Yikes! Neon is Here!

We have been having hot, dry weather here in Paradise this last week. Yesterday, I was watering some plants on the patio and I spotted this little snake looking up at me as it sipped some water off the pavement. As soon as I went in to get my camera, it got spooked and started to slither away, so I only managed to get this shot. It disappeared so fast, while shaking it's rounded, black head at me that is just out of the shot.....the amazing thing is that as it entered the little garden a few feet away, it changed to a green color and slithered up the branches of the Hawthorne bush and completely disappeared! We named it "Neon" and hope it is happy now, here in Paradise. It is more afraid of us, than we are of it, but I wondered what kind of snake it was, it looked black and yellow before turning green.....it looks big here, but is really only about the size of two pencils end-to-end. After some research, I decided it was a baby California King snake, I tried to upload a video from YouTube, but it failed, however, I did manage to post it to my Facebook. It looks just like the one I saw, doing the same thing mine did.....

This was the pave-style floral design we made in floral class yesterday. It will be wilted in a few hours with this weather....sigh....I got the flowers fresh from Trader Joe's right before class. They open at 8:00a.m., and have the freshest, nicest flowers, this bouquet was less than $6.00.

I thought this would be a also a good spot to show my decorative bowl I made in ceramic class. I used a sprig mold I made to create Miss Kitty faces on a slumped free-form slab, then after bisque firing, used Easy Stroke glaze to color the faces, then clear glaze over all, then placed pieces of glass to melt into interesting shapes, they came out looking kind of cool!

Just had to show Miss Kitty trying to stay cool resting her head on the chair rung....pretty smart!

Shrimp cocktail for two for dinner; too hot to cook for sure....I always try to keep frozen shrimp (Trader Joe's again) in stock, so I just defrosted them under cold running water, then mixed a sauce of ketchup, horseradish, lemon juice, and hot sauce. Then made a bed of lettuce and celery, placed the shrimp on top, spooned the sauce over, and served with Saltine crackers. A very yummy, light, and cool dinner for a hot summer night here in Paradise!

Birthday for Miss Kitty

Miss Kitty had her fifth birthday, so we decided to give her a little party. She participated just like she knew what she was doing! She got a new cat couch scratching pad, some special kitty foods, and some toys.

We had an herb crusted rack of lamb with roasted potatoes and steamed artichokes, then fresh peach and strawberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream.

The meal turned out really well and Miss Kitty (and us) had a good time here in Paradise.

Here is a simple cobbler recipe:

Two to three cups of fresh fruit cut up (I used fresh peeled peaches, and strawberries)

Sprinkle with about 1/2 cup sugar (depending of sweetness of fruit, we like it tart), sprinkle of cinnamon, sprinkle of lemon juice, about 2 tablespoons of cornstarch, and 2 tablespoons of softened butter

Mix together in a baking dish

In a mixing bowl, add in 1 cup of Bisquick, about 1/2 cup of sour cream, 2 tablespoons of sugar, and enough milk to make it smooth but still thick enough to hold it's shape

Dollop onto fruit mixture and bake at 375 for about 40 to 45 minutes till bubbly and biscuits are light brown on top. Let cool for 15-20 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream