Cute But Unwanted Visitors

Last night Laura looked through our sliding glass door to see the 3 visitors pictured below. She opened the door to try to scare them away but instead they rushed toward the door trying to get in. Anyone think they've been getting fed by humans? Naw! Couldn't be!

I just hope they don't figure out that they are small enough to fit through the kitty door.......

Long Lost Jimmy Pics

I just got a roll of film developed that I had misplaced for awhile. Here are a few precious shots of Jimmy when he was very tiny:







It sure is amazing how fast they grow!!!

Long Night!

Last fall I built Jimmy a crib. Due to the fact that it was getting chilly in our drafty old shack Laura decided to have Jimmy sleep with her in the side bedroom until it warmed up. Yesterday I finally got around to doing the final assembly of the crib so Jimmy could sleep in it last night. He was NOT thrilled with the idea! This is the scene from 5:30 this morning (the scene at 2:00AM was quite similar!):



Hopefully, soon he'll get used to it!

On the bright side, I now have a great photo to show his prom date some day!

4th of July Festivities

Just got back from watching this year's fireworks display. Jimmy wasn't all that excited about it although he watched some of them. Naturally, being 9 months old, his attention span is all of about 3 minutes.


I took lots of photos with my 35mm camera. Unfortunately, our vantage point from the Jack-in-the-Box parking lot wasn't the best. I tried to shoot slow exposures so the streetlights caused the forground to overexpose on many of the shots (you shutterbugs out there will understand that last sentence..hehe). Here are a few that turned out fair.

Close Call for the Ol' Rancho

At about 11am yesterday I walked outside to get in the car to go to the Post Office. Imagine my surprise when I saw 15 foot high flames shooting up from the brush that grows on my neighbor's property! I ran back into the house, grabbed the phone and dialed 911. I was told the fire was already reported and the fire department was in route. I ran over to the neighbor's house and did what I could with his garden hose while another neighbor did what he could with a shovel. After what seemed like an eternity (Laura assures me it was 10 minutes) the fire department showed up along with an inmate crew from Antelope fire camp. Those folks all (inmates included) do exceptional work! In no time they had the fire that I'd estimate to be 1/4 of an acre under control. During this time it threw embers on to my property causing 2 small "spot fires". I took a couple hours off work to run some sprinklers out in the area to make sure nothing was missed. It was quite the wake up call, especially to my neighbor who thought he had his burn pile from the early morning put out before leaving for work.

Here's a couple photos taken from my driveway. All the trucks you see are on my property. The spot fires that started were near where the green forest service truck is parked. My house is about 50 feet behind where I stood to take the photos. Close enough for me! I didn't get any shots of the fire actually burning since I was a tad busy at the time!



Note the large tank on the stand in the shade to the left of the frame of the following photo. At present it contains 125 gallons or so of 87 octane unleaded. Note also that there is a puddle next to it. Laura had the presence of mind to run some water in the area while I was over at the neighbor's house.




Was an interesting adventure for a bit; one that I'm not in a big hurry to repeat, thank you very much!