May 9th to May 12th

I decided to take a Vacation Dayon May 9th so that I could get my eyes checked then spend the afternoon with my daughter.  After I picked her up from school we set out for the Mission Viejo Mall for "Mom's Night Out".  An annual event were various stores set out booths & give away samples.  Last year, they had a RSVP email.  I replied, I arrived (later than the start time) to find ALL the samples -esp- the Mall Goodie Bag GONE!  OK, so it is mostly little samples and "spend $500 and we will give you "blank" but, I RSVP'd & they gave away "MY" goodie bag!  Only good thing last year was the guy playing the Steel Drums...  I talked to him.  He is local.  Said he had been there three years in a row.  Back to this year, I didn't want to miss the FREE SAMPLES!  Took a Vacation Day!  The guy with the Steel Drums was there again!  Just too crowded to hang around right there to listen so, we wandered around going to the stores with samples & specials "for Mom".  Origins did FREE Mini-Facials - they say they offer FREE 20-minute Facials *anytime* & NO obligation to BUY (really??) Might take them up on that. We finished off "Mom's Night" at Muscle Beach - aka Hotdogs-on-a-Stick for my FREE lemonade.  We bought dinner there and brought it home.

Friday May 10th.  Half-Day at work to come back for Half-Day Saturday.  We needed to fill a square on our Geocaching Grid.  On Thursday, I had looked for caches very near to home that we still have not found.  There are a few but, not too many.  Most now require hiking & the weather was forecast to be "HOT".  Also, we had a Girl Scout meeting (at least planned).  Most the other girls were busy.  One just returning from the Annual Spring Trip for her school.  So that caches I looked at were very close to home. One happened to be a Puzzle Cache that published in January of 2009.  Every time I had looked at the cache before, I just shook my head.  Duck had definitely lost it this time.  I just did NOT get it.  "Quack QuQuQuQu Qu QuackQuQuackQu QuQuack QuackQuQuackQu QuQuQuQu Qu QuQu QuQuQu"  I mean... REALLY????!! 
But, somehow this time - I found something different.  Something like a KICK in the butt or a "dead-give-away" clue as to how to solve this puzzle.  FINALLY and OMG how could I have NOT seen that before! I told Foxhound that we would be hunting for this when no one else could be at the meeting! 
I picked her up and we confirmed we'd be trying this alone.  
We scoped out the vicinity of the cache.  Parked the Geo300 and made our approach.  My GPSr had me walking in circles but, NOT finding the container.  

Hmmm, we NEED to find ONE cache today... Let's go try that other old cache "nearby".  This next cache had been there since 2008 & we NEVER even tried to find it before! It is a Tribute Cache to a friend of ours -something about his 2,262nd find" (weird Milestone but, what the heck).  We again park, walk towards the cache GZ.  Gets to a point that Foxhound will go no further.  I knew the thing was a NANO - had an idea of WHAT I was looking for.  "FOUND IT!" I shout to Fox.  (OH -if anyone who posted on our "Got Spam?" Multi posted they "found" this one...) These little devils are difficult to get the log out of & to sign, especially when the log is FULL as this one was. None the less, I accomplish what had to be done & replace the container.  And YES, at least FIVE cachers who complained that they cannot find WP1 of our Multi-Cache (including the HIDER of THIS very cache) posted they "found" this one!!!  LOOK HARDER - CLOSER - it is there! 

Back at the Geo300 we make a call to the hider of the puzzle.  Yup, we were in the correct area... Yup, we are "blind" and Yup, the Duck with one of the ducklings might swing by just to be sure we made the find.  We drive back. Park and walk to GZ again. THIS armed with a clue for the owner -- I nearly saw it before I was there!  OH what a cleaver camo! And fun tricky puzzle. We chat with Duck and his oldest Duckling.  Then we all head off for home. 

Saturday - Half-Day work and RECYCLE day.  There is a location near my work that pays good $$ for glass, plastic and aluminum.  AND they are friendly!  We had enough to make the trip worth-while.  Enough for FREE LUNCH at Popeye's Chicken!  YUM.
Next, we go to O'Neill Regional Park to monitor "our" Western Bluebirds. 

Not all good.  Our nest with five babies last week has only two remaining.  

and another was abandoned - one egg and two chicks -gone- nothing we could do. 



 


But, one nest has a very well feed chick 










 




and both parents are very attentive to the nesting box.















We'd finish the day with Mom Miller at Tulsa Rib Company.  It has relocated to a place where we attended a Geo-Event when it was called something else. GOOD eats!  We went back to her place and built the puzzle we gave her for Mother's Day.  This one was about a million times easier than the last one we attempted.  That one was never completed even with four visits.  THIS puzzle in less than two hours.  Time enough to play a few rounds of Banana-grams.
  

Sunday - Happy Mother's Day!  Blueberry WAFFLES!!  A wreath with "robbin eggs" on it and a little Chickadee for me! 




THEN, off to Rockreation for Foxhound to do Climb-Time and ME to climb to "ROCKSTAR".  A Geocache named "ROCKSTAR"

We received FOUR "Ayden Rockstar" wrist bands from Mama Misty & Miss Debbie.  I DID IT!  I signed the log (again) for us.  and placed the bands in the container.  

Foxhound is fighting a cold and only did three walls - 

but, her NEW climbing shoes really helped!  Three other moms were there for Mother's Day too.

Foxhound and her Belayer, Jeff

 
 
  

 

Second Attempt - Irvine Regional Park - Geocaching & Letterboxing Girl Scouts?

So, once again I tried to get our troop *and a Junior Troop* to go Geocaching & Letterboxing at Irvine Regional Park.  Today - per our friend Jessie - could be *busy* but, then maybe not.  I sent out emails & permission slips nines days prior.  Only one person even bothered to reply.  Still, I planned for today. 

I discovered that there MIGHT be about ten Letterboxes in addition to the over 20 caches hidden in the park.  I figured that Senior & Junior Girls could take these skills with them to then teach Brownie Scouts - heck, the Brownies have a Letterboxing Badge now and Juniors have Geocaching... this stuff is FUN for any age.  

I sent information about the Letterboxes too.



Saturday -- cloudy and cool -- PERFECT weather for caching & letterboxing! 

Foxhound & I stop at Pavilions for our picnic supplies and water (for everyone).  Drive to the park, which at 10am was pretty much empty.  We sat in the car until about ten after ten.  No cell phone ringing - no other people turning into the lot I designated at the meeting location.  No worries.  
I had my new hiking boots on to break in (LET'S GO) - they are a bit higher than the pair I finally replaced them with.  I had completely worn the tread *OFF* off that old pair and they were SO comfortable.  This was no longer a Girl Scouts event... Permission Slip stays in the car n' it is just Foxhound & me - daughter & mom - 'boxing & 'caching together (except we opted to JUST do the 'boxing because "it is more fun")

Foxhound is really good at this -- she found the SPORs so much faster than me.  SPOR = Suspicious Pill Of Rocks.  She found many other cool things too.  A retired 12 year old Arabian RACE horse and his English Teacher Owner.  A tiny walking stick insect (on one of the letterbox containers)  and a roadrunner.  Later perhaps the same roadrunner was spotted by the English Teacher with a lizard in its beak! 


 Many peacocks and a few hens -
 This one let Foxhound touch his feathers

- even what we think was a very young peacock -- he had HALF a tail! 

We also went to the zoo. We missed Sampson, Simba and now Nacho. 
(RIP our furry friends)
There are new Cougars - they are about two years old.  A brother & sister.
The Brother has a BALL - a BIG PURPLE exercise ball! 
We watched as the trainer, caretaker fed him - using the Clicker when he did what he was supposed to - move a certain way or direction, let her examine his paw pads... things like that.  He plays in the water and him tummy fur was all wet & dirty!  
 
 














We only found 2 of the 6 Letterboxes (letterboxes can have several containers in "one" - like a Multi-Cache in Geocaching). In all we found SEVEN containers. The weather was perfect and as always - we had FUN.

April 2013 - Western Bluebird & more

April FLEW by!

Foxhound & I took over monitoring 6 Western Bluebird boxes in O'Neill Regional Park this year.   

We first checked them March 30th.  Some already had nests in progress. 

Today, May 4th, we went to our 2nd SoCal Bluebird Club meeting then, checked our boxes.   THREE have babies! One has five, two have one chicks.  So exciting!  


Last week, we had people watching us.  They took pictures of the chicks! 

We have NEW Rangers at O'Neill again. One, comes from Laguna Regional Park, she is great - Gillian from the SCBC told us she was coming to OUR park from hers.   We stopped by to introduce ourselves today. 

In addition to  the 6 boxes at O'Neill, we also added one @ Monte Vista Park & another in a neighbors' tree.  The one in Monte Vista -- too cool. There was a pair of Bluebirds WATCHING us as we hung the thing!  That was about four weeks ago. Today... they aggressively protected it when Foxhound took it down to check the progress.  Nest is nicely completed!   no eggs yet - but, the pair of BBs is very active at the box! 



 
















Til next time...