Neither Carrie nor I had owned a dog in our adult lives, so when we got our first dog it was after much thought, research and preparation. We agreed on a Poodle, preferably female, from a shelter, not a puppy, and white would be nice. Poodles are hypo-allergenic, rarely bark and Carrie really likes their […]

For years the Cat Head was the center point of our bird feeding efforts.  But when the third version of the cat head finally wore out we opted to replace it with something completely different. Taking its inspiration from the iconic Woodstock bird-on-the-guitar poster, we made an old guitar into this bird feeder. If you […]

Tina’s and Harve’s efforts have been recognized with Tina being named “Firefighter of the Year” and Harve receiving “Captain of the Year” honors!

Carrie and Paul enjoy Deep-Fried Minions at the LA County Fair!

Click to read the page one Mariposa Gazette article about the daring Dearing rescue. VOLUNTEER FIRE FIGHTER HARV DEARING CLUTCHES “FERAL” THE CAT AFTER A HEART-WARMING RESCUE FRIDAY EVENING. DEARING AND FOUR OTHER FIRE FIGHTERS ALONG WITH ANIMAL CONTROL OFFICER ERIN ANDREWS SAVED THE CAT FROM A FISSURE IN A MASS OF BOULDERS ON MORMON […]

All the recipes have been moved over, but still need formatting. We are slowly moving over old stories as time permits. -Carrie

This holiday weekend this site is moving to a new server and changing formats.  -Carrie

Elsewhere we’ve listed all the many birds that visit our yard. Here is the latest addition, an apple stealing green parrot.

We’ve had a number of custom bird feeders over the years, but the one that has endured and travelled from Redondo to Pomona was the cathead feeder.   I had added and soon abandoned a wireframe body, but the results were less than satisfying both functionally and aesthetically.  So when the original cathead feeder was […]

While taking a picture of the new trellis for the article below I snapped this shot of some of our fish in the nearby pond. The large white Koi is Edgar named for Edgar Winter for what may be obvious reasons.  The smaller white fish with the orange oblong marking on its head is Leon; […]

What to do with an unruly bougainvillea?  Strap it to a trellis. What to do if you don’t have a trellis?  Build one! To keep the bougainvillea from falling into the fish pond, Carrie built us a trellis.  And she let me dig the holes for the concrete footings. Carrie translated this sketch into the […]

Here is Paul chasing a squirrel up a tree.  Squirrel was caught in the new cat head bird feeder.