Egg cracking...

*CRACK*cheepcheep, new thing for me...

Thought I'd try sharing my adventures via this "Blog" concept. Beats writing fifty different letters about the same thing, anyway.

My sis and I got a fancyschmancy digital camera and this summer of 2007 is the first time I've had a chance to seriously play with the thing. You can tell me how well I'm succeeding with it.

So...first big batch on the memory cards...here's a shot of our front yard. We live in a drought-prone, HOT region, and so tend to believe grass is rather an idiotic item to have for ground cover, since it either requires gallons of water and constant care, or is a scraggly brown sad thing. So we have all kinds of Other (native) plant critters. I think there's lantana, daylilies and sage or something in this shot.

In this picture, there's the aptly named fireworks plant

--at least I think that's what people call it. (Actually it's a Mexican Bird of Paradise, colloquially) Very pretty, at any rate, with big bean pods. Then there's the soft little lambs' ears and sedum and of course the ever-present prickly pear. Anyway it's all so much more colorful and a lot less work in the long run than grass.... Though admittedly most of the kudos goes to our Mom, our friendly hit-and-run gardener.

And finally, before I actually get to the latest trip -related events, here's a shot of our fuzzy pal, Paddington. Supposedly he's part Chow and part Golden Retriever, but we suspect he's just some kind of overgrown mutant cat/pillow/bottomless pit of a chowhound mix. Couldn't have a better dog for us, though. As long as he's fed (preferably nonstop) and walked at least once a day (we think he is actually hollow), he's quite happy. He does unfortunately produce more fluff per hour than a herd of sheep, so that does keep the broom active.

Well, it's 3am and I've been tweaking photos all day. (I discovered that all I have around here to eat is some frozen chicken, some old peanut butter, coffee grounds and a few Hershey's kisses...think I need to go grocery shopping?) Just wondered what I'd do with the pix after I finished, if that event ever actually occurred. I'll see what happens next with this and perhaps even continue sometime. At the moment I think I'll tweak a few more as I rock to the Beatles-a-Rama internet station, pull the theoretically dried clothes off the line (sadly it rained before I got home yesterday so they got another term on the clothesline), and collapse on the bed somewhere, if I can find it.