I drove from the California house up to my Mom’s place to wish her a happy 92nd birthday and to bring her a gift. I also shared about 50 photos on my laptop with her. I programmed an SD memory card with the pictures and left it with her to plug into her electronic picture frame.
She is in pretty good health considering her age. Her grandmother lived to age 96 so there is longevity in the family that I hope I inherit. 
Click on the image above to enlarge.
Well, today was the day I set aside to do some yard maintenance on the California house. There were weeds to pull/spray, three palm trees that had drooping fronds and/or fruit pods to be removed. There were several runaway cereus cacti plus one umbrella tree both of which were hanging over the property line.
Image: pile of stuff we took down - click to enlarge
I started on the weeds and graduated to the palms after that. When I finished trimming the trees, Verna and I tackled the umbrella tree and the cereus cacti. The pile seen in the image will stay where it is until the next trip out when I will chunk everything up into refuse container sized pieces. Another option is to hire a crew to do that and haul everything. We’re still thinking about it.
After a visit to my Mom’s for her 92nd birthday tomorrow, we will head back toward the desert on Tuesday with scheduled visits to Joshua Tree National Park and our “river rat” friends (Jim and Karen) on the Colorado River. We can’t wait to leave the cold temperatures, the marine overcast and drizzle behind.
We had a busy day today, but it was worth the traffic and everything to visit my sister and her family. We also visited my Mom for a while.
When we were at my sister’s house we saw my nephew and his wife and their little girl. Grandma (my sister) is holding her in this photo. Click on the image to enlarge.
Bob grilled these four chicken breasts this afternoon. I cut one into cubes and sprinkled on a Southwestern Salad kit from Dole (you get them in the produce department at the market). The result was an outstanding and delicious Southwestern chicken salad (if I do say so myself). Simple and easy.
Image: Grillin’ chicken breasts. Click to enlarge.
We will use the other three breasts this weekend for other meals. Maybe shredded chicken soft tacos or something like that. Or, how about chicken and pasta with marinara sauce? Simple and easy!
Spring is in full swing in the desert. Our flowering plum tree in the courtyard is covered with spring flowers and growing new purple leaves. Very pretty - click on the image to enlarge.
This is a view of the Vulture Mountain Range located south of Wickenburg. Verna took this photo from US 60 southeast of the range and I cropped it into this panoramic view. Vulture peak, the highest point in the range, is the prominent feature in the distance near the center of the panorama.
After a couple of years of frustration with her little HP MINI notebook computer, we got a new computer; it is the HP Pavilion G6 notebook. She was handicapped by the lack of video acceleration, caching and memory limitations. That should now all go away.
Her installation is shown in the (clickable) image above. The new laptop, an external 20 inch monitor, external keyboard and mouse. The display is extended to the monitor on the left with the laptop being the master display.
Some of the features:
Her system is now superior to mine. 
