Wild Kingdom

Mike finished creating his home theater, complete with a blackout curtain and window blind.  Part of the setup included a speaker he bought on Ebay.  Brady wanted to watch one of the Harry Potter movies as our inaugural viewing.  We got all set up to watch and Mike started the movie. The volume was too low so he turned it up.  There was a very loud bang and a sizeable flash of light as the speaker and amp blew out.  It made quite an impression on the three of us.  He ordered replacement equipment and we are back in business. Most of the components (including theater chairs) came from Craig's List, Ebay, or other resale sites so he is happy with what he was able to cobble together at a reasonable cost.


Baseball season has started so that is a nice distraction.  Brady is enjoying it and we like the coaches.  You may have seen on Facebook that one of the parents told me that the practice field retaining walls are "infested" with scorpions.  I've only been to one practice since that news and I haven't seen any yet.  I am curious to spot one so I know what to look out for.

I took a class at the gym.  It is called PiYo (a combo of pilates and yoga).  Aside from not being able to walk for two days after the first class, I am enjoying it.  The bonus, though, is that I have met quite a nice group of ladies there ... including, "my Judy".  I really clicked with "Judy", a woman who moved to the neighborhood in January from California.  She is also a member of the neighborhood social committee, though, and she was trying pretty hard to recruit me.  I'll need to keep dodging that bullet!

The latest guild meeting was interesting. The charity quilt show and tell from just that night's meeting included 22 quilts, with at least 2/3 of those being finished pieces.  Pretty amazing.  I took two home to bind.  Some of the snowbirds were back so that may have accounted for the huge pile of completed items.  I was disappointed to learn that the Bonnie Hunter workshop is full so I am on the waiting list.  The limit is 30 and I am number 38.  Those odds aren't in my favor.  Sigh.
There have been lots of animal sightings since my last post.  We have a bird who perches on our porch late at night.  He just sits as I watch him while I'm keeping an eye on Sherman in the dark.  The bird did not like it, though, when I waved my arms wildly because an enormous bug had landed on my arm.  I am curious what he is doing out there, though.  He looks pretty content and I am happy to see a bird that is not a mourning dove (they are everywhere)

The PiYo instructor encountered a spider in one of the workout rooms.  Here are her photos.  She later learned that it is a ... spider which apparently like to eat scorpions (a good trait, of course).

Neighbors keep finding frogs, including a type of tree frog.

They have named this guy Billy, son of Bob, but I don't believe it is related to Bob.  I think it is a tree frog.  He's about the size of a quarter.
Unfortunately, Sherman had his first toad encounter a couple of days ago.  I was out supervising him and he was "pecking" at something then trying to pick it up.  I went over and saw this.

I took Sherman in the house and tried to flush his mouth with the kitchen sprayer.  He wasn't happy about that, to say the least. After a lot of thrashing, I went back outside and checked on the frog. It was as hard as a rock--dehydrated to the extreme.  Sherman never showed any symptoms of poisoning so, hopefully, any toxic secretions were long dried up.  Odd, since I am sure the toad wasn't there the previous day.
This week's forecast shows all of the highs are only ## rather than ### and we have one low temp that begins with a 6 (69!).We had the coolest night since we've been here over the weekend. Apparently, the cooler nights bring out the snakes so now the neighbor photos look more like this.  This neighbor contained the snake using their pooper scooper.  Pretty impressive I'd say!  He was on his way to being relocated soon after this photo was taken.
The neighbor found her snake the same week as this story was published.

The cows have been busy too, with three calves getting stranded on the wrong side of the fence one night.  One neighbor used to be a vet tech and she plus two other guys managed to get them to the right side of the fence.  Based on her description, that was entertaining to watch. This photo was taken earlier in the day, when they were still on the ranch side.  They seem to enjoy this spot. It is a high traffic area for walkers and kids on the their way to/from school.

Sherman will be disappointed to learn that monsoon season is over.  He loves to go outside during the dust storms.  I don't know if he likes all of the new smells or why else he just wants to be outside.  Here's a ridiculous picture of him enjoying the beginning of a recent one.

I'm getting closer to finishing my sewing room. I finally had a block of time to work on it this weekend.  Each guild meeting has a give away table so I'm sure a few things will be going there in the near future ... Now that I am sorting notions, I have found a few duplicates.I made a design wall according to Melody's instructions but I still need to attach it to the wall.
I am very close to finishing the batik quilt that I layered at the retreat. I have about half of the binding left to do.  First finish in a long time!  If memory serves me correctly, I finished the top around 1999-2000.