baby it's cold outside

So after two weeks of bright sunshine and dark skies filled with planets and constellations the night of the lunar moon we get freezing fog. No eclipse for us. However what we got instead was pretty cool. Icy in fact. Burr, it is really cold outside for this gypsy who loves living in the desert in the winter. 

Newly plowed fields stand in stark contrast to the frosted grass and trees.

Goldendale, a blinking red stoplight town. My kind of place.

Happy Holidays from me to you!

clear skies please

a total lunar eclipse will be visible from the western united states early Saturday morning December 10

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/02dec_lunareclipse/

have i told you

Well, here it is the first of December. For the past 10 winters, my home has been in Arizona, Florida or Texas. This winter I'm enjoying a new house on our property Birdwood. Have I told you how fabulous it is?

We had snow a couple of weeks ago and it made the mud look wonderful. I won't be posting any photos of the mud until I have some before and after shots. Landscaping and covered decks will happen in the spring.

We decided on a little house that takes advantage of our amazing view of Mt. Hood.

There are plenty of deer to entertain us and our little dog.

There are agates, fossils and petrified wood here. These are my finds from today's walk. A lot of the wood appears to be driftwood. I must find out the species of tree and how old it is.

 A fiery winter sunset.

We see our buddy "Owlie" almost every day.

All those windows provide great light for my jewelry photos. The petrified wood makes a very cool prop.

Life is good.

it's been a while

Owlie supervises

I have a good excuse for not blogging much in the last month. My life as a full-time gypsy has come to an end. Notice I said full-time. We've ordered a Double Wide and it has arrived. Wow, there's a lot to do. 



We've moving into a house after ten years of living in a fifth wheel. Nice change. 

the mountain

We've had a some cloudy rainy weather for what seems like forever, but actually only about a week. This morning our Mt. Hood showed up. Nice.

 

journal entry #3,198

Friday January 14, 2011
Port Lavaca, Texas

The weather remains cold and by cold I mean highs in the low 40s. Today there is overcast as well. The wind has died. That's good. Because of the cold windy weather we've been doing a lot of hunkering. And when the 300 square feet of living space gets too small, we've been driving. And not near the surf of the Gulf. The land sure is flat and you really notice it when you drive through nothing but plowed fields with a house or out buildings every half mile or so. I miss the mountains and the big views. This flat land is almost claustrophobic because it's obvious how much of our world is sky and how little of it is land. If that makes sense. There are lots of hawks hunting the plowed fields and there are lots of geese and cranes in those plowed fields too. The houses are mostly crumbling from their encounters with hurricanes. Most of the small towns have many lots with concrete floors where once there stood a building. We agree that neither of us would be comfortable here during hurricane season. 

Matagorda is a cute little coastal town. A big tall bridge takes us out to Matagorda Island and we drive to a collection of vacation homes and condos and then the beach. It looks just like Padre Island except for the shells. Here they litter the beach and many of them are keepers. Hilldog runs like a wild dog and we groove on the surf. There's not much better than a beach. Maybe petrified sand dunes.

end of a decade

My goodness, here it is almost the end of September. The summer has been a busy one and now fall promises to be even more exciting. I'm calling it the season of transition for more reasons than one. Not only will the landscape be transitioning into the dark and cold of winter with very little in the way of vegetation, Dick and I will be transitioning. Our decade of sweet life as full time "trailer trash" is coming to an end. We've ordered a manufactured house for Birdwood and it will be here in just a few more weeks! Our indoor space will suddenly seem vast. Our outdoor space will go from summer to fall to winter to spring if we choose. For ten years we've skipped winter for the most part by driving south and living in the deserts of my beloved southwest, the tropics of Florida, the exotic Texas Gulf coast and a little touch of Southern California's glitter. The older I get the less I like cold weather. I AM liking the thought of a new house and the promise of driving south again after the smell of that new house gets old or my bones get too creaky.

the building site