WALK AT RANDALL PARK
The last time we took a walk at Randall Park the crew was still in the process of re-doing the walkway around it. We decided to go last Friday morning to see how far the Parks & Recreation crew had gotten with the renovation. It looked as though almost everything had been finished, except for one parking lot. The walkway around the park is now nice and wide. The pond still has orange fencing up around parts of it, so there is still work going on there. We walked out on the observation deck and could see all sorts of ducks and geese swimming around.
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| Ducks and Geese |
There were a lot of baby ducks at the pond, and they were so cute that I just had to get some video of them. There were several families swimming around with babies of different sizes. I am not sure what kind of ducks they were but I think some of them were Mallards.
Some of the parents were letting the bigger ducklings swim around by themselves, while other parents were keeping their babies close by. However, all of the babies seemed to be having a good time. Maybe they, too, were glad that it was Friday!
One little guy got separated from his mother and other siblings. He was swimming around all over the pond looking for them. He kept going up to adult ducks and peeping at them. They all ignored him, so he continued on with his search.
It was heartbreaking to see and hear him in this distress. I would have helped him out but I wasn't sure which group he belonged to either. He finally found his family, though, and all was well again.
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| Safe again, at last |
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| These guys look like teenagers |
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| Lined up |
While I was videoing the babies a flock of adult Canada Geese flew overhead, honking loudly.
The flock flew over the pond and circled around to an open area of the park. It soon became apparent why they went to this area.
We had seen this mating behavior before from the Canada Geese when we walked down at the cemetery. It never ceases to amuse me, though. The males look so funny going after the females with their necks stretched out and heads down. Even though they can get quite aggressive, the females try their best to ignore them. Playing hard to get, I suppose.
OUR FRIENDLY POLLINATORS
One thing we tried our best to do when landscaping our yard was to have plants that would attract bees and other pollinators. We also wanted our plants to be somewhat drought tolerant since we do live in the high desert. We were surprised and happy to see some wonderful pollinator-attracting plants come up completely by accident...Sunflowers. We have had a crop of sunflowers pop up every summer near our bird feeders. So many of them come up that sometimes I have to pull tons of them up so we won't be inundated. We don't even water them and they still come up.
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| Sunflowers beside the driveway |
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| This bee has a rust-colored band around his middle |
There are many different kinds of bees out there and some of them are hard to identify. The one in the picture above has a rust-colored band around the middle of its body. I looked it up on Google and I believe it is a Tri-Colored Bumblebee. Their range is the Northern US and parts of Canada, so this could be our guy. Regardless of what he is called, we want him in our yard to pollinate our flowers and our vegetables out in the garden.
In addition to the sunflowers, we also have Rudbeckia, which are members of the Coneflower family and are often called Black-Eyed Susans.
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| Pollinators like Black-Eyed Susans |
We have several different kinds of Gallardia plants in our yard. The bees and other pollinators seem to like them all the same. I don't think they care what color the plant is, only that it has the pollen or nectar that they are looking for.
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| Some kind of orange insect on a red Gallardia flower |
Not only do we provide food for the bees with our nectar-producing flowers, but we also provide water for them. I never noticed this before but the other day we had quite a few bees come to our bird bath and get a drink of water. You never know what you are going to see out there in nature!
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| Bee sucking up some water |
BOILED PEANUTS
I have been craving some boiled peanuts for about 11 years. This is a long time for a Southerner to go without any boiled peanuts. So you can imagine the absolute joy I felt when I found out I could make boiled peanuts in my Instant Pot! As I mentioned a few weeks ago in the blog, Linda found some "raw" peanuts at the fruit stand and we got a 2 pound container. I had to make two batches as I couldn't fit them all in my 3-quart pot at one time. The first ones I made (the shake-down cruise, if you will), I did not cook them long enough but they were still good. I researched recipes in all of my Facebook groups and finally decided on a recipe to try again. Below are the peanuts swimming in water in the pot, ready to be boiled.
I boiled them for 3 hours this time, and they were much better than the first batch. I have almost eaten them all up, so I need to go back to the fruit stand for more. Here is what the finished product looks like.
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| Ummm....boiled peanuts! |
PUZZLE UPDATE
Sometimes when we finish a puzzle we will immediately start a new one, only to get a little ways into it and decide that's not the one we want to do. Linda picked up a bunch of puzzles from our local Senior Center a few weeks ago, so we now have some new ones to put together. We started one puzzle that was a landscape scene, and although it was a Ravensburger brand (one of our favorites), we eventually decided not to continue with it. We've found that landscape puzzles are more frustrating than they are fun because most of them have huge areas of the same, or similar, color. Puzzles with an intricate design are more fun because you feel like you are accomplishing something when you work on them. So, our most recent puzzle that we finally decided on was one of the Senior Center puzzles. This puzzle depicts the art of Rex Ray and is entitled Rallenta.
I love this puzzle! I told Linda that I want to glue this one together (after we put it together a few more times) and hang it up somewhere. It is so colorful and 50's-looking. I would say this was one of the harder puzzles to do, but it was also a lot of fun. That's the key ingredient, fun.
PARTING SHOT
No matter where Linda and I choose to sit outside, Summer Girl always seems to find us. Not that we are trying to get away from her, mind you. I guess she hears us talking so she comes ambling up to see what's going on (so she can report back to the Mothership, because, you know, cats are aliens). Here she is stretched out on the front porch, pretending to be asleep but she is listening to every word we say.
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| Zzzzzzz |
That's all for this week, folks. Check back again next week, and in the meantime, stay cool, just like Summer Girl!
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