PREDATOR IN THE CARRIAGE HOUSE!

Last evening Bob went to put away our relaxing chairs in our Carriage House.  Our Carriage House is a one car garage we built to store all of our other stuff such as, the BBQ grill, lawn tractor and trailer, golf clubs, etc.  When he went into the Carriage House, he noticed some bird droppings on the floor.  While he was examining the "poop" (I wish I would have seen this), he heard some fluttering in the rafters.  Bob looked up and saw a hawk.  He tried to get the hawk to leave.  However, it just kept flying from one end of the building to the next along the rafters.

We worked for a while trying to get the hawk to leave.  We left the door opened until about 10:00 p.m.  The hawk was still there.  We didn't want to leave the door open all night so we shut the door.  This morning at 7:00 a.m., Bob opened the door.  After we took our showers, we went to see if the hawk was still in the Carriage House.  Thankfully it had left.  Now Bob has a job to add to his chore list...clean up the "poop".

MAKING BABIES

Today is our 28th wedding anniversary.  So this morning, we decided to make babies.  Now don't get too excited.  We're talking about "baby zucchini".  Two years ago, we did not get one single zucchini.  We mentioned something to one of our neighbors and she said that we needed to help the plant along and manually pollinate the plant with the male and female flowers.  So this morning in honor of our anniversary, we decided to do just that. 

We wonder how long it will take to have delivery of our first baby.  As you can see, the plant in very healthy.

BOB'S BABIES

Sam has her baby ducks and baby birds. She cares for them every day.  So Bob needed something to care for as well.  He now has lots of "baby grass" to water.  Bob waters his grass several times a day; a real necessity this season.  He also spotted a volunteer evergreen tree.  He circled the tree with rocks to protect and keep it safe.

MEET THE FAMILY

Today one of our contractors brought his son with him to our home.  So Sam introduced Luke to her ducks.  He had a great time feeding them.

Now, Sam will introduce you to her ducks.

The lower left hand corner is Miss Hissy and her three ducks.

Above them is Miss Marvin and her seven babies.

The upper right is four babies and their mom, Miss Just Arrived.

The other ducks are the teenagers.  They were the first born of the season.

There are still several other ducks that Sam feeds every day (several times a day) that weren't here this morning.

Now you have met part of our family.

 

MEET BABY JOHN

Yesterday Sam went to see her friend, Dounia and her new baby. Baby John is 3 1/2 weeks young. Sam made lunch for Dounia and herself. Lunch consisted of cherry almond chicken salad, a garden salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, fresh basil and nastursiams from her garden. They had a nice chat. It was great to catch-up since they hadn't seen each other in a year.

Dounia and her husband, Frank, will make excellent parents.

God bless Baby John and his mom and dad.

EMPTY NESTERS

                              By 9:00 a.m., we were empty nesters.  The last baby robin was gone.

AN INTERESTING MORNING

It's Monday morning and it's not even 7:15 a.m., and we already have had a very interesting morning.

When Sam got up this morning, she checked on her two remaining baby robins.  One is still in the nest and the other jumped out and was standing on the tree limb with wobbly legs.  We wish the baby robins good luck as they venture out.

Bob was getting dressed and was looking out into our backyard.  He spotted that "lazy cat" that was in yesterday's blog.  And guess what he/she was doing?  Not chasing a baby robin but chasing a baby duck.  Immediately Bob called for Sam.  Sam started yelling and clapping at the cat.  Of course, the cat ignored her.  Thank goodness the baby duck scooted across the grass quickly and made it to the stream before the cat could attack it.  Or perhaps the cat was just playing with the duck.  Either way, another one of Sam's babies is OK, for the moment.

All this before 7:15 a.m.  What will the rest of the day bring?

WE'RE BACK!

We’re back! We are really sorry that we haven’t kept up as regularly on our blog as we should. It’s not because we are lazy; we are both exhausted by the end of the day. You may wonder how that could be since we are both retired. Well our days have been starting early in the morning dealing with contractors, moving furniture around, taking down drapery, making diagrams to put the drapery back in its proper place, taking down wall paper, taking care of the wild life, etc.


Since we last wrote, we had 10 more baby ducks born. Mama “Patio” had her nest on our patio. One afternoon, the babies hatched. We got to see them as they hatched one by one. It was very difficult to get pictures. It was just about dark and we saw Mama Patio use her beak to open an egg. The next morning when we got up, the nest was empty except for some broken egg shells and one whole egg. We went down to the stream and saw Mama Patio with her babies. We couldn’t believe how big the babies were already…less than 24 hours old. Sam was able to feed them. She counted 9 babies. Then she saw a baby duck floating upside down in the stream. Somehow the baby didn’t make it. Sam was very sad. She fed the babies a couple of times that day. That is the last time we saw the babies. A couple of days later, a mama duck was crying and walking up and down the side of our yard. She was also swimming up and down the stream. Sam thinks it was Mama Patio looking and calling for her babies.

The same day that the baby ducks were born, we also had 4 baby robins born. We were able to watch them right out our dining room window. It is now 10 days and they are leaving the nest. It is truly amazing how fast they grow. The parents have been feeding them a lot of worms and bugs. It is so neat to be able to watch Mother Nature.

One day when we were taking down wall paper in our dressing area. We looked out the window and saw the neighborhood wild cat taking a snooze in the shade on a rock not too far from my baby robins. As you may remember, we did catch a cat in our havahart trap. This is not the same one. This one is yellow and white. Of course, after Sam took a picture, she chased the cat away. No baby robins for this cat.

We did take an afternoon off and went to a rocket launch and picnic. Our neighbors, Randy and Lydia, organized the 2nd Annual Rocket Launch. They launched about 50 rockets at the local park and then had everyone back to their home for a picnic and swim party.

Of course, food and drink are a daily ritual for us. The other night we decided to have some slow cooked ribs. We put a dry rub on the ribs, poured a bottle of beer in the pan, covered the ribs and cooked them for 2 hours 45 minutes at 275 degrees. When they were done we put BBQ sauce on them and munched. They were delicious.

We have a 60 foot long bridge in our backyard. The bridge was built 20 years ago. The past several years, we noticed that the bridge was twisting. It was time to get it fixed. This past week, the contractor was here and fixed the bridge. Bob is so happy. Now we will have to have the bridge power washed and stained. It never ends.

One of my favorite blogging friends, Billie, recently wrote about red bananas in San Miguel de Allende. Sam has seen the bananas in the store before but never purchased them. Well, the other day, she saw them at the local grocery store and purchased them after reading Billie’s blog. We had one last night and it was very nondescript. Sam looked on the Internet and it said it should taste like banana/raspberry. We think the bananas need to ripen. Another taste test in is our future.

This afternoon we were off to a family gathering for Bob’s brother’s birthday. It was a nice afternoon seeing many of our nieces and nephews and their children. They all grow up so quickly.

Now it is time to get ready for another busy week. We can’t wait until it is finished. Is it every finished?

PIZZA, PIZZA...A HEALTHY CHOICE

The other night for dinner we decided to make pizza. It is so simple. It is so good. And it is so tasty.


First of all, I started out with a Boblio original pizza crust. I spread a fair amount of Classico De Genova - traditional basil pesto sauce & spread on the pizza crust. The next layer is a large vadailla onion sliced thinly and caramelized. While the onion was caramelizing, I seasoned it with salt, pepper, and cayenne. Next up was a thinly sliced large tomato. This layer was seasoned with salt and pepper and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese on the tomatoes gave it a nice flavor. On top of the tomatoes are the red, yellow, and orange bell peppers. They are sliced thinly and sautéed in olive oil and seasoned with what else...salt, pepper, and cayenne. I arranged them on top of the tomatoes in alternating colors. A pizza isn't a pizza without mushrooms. I used the white button mushrooms sliced about 1/8 of an inch thick. I sautéed them in a little olive oil and a hot skillet. I like to have the mushrooms with a deep brown color. On top they went with a little shredded cheese.

I baked the pizza in a 400 degree oven for about 15 minutes. It was delicious and healthy.

GARDEN FRESH

Today, Sam picked a nice serving of green beans from the garden.  They look very tender and delicious.  We will definitely have them for dinner tonight.  She also picked three cucumbers and one lonely tomato.  Certainly, fresh cucumber salad will also be on the menu.

HOW TIME FLIES WHEN YOU ARE HAVING FUN!

Sorry we haven't posted in a while. Here is what we have been doing.


First of all, Sam is now feeding 20 baby ducks along with many other adult ducks. Our neighbor sold her house in 3 weeks and a new family will be moving in the end of July. The youngest daughter, Molly, loves nature and Sam's ducks. Mama duck is still sitting on her nest next to the house. Hopefully the babies will be born soon.

We have been stripping wall paper and getting our home ready in case we decide to sell. It is a big project. Mark the painter is here every day before 8:00 a.m. It is great having a contractor here on time. He doesn't smoke and he doesn't play music. He is a "work-horse". Glad to have him on our team. Not so sure I would climb up his make shift scaffolding.

We have had our Grandfather Clock for about 24 years. It hasn’t been keeping time lately, so we had the “Clock Guy” come and repair Grandfather. It was very interesting to see the repairman take Grandfather apart and put him back together. It is wonderful to have Grandfather working again. We love to hear the quarterly chimes. Of course, Bob puts it on “Night Owl” so he can sleep.

Our San Miguelian friends, Tom and Linda from Colorado, came to visit for a couple of days. It was great to relax and catch up with them. We had plenty of good food and great wine. Thanks to Tom and Linda for their wine donations!

We celebrated Bob’s 55th birthday with Tom and Linda. Sam bought Bob a Garden Groom Pro. We are trying to work “smarter” not “harder” around our home. So far it has worked great! Bob trimmed all of the boxwood and hicks hew bushes in the front and back yards within 2 hours. Believe me, we have a lot of bushes. This would normally take both of us about 8 hours to trim and clean up!

On June 30th, we picked our first tomato from our garden. Of course, we had to split the tomato. Now we have a cucumber that will be ready in a day or two.

Cans, cans, and more cans. Nathalie, who is our neighbor and 10 years old, decided she wanted to raise some money to help sponsor a child to attend 7th grade in Los Ricos de Abajo, Mexico. This is the school where we teach English in the winter and are currently sponsoring three children. She enlisted the help of her brother, Joey, who is 8 years old. She also contacted some of her friends. To date, Nathalie and Joey have collected 693 cans. Her goal is to collect a total of 2000 cans by July 31st, which is her birthday. The Tios, that’s us, have promised to match 50% of what they collect up to a maximum of $100.

It definitely has been crazy in our back yard. We normally keep a Havahart trap in our yard to catch the ground hogs. They eat our geraniums and also try and get into the vegetable garden. So far this year, we haven't caught any ground hogs. However, the other day we had a wild cat in the trap. We let it go and the cat ran right through the stream and into the woods. He was so glad to be free. Bob reset the trap and that night we caught a possum. As you may know, possums don't like the day light. Bob went out and opened the trap to release the possum. The possum stayed in the trap for over 6 hours with the door open. Sometime after dark, he finally left. We have also caught three squirrels. Bob is ready to spray paint the squirrel to find out if it is the same one. Just a little fun and adventure at the Zimmerman's.

It is hard to believe it is already July 5th. Usually my beautiful day lilies don’t bloom until the middle of July. They started blooming about 10 days ago; that’s about 3 ½ weeks early. We will definitely enjoy them while they are here. We will need to contact our great niece because she always comes over and picks the beautiful colored day lilies and decorates the fountain on the patio with Tio.

Since last Thursday, we have been partying with all of our neighbors. Tis the season! The weather has been extremely warm. Yesterday the high was 91 F; the same for the next three days except the humidity is to be much higher. The air conditioning is working overtime. It is a great day to catch up on our blog.

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