white spots on their head is fuzz, not shadows).

This is them this morning; fuzz is gone, they are starting to flap their wings, and hopefully they will fly away this week.

And here's the mom who was watching exactly what I was doing when taking the picture this morning.

It will be my luck that they leave during the middle of the week and a new family moves in before next Saturday, just because I leave in the morning and get back next Saturday afternoon.

K1 is here and he will be going back to Texas on Wednesday (K2 will be driving him, along with her faithful companion Buddy-who cannot be left home alone for over 10 hours).

One family moves out, another moves in....

The babies finally grew up into this:

This is two of them; the mother would have them walk from one side of the patio overhang to the other.

A couple on the ledge, going from one side to the other:

The plan was always to get rid of the nest when these birds flew away, but I happened to be in Minneapolis when that happened and when I got home, "she" had moved in:

J happened to be around that week and we argued about the fact that there were eggs in that nest (he thought there wasn't, and I thought there was). He got the ladder out and stuck the camera up to where he could get a picture of the nest. This is what was in it:

I can see they must have hatched now because the parents appear to be feeding the babies and I can hear faint chirping sounds. This time I should be home when they leave so the nest can come down.

Babies and Beignets

Remember this? Well, now we have 5 babies. They're loud and the parents get really close to us when flying away (I guess they think we are too close to their kids). Last night, K2 looked out the back door and there was an orange and white cat on the back porch right under the nest. After chasing that one away, a grey and white cat showed up about 10 minutes later. I guess they are hoping that one will fall out of the nest. I'm just hoping they fly away soon because the parents are making a big mess on my back porch.

When K2 went to NOLA, she brought back a beignet mix. So I made a batch the other morning. After she brought it home, we see the mix everywhere around here now. (They tasted pretty much like the "fresh" ones from NOLA).

I dropped J off at the airport this morning; it appears his trip was pushed back until June/July sometime, so I may be able to go to NM for a visit before he leaves. I'm thinking the 4th of July, but we'll see.

The Last of NOLA

For dinner, we stopped at a German restaurant called Jager Haus. I had Jagerschnitzel. Let me say, in Germany, it is made with pork, here it was with veal; in Germany it has a brown gravy, here it was white. I should have made another choice. This was not good and I should have known better than to order it. (Even the picture shows how unappealing it looked)




On our first trip here, we weren't able to find any beignets. This time we found to shops that sold them. Our first choice, Cafe DuMond was so packed that we didn't even bother to stop. The next place was Cafe Beignet. (I didn't get any pictures of the building). But the beignets were good and we should have skipped the German place and just gone here.

St. Louis Cemetery

And these are from the "famous" St. Louis Cemetery. While there, we heard one of the tour guides say it takes 6-figures to be buried here, although, when you look at the pictures, you'll see, that obviously that money doesn't go into doing any upkeep.
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We tried to listen to one of the tour guides explain about the XXX on some of the tombs. From what I could gather, they have some sort of voodoo meaning and this is the tomb of Marie Laveau a famous voodoo practitioner (I snapped the pic for one of the ladies who's camera died)
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And these were outside the cemetery (I couldn't get close enough to see who they are of though)

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