Category Archives: Neighbors

A week of saying “NO”

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I had a quick visit by a Harris’s Hawk the other day. I was writing an article for my HOA newsletter about Harris Hawks and my proofreading newsletter partner told me it’s Harris’s Hawks. It doesn’t seem grammatically correct, but I looked it up and that’s what it is.

I had a super busy week with an upcoming charity event that I’m responsible for creating the program plus all publicity. Then there’s the aforementioned HOA newsletter plus my photography reading and assignment.

I also had lots of social activities including traveling to a wedding this weekend, luncheons with speakers, my weekly zoom call and dinner out with friends.

So, to preserve my sanity and to do my work I started saying “No” to lots of social stuff. I realized I didn’t need to spend hours at luncheons listening to speakers. I didn’t have to sit for two hours on the zoom call. I did say yes to going out to dinner, since it was an early bday dinner. Our friends will be on vacation during my actual date of birth.

By saying “No” a few times, I got work done and I could breathe.

Here are some fun facts about Harris’s Hawks:

These social and intelligent raptors are known for their remarkable behaviors and unique characteristics.

Harris’s Hawks have dark brown plumage, with reddish-brown feathers on the wings and upper thighs. The upper tail coverts are almost black with a white rump and a white band on the tail. When viewed from underneath, the inner wings and underwing coverts are reddish-brown.

They are 18 to 23 inches long. They weight from 18 to 30 ounces.

Their wingspan is 40 to 47 inches.

Harris’s Hawks live in the United States and Mexico, but migrate to South America for the winter. Their migration is driven by the need for prey items, such as small mammals or reptiles, which cannot survive harsh northern winters.

Their diet consists of large insects, small mammals such as squirrels, desert cottontail, and mice. They may also prey on larger animals like great blue herons, jackrabbits, young wild turkeys, quail, or doves when opportunities arise.

In the wild, their lifespan is 10 to 12 years. 

 Harris’s Hawks possess excellent color vision, which is one of the best among animals. Their vision is so sharp that they can perceive details and colors, making them efficient hunters.

Young Harris’s Hawks typically remain with their parents for up to three years, forming strong family bonds and learning valuable hunting skills during this time.

When do you say no?

Smart Cooking

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Baby back ribs my husband cooked with our Chef IQ Smart Cooker.

A few months ago, we went to a neighbor’s house for dinner. They told us they had perfected barbecued ribs and wanted us to try them. The best ribs ever. My husband asked for their recipe and it included a rub, but the big thing was a Chef IQ Smart Cooker.

I don’t like having kitchen gadgets that take up space. I have a crockpot that I’ve used once in the last ten years for a party — for meatballs. Before that, the crockpot showed up on the pool deck for swim meets for our snack bar, for soups or whatever was needed.

I’m also a fan of cooking the old fashioned way with pots and pans. Mostly I cook without recipes — unless it’s baking.

My husband asked me to order the Chef IQ. I was skeptical at best, but I bought it anyway. At first it was very confusing to use. It has an app on the phone and has step-by-step cooking instructions. I couldn’t figure it out, called our neighbors and they said they use the manual cooking method and press the button on the cooker itself.

We’ve done ribs a few times, and my husband’s are just as good as our our neighbor’s — fall-off-the-bone tender and juicy. The Chef IQ pressure cooks the ribs and then hubby throws them on the grill with BBQ sauce for a finishing touch. Yum!

I decided to get adventurous and tried seared chicken thighs this week which is a recipe on the phone app. The app talked to the cooker and gave me step-by-step instructions, complete with a timer!

Above is a screen shot of the the app my phone. Each step had a video, and the “Next” on the bottom was the timer. Once the white went across the bar, it was time for the next step.

Chicken thighs searing. FYI, they were delicious! Tender, juicy and done perfectly.

Now that I know the Chef IQ can sear and pressure cook, I’m curious to try more. It even weighs whatever you’re cooking and adjusts the cooking time.

I’ll try oxtails and soups in a few weeks. (I wrote about my oxtail recipe HERE. It originated in one of my great-grandmother’s Nellie’s cookbooks.)

The app on my phone for the Smart Cooker has tons of recipes including chicken, fish, beef, pork, Mexican food, Chinese, pasta — even desserts.

My husband wanted to hand out ribs to our neighbors. He said, “I’m going to be known as the Rib King of our neigborhood.” I reminded him that he was following our neighbor’s recipe…

Do you use recipes or cook without them?

What kitchen gadgets do you find invaluable?

Eclipse playlist? It’s a thing

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view from the front door

Looking out our front door. Everything is so green after rainy days.

Today is the day of the total eclipse of the sun. It will be a partial eclipse in the Phoenix area. I found this nifty chart so I know when to look outside. I don’t have the “special” sun glasses, so I won’t look up at the sun. I’m just curious if it’s going to get dark outside. We had house guests in October during the last eclipse and we all noticed it got dark for a few minutes. Very eery feeling.

I have neighbors who traveled to Katy, Texas for the eclipse. The husband is an astronomer, has worked for NASA and gives lectures around the country on things astronomical. Unfortunately, it’s going to be cloudy in Katy with a chance of rain. I hope they get to see the eclipse.

I keep hearing words run through my head from Pink Floyd song “Eclipse.” Did you know that the Dark Side of the Moon came out 51 years ago? Yikes.

Did you know that there are playlists for today? You can google it and playlists are posted everywhere from NPR to USA Today. Some of the popular songs include Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” Bill Withers “Aint’s No Sunshine,” Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon,” and Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.” Elton John’s “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” and the Beatles “Here Comes the Sun” also made the lists.

Apparently, music helps set the mood and eclipse experience. But there’s so many songs and the eclipse doesn’t last long, so you need to make a choice on your soundtrack.

What song would you select for the eclipse?

Are you in an area to see it?

Karl to the rescue

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old spanish style house
My dream home of 28 years in Palm Springs, built in 1937.

I was home caring for my dad, who had shoulder surgery. My daughter and husband were in Los Angeles at a swim meet for the weekend (son in college). I had to pick up my dad’s meds at the pharmacy and I told him not to leave the recliner we had rented for his recovery — placed in front of the TV.

When I returned, he was on the floor. Of course, he didn’t listen to me and didn’t stay put.

“I can’t get my dad off the floor!” I called my husband on his cell. After numerous attempts with Dad, neither one of us made an inch of progress.

In the background, I heard my daughter say “Call Mr. Siffleet!”

Of course, why hadn’t I thought of that? Karl was married to one of my close friends who lived less than a mile away. They had a daughter who went to kindergarten through high school with my daughter. Karl and my husband swam 5:30 a.m. Masters together.

Within minutes, Karl came over, picked my dad up as though he was a bag of potatoes and placed him comfortably in his chair. Thank you, Karl!

I can’t remember all the things Karl did for us during the decades we lived in that home. But what I do remember is going to a post-op appointment after knee surgery about thirty minutes away. I realized I left the stove on for vegetable soup I was cooking.

Yikes! I called Karl and he came over to the house, turned off the stove — and put the burnt pot outside.

Yes, this family had a key to our house. They even took care of Olive the cat while we were on vacation.

Another time, our swim team was hosting a meet at the city pool. We had an extensive set up of pop-up tents constructed from poles and tarps, tables, electronic timing equipment, scoreboard, snack bar, grills, timing chairs, etc. We’d have more than 1,000 people to host at swim meets for a three-day weekend — including swimmers and family members.

One morning, my husband (who was Mr. Meet Manager) arrived at the pool at dawn to find tons of equipment in the pool. We blamed the skaters from the next-door skate park. But it could have been any gang of hoodlums. My husband called (I was comfortably asleep in bed) and asked me to drive our daughter to the pool. Karl also showed up — probably to help with set up — and they dove in and retrieved equipment from the bottom of the deep end, hours before the meet began.

I miss living near Karl and his family. I’m glad we are still in touch, but I really miss a neighbor like Karl who always came to the rescue! He was our local superman.

What have your neighbors done for you when you needed help? Do you play that role with any neighbors?

We’re in trouble now!

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The wall to the right is where we hide the trash bins.

We got a letter from the Homeowner’s Association. It was puzzling to say the least.

Make that damn irritating — not puzzling.

This letter is being written on behalf of the Community Association. In a continuing effort to maintain community enjoyment and high property values, it is the responsibility of the Board of Directors to ensure the governing documents are enforced.

It was noted that you are storing your trash bin, visible from neighboring property. All trash bins should be stored as to not be visible from neighboring property, with the exception of placement for collection.

Yes. That was written in BOLD!

We have a block walled-off area where our storage bins are stored (see the photo above). I don’t think the neighbors can see through the block wall.

I looked at the date of the violation. It was the day we left for Mexico — Thursday. Trash pick up is on Friday. According to the rules, you can take your trash out the evening before. I took the trash bin to the curb before we left. It was several hours before evening. I asked a neighbor to drag the trash can back up the driveway Friday afternoon so we wouldn’t break any rules.

Little did I know that taking the trash out a few hours too early would result in a sternly worded letter! And a warning that if we didn’t fix the problem we’d be fined! I was only trying to save my neighbor the task of taking my trash out in the first place down our long driveway.

UGH!

So, who turned me in? This is the first time I’ve felt uncomfortable in my new digs.

Do you have HOA rules where you live? What are your thoughts about the warning letter? Do you think they should have waited before issuing a warning to see that the trash can was put away out of sight?

What I don’t miss about my old house

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I looked back to the first of September 2019 to see what I was up to in my life. It was before COVID hit us — and we had no idea what the year 2020 would be like. I was curious what my big concerns were way back then.

What I discovered was I was dealing with a homeless man who would haunt me for the remainder of the time we lived in our old house. He magically appeared in our yard whenever we left town — I’d spot him on our Nest cameras. Or, he’d bring his belongings and sleep on our steps at night. I felt like he was stalking us. He’d write us random notes and leave them on our gate or cars — saying he’d force us out of the house and that he’d contacted the FBI. No, I don’t miss him at all. I welcome my new intruders: the two coyotes I spotted on my morning walk, the bunnies, deer, bobcat and javelina.

In September 2020, I wrote this:

While we were on our working vacation at the beach in August, I had a friend’s daughter taking care of Olive the cat and staying at our house. One of her first times over here, our big wooden gates were shut and after opening them, she found a pile of blankets behind our trash cans! UGH! I looked through my video feed and found him at midnight, opening and closing our gates, peering through our bedroom window and jumping over our wall into the backyard. I don’t blame our house sitter at all, but she was no longer comfortable staying here! She made daily stops, but didn’t want to spend the night.

We called our neighbors who promised to keep an eye out for us, plus the police, who said they’d patrol our house carefully while we were out of town. They promised to arrest him if they found him trespassing. We returned and I haven’t seen him again. But, I did notice he stole our lock to the gate!

Here’s what I wrote about our intruder September 2019:

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Sunset from the back yard.

Last week I wrote about how I was minding my own business at home waiting for eye surgery and discovered on our Google Nest security feed that we had an intruder trespassing on our property nightly. We started locking the big wooden gates that open onto the street. We also have a garage door and an archway gate that are locked. On the camera feed, I saw the stranger rattling our gates, peering in through our bedroom windows, climbing over the wall into the backyard — and taking an object to smash the lock on our archway gate. I was terrified. Then I went for my morning walk on Thursday like any normal day:

I went for my morning walk today as usual. I almost skipped it because I didn’t want to leave our house with the big wooden gates open (they lock from the inside.) During my walk, I constantly checked the Nest app on my iPhone for activity. When I was a block from home, I looked at the app and the guy was there! He had returned!

I couldn’t stop shaking and when I got home, the gate was closed! I yelled and said I was calling the cops so get out! I checked my app again. The intruder had left three minutes before I arrived home. I called the cops and waited, not stepping foot on our property, but feeling safer in the middle of the street. The policeman came right away and said he’d look for the guy, he was probably close-by. He also suggested we get a lock for the outside of our big wooden gates or hire a security firm. I’m thinking Rottie. We had one before and this never happened.

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A present to myself from our beach vacation. The wind chimes are soothing and help me relax

Friday morning the nightmare continued. I woke up at 5 a.m. to my husband yelling from outside the house to call the cops! I grabbed my glasses, my phone and my hands shook as I tried to dial 911. My husband kept the guy at bay on our steps while we waited for the police to arrive. The 911 operator kept me on the phone and asked me to narrate what was going on.

A few minutes later which felt like an eternity, a half dozen police arrived. They said, “Marco! What are you doing here?” to our intruder.

Marco answered, “I live here. I bought this house.”

“No you don’t. You said that about the house down the street,” a policeman answered.

They handcuffed the intruder and drove him away. Both my husband and I were shaking with fear, anger and tried to lower our adrenaline levels to have a normal day. It didn’t happen. We both struggled.

I find myself waking up in the night, looking at my Nest app, listening for any little noise. I’m hoping each day it gets a little better. This person turns out to be well-known, a Palm Springs native and harmless. Of course, we had no idea of that with his erratic behavior and his trespassing from Saturday night through Friday morning. It brings our homeless problem right in my yard, not some abstract issue I read about in the newspaper.

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Olive is more relaxed now that the intruder has been arrested.

Have you had an intruder at your home? What happened and did you get over your fear?

How do I get rid of an unwanted guest?

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A surprise left in our yard.

He’s not really a guest. In fact, he’s a homeless intruder who thinks he lives at our house. We called the cops on him in October. I wrote about him here.

Today, my husband came home from work and said, “What’s a barbecue doing in our front yard?”

“What?” I asked.

After seeing the barbecue inside our gate, I went straight to the computer to review my security video. Unfortunately, the homeless guy returned while we were enjoying Arizona sunsets over the long weekend.

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Arizona sunset.

I am now waiting for the police to show up, for the third time, to report the intruder. I have him on video over the weekend trespassing, peeking in our bedroom window, and trying to break through the garage door. I don’t know what else to do.

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Here’s the homeless man who thinks he owns our house.

Do you have any suggestions on how to get rid of unwanted guests?