Joshua Trees Are Blooming!

I think we get more blooms the spring after a good cold winter. We had two good snows (for us) this year and now the blooms are everywhere. Down in town the blooms are totally out, but up here (only a few hundred feet higher) they are still budding, but some have opened.

This is a crazy looking plant! Joshua Trees aren't really trees. They are giant flower! And the leaves are super sharp. I've run into these with my head and my shin. It gave me lots of blood and bruising. And pain for over a week. Nasty things! But they do look strange and they have crazy flowers. The cactus wrens love to make nests in them. The bees and oriole's love the flowers. And they make a nice shade when big and mature. 

Here are a couple that are almost ready to open. I couldn't find one close to the ground that had fully opened. They look like popcorn balls.

My lilacs are starting to get leaves in the backyard. My strawberries are getting greener. And the iris's that I moved in the fall look like they are going to grow. The aloe plants didn't fair so well through the freezes that we had. The cactus wrens are busy making nests. The thrashers are out finding bugs. And we have about 30 quail in the yard. I haven't been able to get a picture of them. 

No cactus flowers yet. But the beaver tails have buds!

Today is Jake's 11th birthday! He is postponing his 11ness though because his brother is sick. He didn't want to have a great breakfast or get a cake if his brother couldn't share it with him, so early this morning he went and told him before he got out of bed, so that he wouldn't be sad. 

He came to me this morning and asked me how he could kindly tell someone to be quiet. He was trying to sleep and Tom wanted to tell him something. We talked about choices and modeled some ways to say it. And I even warmed him, that it may not work because his brother may choose to be selfish at that moment and he may have to find out why, or he may even have to be angry, like when they both push my limit in the evening when I'm very tired. It was a great conversation and made me happy.

Jake bought the part he needed to fix the dirt bike and Dan helped him put it on. The clutch lever breaking and having to be replaced fixed the problem they thought they were having with the transmission. Happy days! Jake went for a ride immediately. It still needs new handle bars, but that should happen this weekend.

Tom has spent his day laying on the couch watching motorcross, Gilligan's Island, and Modern Marvels. He's had some koolaid (which he says is the best thing to have when your sick) and some saltines. He'll be fine in a day or so.

I'm off to take another stab at making blackberry jam. I've never had trouble before, but yesterday the lids leaked and it got water in it. It's not ruined though, it's fine for syrup on my ice cream! But they didn't seal. I'm starting another batch now. Keep your fingers crossed!

Busy Weekend

It's Monday! I've been busy cleaning the house up (dusting and mopping) in anticipation of having some friends over tomorrow. It's Jake's birthday and we're having some of our local park day friends over for pizza and pie. The boys are hoping they will get the dirt bike fixed in time to show it off. Tom wrecked it Sunday morning and the part store isn't open on Sundays and Mondays.


Saturday was our big race day. Jake wanted to have another go-cart race at Adams Motorsports this year and we worked out a day that Uncle John would be able to race too. The race was fun to watch. Jake didn't win, but he had fun anyway. He crashed into John and it really hurt his hand, broke the cart too! I love watching them race but I wish they wouldn't all argue over who won and why. Makes me nervous! Just be happy to drive, darn it!


Afterwards we went for pizza at Shakey's and had lots of fun talking about motorcycles and our upcoming trip.

Sunday, some of our Orange County friends were coming out to camp at Joshua Tree National Park, so we drove out to say hi and bring them some firewood. We went for a climb on the rocks but the boys were ready to back home after that. They left me behind to talk to my friends and Dan came back for me later. It was a great afternoon relaxing and catching up with some friends.

I'm getting the camper ready for our trip this week. One more week till take off!

Snow Day and Spring

We went up to play in the snow yesterday! The drive to Big Bear is about an hour and a half for us and I was a little worried that it may be icy on the road up, but we did it anyway. It's Southern California, for cryin' out loud. The only real snow we see around here is up on the mountain tops and Big Bear depends on skiers being able to get up to the slopes ASAP, so the roads are good and clear right after a snow storm. I'm just a big baby when it comes to getting stuck. Snow and sand are my worst enemies!

We've been meaning to go up and go tubing at this place for years now. Something always has gotten in the way of making it up there but this year I was determined. I even invited as many people as I knew to come up and join us, but only one was brave enough. We had a great time anyway. It was so nice and warm the boys came back and dropped off their jackets after a while. They got hot with all the running around. I just sat at the deck in a nice chair with my book and a cup of coffee. We took a break for a bit and had KFC for lunch and came back for another hour. We were all sun burned and happy when we left. I even got to watch a Bald Eagle fly around over us awhile.

This morning I found this when I walked out to the trash cans. What is it? It's a Joshua Tree bloom budding out! I hope this means an early Spring. I can't wait for the cactus to start blooming. Things are starting to grow around here already. There are lots of tiny green plants growing across the sand. My lilacs are starting to get leaves. And I found some pretty paper white daffodils in my garden. My strawberry plants from last year are starting to get green again. I may even have to go pull some weeds later this week!

 Spring and Fall are my favorite seasons in the desert. The days are warm (sometimes hot) but the nights are cool. The sky is the most beautiful blue. Sunsets and sunrises are awe inspiring. It makes me want to go for long walks around the neighborhood.

Those boys...

We got a dirt bike a couple weeks ago. I knew it would happen and I'm resigned to it, but it makes me so nervous. When we first moved out here four years ago, my cousin gave us his quad and dirt bike. That bike is still too big for any of us novices to ride, but the quad won't flip over on you (if you go slow) so we do ride that. I don't. I have...once...I'm just not interested in riding something for the pleasure of riding. I would ride it out to the mines at Old Dale so that I could get farther back into the lonesome places, but not around the driveway. But my boys are different, maybe because they are boys or maybe because they are young and testing their wings.

For Christmas my parents gave them a "mini-bike". They were thrilled. It's a small bike, no gears, low to the ground, kinda like a scooter. It really isn't made for what they do with it. But it was fun to watch them ride it though. "Hey Mom! Watch this!" was heard hourly. They would ride by standing up. Stand next to it and spin it in circles. Try to do wheelies. Then they started working on it to make it go faster. Within a month, they wanted more.

Tom has a stash of cash. He's been hording it for years. It's his "first car" money, he says. But now he started looking at motorcycles. For a month we have had to listen to him go on and on about different makes and models, who says what about which bikes, and what's better on this one or that one. He begged us to call people who were advertising bikes for sale. He didn't know what to say and was afraid they wouldn't take him seriously. The bummer about Craigslist and such is that many times no one answers when you call, or it's the wrong number. It's very frustrating. Finally, I put an add on a local Facebook page to see if anyone had one to sell. I got an email!

It's a Honda 80, 2003. And he only wanted $500 for it. AND he had it right down the street. Talked to the boys about it. Jake was all for it but Tom was a little worried. He only had $500 and if he spent it on a bike that wasn't exactly what he wanted it would be years before he could get the money up and buy another one. He had a specific bike in mind. Dad thought this bike would be perfect, so offered to pay half and they split the other half. This was deal maker. So we went down and took a look at it. Of course we brought it home and they haven't been off it since.

It does need work and they've been repairing it between rides, reading the manual, and ordering parts. They work on it in the garage and get Dad to help them between work calls (part of the glory of home employment). It's really amazing to watch them work. Tom was thrilled because he figured out what was wrong with it. Jake did the same thing for the mini-bike. Keeping him from applying the fix he found online was almost impossible. He actually wanted to come home from Knott's early to work on it.

Last weekend, they met another boy with a dirt bike that lives up the road. He knew of a track they could ride across the paved road south of us. So they all packed up some water bottles and my cell phone, gassed up, and went over. I followed them the first time so that I knew where they were. Seems legit. The new friend has been over there a lot. His Grandma lives at the top of the hill and he's talked to police there and they say it is fine. I'm still nervous. I told them to take it easy because if anyone breaks a leg, we can't go on a road trip!

They went back and forth all day on Monday. Dan let them ride the quad over there, but I think we need to get another small dirt bike. They can't resist going fast and that thing is going to kill them or someone else. Jake already came home limping with bruises all over his legs.

They love those bikes. I know it's dangerous, but I can't help but let them do it. They take such great joy in it.

I will...

I'm determined to create more than photo albums on this blog! But not right now. One son wants to watch Mulan and eat popcorn and the other wants to walk to the mailbox. Maybe this evening? Or in the morning...or maybe I can get off Facebook and do it then, but that's where I'm inspired to write more...hmm...I'll think about it and get back to you!

ANOTHER Snow Day!

I know! Twice in one year! This was expected though. In fact, I was going to be pretty upset if it didn't snow over night. It has been warm and nice all week. We had a snow day planned up in the mountains, up where the snow actually stays on the ground and is good for sledding. But we had to postpone it to next week because of this storm. We can't drive up the mountain on snowy roads, so I'll have to wait until they clear it.

Our snow was even better than I had hoped. Lot's of it. Light and fluffy. Crunching under my feet. Cloudy day, so it might stay more than an hour. And not windy so I can actually go outside and not freeze immediately. And the best part? It was gone by 1pm. No shoveling, no mud, no frozen pipes. It's the best of many worlds out here!

Here are some pictures. I took a ton, but these are my favorites.

My strawberry plant experiment is very confused.

My awesome cottonwood trees.

No this is not a squirrel!

They aren't "December Snowflakes". Perfectly ripe.

You've got to love my look here. The sun was bright and yes, my hair is wet Mom!

The doves are mad about their snow filled nest nearby.

Just look at the fluffiness!

Looks cold.

Snowy Cholla...it will still bite you.

Jake is keeping some. 

Snow!

We woke up to snow! Dan was already up, but when I came in after sunrise and there was snow all over, I yelled "SNOW!!" and ran back to wake up the boys. Yes. I'm a nerd. Snow is exciting. And it was completely unexpected.





Dan expected my reaction when I saw it, but the snow was not expected at all. The weather report didn't even say anything about rain. It was clear and cold when we went to bed and I woke up in the night and heard the wind blowing crazy hard. And this morning it was bright and sunny with just a couple small clouds around the edge the valley.



I ran yelling into the boys' room and told them about the snow and they jumped out of bed to see it. Tom grumbled only a bit...it was 6:30 in the morning and he usually doesn't rise before 9. It was only a little early for Jake.





We went out and ran around in it and took pictures of it. It was so soft and powdery so the wind was blowing it off the trees and making it snow again. It was piled up on the north side of things!






By 1pm, it had all melted away. Tom was disappointed because he wanted to ride the dirt bike in it but it had a throttle problem and he didn't get the chance. He did roll a few snowballs for us though.






It sure was a nice surprise and so pretty!