Elephant Seals & More

There were a ton of Elephant Seals on the beach... no pun intended!

This little Conure was on vacation with his family too!

2 Crows hoping to get a cracker from tourist!

Ground Squirrel enjoying a cracker!

On our way to Cambria we stopped at the Elephant Seal Vista Point off of Highway 101 not far from Hearst Castle. There were plenty of seals but they were on the far side of the beach as you can see in the first photo.

I actually found myself enjoying taking pictures of the crows & ground squirrels. One tourist, the Conure’s owner, was feeding them crackers even though there were signs saying,” Please Do Not Feed The Animals”. Apparently the signs don’t work too well because the crows & ground squirrels were very friendly… at one point a ground squirrel tried to crawl up my leg hoping to get a treat.

Where's That Daddy At?"

Back from vacation already… why does the time seem to go by so quickly while on vacation? I bet I’m not the only one to ask that question!

I took lots of photos while on vacation but haven’t had the time to go through them to see what’s worthy of posting.

Just to get something new up here’s a video clip of Mooky on vacation with us standing on his travel cage asking “Where’s that Daddy At?” and “Where’s that Daddy Addy Addy At?” This is his new thing to say when Bill leaves the room or just isn’t in his sight. He says it very quickly in a sort of baby voice. Hopefully you can make it out! And for even more entertainment value he throws a fart sound in there for you too!

Lizard in a Crack & Be Back In a Week!

This is a photo I've been trying to capture for some time now. I've noticed this little fence lizard sunbathing in between the cracks of our redwood fence several times but this is the first time I was lucky enough to get a photo of him... I only wish it could have been a bit more of a close-up shot! He is quite the cautious little fellow!

We're off to San Luis Obispo again this year! See ya in a week!

Don't have too much fun without me!

Ring My Bell

If you listen closely in the very beginning of the video you can hear Mooky say, "Kiss"! He says it so sweetly and usually he leans over and gently pecks me on the lips with his beak. Now as far the bell ringing goes that's a whole other story. He rings his bell to either get attention or to let Bill or me know it's time to shut-up or leave! Mooky also likes to attack the bell as if he's honing his fighting skills... not quite sure why he needs fighting skill!

The noise in the background is the fan... this was filmed during one of the really hot days we were experiencing in California. Hopefully in the future I can get him to talk while I film him sans the fan noise!

A Deer Post

These are a couple of deer I spotted up in the Sierra Madre canyon on one of my early morning walks. In the first photo they’re eating a lovely purple plant in someone's yard... luckily I haven't had any problems with deer eating my plants but that’s probably because we live below the canyon and the deer usually don't come down from the canyon too often.

On occasion they do visit searching for food when it’s really hot. I’ll spot them across the street in the settling ponds standing under the big oak trees chewing on plants. I love to watch them and of course I always try to get a snapshot of them if possible. They usually ignore me and go about their business or they move to another spot where they can't be seen.

Beating The Heat

Thank goodness the heatwave finally broke this week! The temperature in the house was as high as 94 degrees. We actually have central air conditioning but in these extremely high temperatures it is basically worthless. Every time I go to turn it on the breaker switch is flipped... so I have to go outside and flip the switch to make it work. I have a problem with this since we had a complete remodel done on the house just 4 years ago. All new electrical and all new air conditioning unit.... go figure!

I think Mooky has the right idea. He'll fly to his room which is mostly dark because the shutters are closed to keep the house cool and sits on the fan. He'll stay there for hours not making a sound. When he has to poop, eat or have a drink of water he'll fly to his perch in the living room to do so. The temperature in his room is always a few degrees cooler than the rest of the house and Mooky is smart enough to take advantage of it!

Praying Mantis Update

The other day when I went to turn the lights on in the garage I found the Praying Mantis again! I say again because I believe it’s the same Praying Mantis from my post titled “Garden Visitors” but of course I have no way of knowing for sure. But I’m pretty convinced it’s the same one since the garage door is just a few feet away from the planter where the cone flowers are planted & we usually keep the garage door open all day.

I put a piece of paper towel near him to crawl onto so I could place him back in the garden. He seemed happy to get back to the cone flowers but since then I haven’t seen him… maybe he snuck back into the garage!

Tomatoes and More Tomatoes!

Let me start this post out by saying that I love tomatoes... the more the better!

In the past seasons I planted my vegetables in containers because of those little critters called Gophers. I can remember one year weeding in the garden and just like in a cartoon I saw one of my green bean plants disappear down a gopher hole. Since I didn't see many traces of gophers this year I decided to plant my tomatoes directly into the ground. The only problem was that the plants grew so fast I never got a chance to stake them properly as you can see in the first photo.

After getting such a bountiful harvest from these messy looking unsupported plants I’m considering never taking the time to stake again!

Blue Bathroom Ducky

That's one Big Blue Ducky...

But I'm going in anyway!

What, did you think a Blue Duck would stop me?

And I made it!

Shredding toilet paper and protecting the bathroom linen closet with his life is just another one of Mooky’s favorite past times. With luck on his side he’ll sneak past the The Stuffed Army , slip through the living room blockade and waddle down the hallway to the linen closet hoping not to be intercepted by either Bill or me. Once he’s made it through this obstacle course and into the bathroom he may find the linen closet door closed… drats his plans are foiled. And if it’s open he still has the Blue Bathroom Ducky to deal with!

It depends on his mood because on this day he wasn’t about to let the Bathroom Ducky stop him… let’s face it he went through a lot to chew on some toilet paper.

Garden Visitors

So I spent another Saturday working in the garden. You know the usual stuff pulling weeds, trimming things and planting some new plants I got at the Farmer's Market. I originally intended to post photos of my progress in the garden and the new plants I planted but since I had the opportunity to take these pictures I decided to post them instead.

The Praying Mantis has been on the Cone Flower since Saturday and was still there as of this Wednesday morning. I keep hoping that I'll have the good fortune to photograph him devouring another creature but so far nothing.

Not that this has anything to do with these lovely creatures I posted but I wanted to share one frustration I have and that is the supposed kink-free hose that always kinks! I even invested in one of those coil hoses and guess what it kinked more than the regular hose.

Does anyone else share this frustration?

I Want To Be Taken Seriously

This weekend I tried to get a new video clip of Mooky to post but he just wasn’t having any it. He’s turned into quite the little temperamental Star. Nope… there was no performing from him this weekend. Oh he was up to his usual Mooky tricks but purely for his own entertainment. Maybe he wants to be taken serious. You know like when Julia Robert’s cut all of her hair off and Johnny Depp didn’t want to be cute anymore.

I think this photo portrays Mooky's serious side... what do you think?

A Small View of my Garden

Cone flowers, French Lavendar, Butterfly Tree, & Sage.

Newly planted Cone Flowers.

I like to plant vegetables & herbs anywhere I can find room... here you can see some Swiss Chard & Basil.

Saturday I spent time planting and cleaning up this planter and the planter on the opposite side of it which has 2 huge Mexican Sage plants & a Rosemary bush. (I'll post pictures of them another time when they're in bloom.) It was a beautiful day, a little warm but tolerable.

Eventually I hope to have a completely drought tolerant garden. This area is just the start... it's filled with French Lavendar, Yarrow, Cone Flowers & a couple of other plants I can't remember the names of but are also drought tolerant.

Dinosaur Roar

I recently got a SVP Digital Comcorder for my birthday which turned out wasn’t very Mac compatible. So after doing some research online I found this very easy to use, inexpensive, compact replacement and best of all Mac compatible called the Flip Video Camcorder. So far I’m very pleased with it but I can’t say the same for Mooky. He seems to be a little leery of this new device which doesn’t make sense to me since he’s such a ham when I take his picture with my digital camera.

But luckily he seems to be warming up to it and I was able to get this small sample of his Dinosaur Roar to post. Hope you enjoy it and who knows what video clips the future may bring!

Mooky's Wingys

This weekend Mooky was very cooperative. He must have sensed I was desperately in need for a photo to post. While I was watching some silly movie on the Lifetime Movie Network (Please tell me I’m not the only one who watches LMN movies!) he was whistling (The Bridge Over the River Kwai theme song), singing & flapping his wings. So I thought let me pull myself away from this movie that I have probably already seen 3 times or more & see if I can get a photo of his antics. I went over to him with my camera and just simply said “Wingys” and to my surprise he started flapping his wings for me.

I hope you enjoy these photos as much as I enjoyed taking them because I got so many good shots I will have to do a Mooky's Wingys Part II.

Company Dog

We found this little fellow in an Industrial Sewing Machine shop in Chinatown. He looked so adorable I asked Bill to take his picture for my blog. He appeared friendly enough, that is until Bill started to take his picture... the closer Bill got to him with the camera this cute little dog would silently growl causing his body to jerk. After experiencing his reaction to Bill we understood why the owner(s) of the shop feel confidant to leave the door wide open when they’re not around!

Is this fuzzy little dog a Pomeranian?

Crazy Bathing Bird

This is our crazy bathing Mooky machine. He just goes wild when he decides he’s going to take a bath in his water dish. Depending on my mood I may remove his dish just because I don’t feel like cleaning up the aftermath. Oh and he gets water everywhere… on the floor, on the shutters & completely soaks the newspapers on his perch. Yes, fun for him and work for me or at least that’s how I see it sometimes.

He looks soaked or somewhat soaked here because I gave him a shower and let him finish in his dish. By the way he hates going in the shower but he’s a good sport and tolerates it… although I may leave the shower with a couple of war wounds.

Samson

This is Samson our neighbor's dog.

Everyday around 5 or 6pm he comes around and waits for his daily dog biscuit… he prefers the bacon & cheese ones but who wouldn’t. He’ll wait patiently never barking or whining but I have found him looking into our bedroom and/or bathroom windows to see where I am.

This really isn't the best picture of Samson but I love the reddish orange sky & his white eyes that make him look a little scary. But he’s actually far from scary he’s just a big & gentle Samoyed.

The Blair Mooky Project

Each night we are confronted with shrieking and sounds so haunting that we are convinced someone is following us, and we quickly begin to fear for our lives.

Not really! I stole that sentence off of Blockbuster.com from the synopsis for "The Blair Witch Project" because this shot of Mooky reminded me of the well known scene of that sniveling girl who has her face all up in the camera. Mooky can be evil at times but not shrieking or haunting... well maybe shrieking!

San Gabriel River Bike Path

This beautiful & friendly horse we saw along the bike path loved having her picture taken. There was also a colt that looked just like the horse in the pic... same color and same white spot on her head. The colt wasn't quite as cooperative though. She was very friendly too but she would come so close the to camera I couldn't get a good shot of her... Oh well maybe next time.

The goats on the other hand tried to get as far as they could away from me but that's okay because I like how they look all huddled together.

And finally me walking down a hill that we thought would lead us out into the neighborhood but "Not" and I'm glad it didn't because it forced us to follow the bike path to the end. This turned out to be one of our better & longer adventures (6+ hours) the weather was great & we got to explore areas we were never in before.

There You Are

Once in a while Mooky gets lucky and we forget to put up the barricade that prevents him from sneaking off into other areas of the house causing damage. (The barricade is a bamboo room divider with a fake crow perched on top… One of these days I’ll post a picture of it.) This day I caught him in our walk-in closet snooping around my shoes for what reason I’m not exactly sure. Though I have to admit he can be cute when he’s caught… sometimes he says “Eh!” & other times he just puffs up like he did in this photo.