This was the morning after we picked him up from the airport. We stayed overnight in Vegas since his plane got in kind of late, then we went to Sephora to do a little shopping and then drove home. Dad stayed for four days and on the last day we went back up to Vegas and had dinner at the Top of the World restaurant at the Stratosphere hotel. Here's a view of the strip from the restaurant:
I've been waiting since last spring to see more quail babies and I finally saw some last week and was able to get some pictures, though they chicks are hard to see because they're so small and blend in with the gravel in the yard. The mother qual is running away because she saw me coming to the window and the chicks are bringing up the rear:
I've seen several more quail families during the past week and I usually see between 8 and 10 chicks. It's amazing, but they can move as fast as the adults can. I saw two other kinds of birds and one quail in the back yard yesterday tormenting a snake. I'm guessing they were trying to drive it away from their nest or something. I couldn't figure out what they were doing at first because they were jumping around and spreading their wings and just acting weird, but then I saw the snake on the ground.We got the gravel in the front yard done right before Dad came to visit and we were sucessfuly in making a star/sunburst pattern with lighter gravel on top:
Here's another view from the street:
Unfortunately our bird feeders are too close to the design and the birds keep messing it up. They like to dig around in the gravel for bird seed that's fallen on the ground and they are amazingly strong. The rabbits do it, too. I've seen both of them actually pick up pieces of gravel in their mouth and move them, though the most damage is done by the quail when they scratch around on the ground like chickens and throw gravel everywhere. So that means we need to find a new spot for the bird feeders.
Here's another view from the street:
Unfortunately our bird feeders are too close to the design and the birds keep messing it up. They like to dig around in the gravel for bird seed that's fallen on the ground and they are amazingly strong. The rabbits do it, too. I've seen both of them actually pick up pieces of gravel in their mouth and move them, though the most damage is done by the quail when they scratch around on the ground like chickens and throw gravel everywhere. So that means we need to find a new spot for the bird feeders.
Lately I've been seeing birds and rabbits napping in the front yard next to the rosebushes. They've dug some shallow holes and they lay down in them, I guess because it's cooler there, especially in the afternoon when the rosebushes are in the shade.
These last two pictures I took out of my computer room window, which is on the front of the house. It was cute to see the quail and rabbits lounging in the shade together. There's one rabbit laying down and one with its back turned to the camera over on the right, then there's a female quail on the right and a male on the left right under the rosebush.
The rosebushes are doing really well and it's really gratifying since we took a lot of trouble to make sure they didn't get frost damage this past winter. They've been blooming like crazy and they'll all about three times the size they were last year. I have two little cactus plants that I got from Home Depot last year and I was surprised to see one of them blooming a few days ago. I didn't realize it would ever bloom, but it has pretty little pink flowers on it. I also have a challa cactus that I picked up off the ground in our vacant neighbor's yard next door and it's been growing like crazy. I'm so happy to see it growing because this is the third time I've tried something like this and it finally worked.
These last two pictures I took out of my computer room window, which is on the front of the house. It was cute to see the quail and rabbits lounging in the shade together. There's one rabbit laying down and one with its back turned to the camera over on the right, then there's a female quail on the right and a male on the left right under the rosebush.
The rosebushes are doing really well and it's really gratifying since we took a lot of trouble to make sure they didn't get frost damage this past winter. They've been blooming like crazy and they'll all about three times the size they were last year. I have two little cactus plants that I got from Home Depot last year and I was surprised to see one of them blooming a few days ago. I didn't realize it would ever bloom, but it has pretty little pink flowers on it. I also have a challa cactus that I picked up off the ground in our vacant neighbor's yard next door and it's been growing like crazy. I'm so happy to see it growing because this is the third time I've tried something like this and it finally worked.Speaking of the vacant house next door, someone finally bought it. It went up for sale and sold almost immediately, I believe at an auction of some kind. It's been sold now for several weeks, but no one has moved in yet, which is fine with me. They can take their time. Also, the woman with the noisy dogs behind us moved out back in April. The house isn't for sale, as far as I can tell, so I'm guessing it was being rented and just doesn't have new tenants yet. So it's been really quiet around here and we are so hoping that neither of our new neighbors will have noisy dogs. Keep your fingers crossed for us.
I made a new Ayumi gif that's over on the right here. It's from her video "Sparkle" and I love that she has dark hair in the video. I think she looks best with dark hair. You can click the gif to see the whole video on someone's Myspace page.
I've been seeing a new pain management doctor now for about 4 months and I've been pretty happy with him. I actually saw a physician's assisant at my last visit and then another doctor came in just briefly before I left to go over my file with the PA and both of them were really nice and actually seemed to be listening to me. I think this will be the first time that I haven't run out of medication before my next appointment because they gave me plenty.
The other doctor that I saw briefly suggested I try Lyric@, which is something I've been interested in trying for a long time, so I was excited about that, but unfortunately I wasn't very excited about the results. I didn't notice any improvement with my pain level and it made me really groggy in the morning (I took it before bed each night) and it gave me weird, unsettling dreams, so I stopped taking it after a couple weeks. That was disappointing, but the good news is that the other medication I have is working well, and like I said, I have plenty. I really hope I get to the see the same PA and/or doctor at my next visit, which is coming up next Thursday.
