Well, we’re wrapping up our time here at Jordan Outreach Ministries in Coachella, CA. Our final official duty was last evening – we helped “man” the (free) Thrift Shop that is offered to folks who come for a worship service and food distribution. Earlier in the week I worked to get the shop organized (with a little help from Gary who would stop by periodically to lend a hand). Here is what the place looked like when I walked in on Tuesday -

Yikes!
I spent my days hanging clothes, sorting toys, and generally organizing the “stuff” as best as I could. The week before we had been given boxes and boxes of cute canvas shoes from Wal-Mart. The problem was they were all jumbled up together – no pairs and lots and lots of patterns. I was really thankful for Gary’s help on that one as we sorted patterns, matched pairs and then rubber-banded them together. (There are still about 8 boxes of shoes that we didn’t get to! We saved them for the NEXT batch of Sowers!) At any rate, the store was ready to open up on Friday-



Since the room is relatively small, and there are about 100 people that need to go through in the space of about an hour, there are some limitations that have to be in place.
1. Only five folks in the room at a time.
2. You only have 3-5 minutes to shop (remember there’s a LONG line behind you).
3. You can choose 3 articles of clothing (shoes count as one), a pkg of Depends/Poise, and then two “other ” things (games, toys, household things, etc.).
4. NO kids allowed and only one family member can come through. (The kid thing we had down, but how do we know “family members? That one was tough.)

We worked out a system – Gary would man the door, letting folks in and then checking their “purchases” on the way out. His Spanish has improved – he now knows uno, dos, tres, quatro, cinco, apurarse (hurry up!). He really developed a fun raport with the folks waiting in line (probably had something to do with his really bad rendition of apurarse ). I, along with another couple, would help the folks as they came through the room. Mostly we were trying to explain that they could only have 2 of the “other” (there were lots of toys this time, so it was hard to chose for some folks).

All in all it was a good night. There was a real spirit of gratitude amongst the folks that were able to take home some necessities along with some frivalities, and I was pleased to see the room begin to empty out of “stuff”.

Because I know that by next week when the new group of volunteers come to organize the Thrift Shop – it may very well look like this again -

PS – Gary didn’t just guard the door – he also got to do this while while mama shopped -

and this

I think Christmas (and seeing our kids and grandkids) can’t come soon enough for him (or me!).

This is the view from our bedroom window.

Nice, eh?
What I didn’t realize is what fun I would have birdwatching from that window!
I think I already posted a shot of my friend the American Kestrel -

He comes back quite frequently. I guess that pole is quite the vantage point for the fields around us.

And to confirm the prime viewing spot, we recently had a visit from this regal fellow -

Smaller birds also like those poles -

I thought those were just some starlings, but now I’m not so sure. Here is a closer (but a little fuzzy) shot -

Any suggestions? A female red-winged blackbird, maybe?
But the poles aren’t the only thing that’s worth watching from the window. There are the bushes climbing up the fence. Weeds I’m sure, but the birds love ‘em!
Here are some Lesser Goldfinches (Green Back variety)



The females aren’t quite as colorful -





They were very fun to watch as they searched out the best seeds.
Occasionally a larger bird would come by for a seed-treat too -

I think this is a female tri-colored blackbird, but I could be wrong. It’s happened before.
And then there’s the grass – more bird sightings.

This is a Western Meadowlark. And when he turns around -

Wow – he sure got purty!

These are pretty good sized birds –

But they weren’t alone!

That’s a White-Crowned Sparrow playing nicely with a Chipping Sparrow-


And here those cute little Chipping Sparrows -



I bet you have some of those in your backyard too!

There are lots of these hanging around too -

The Mourning Dove.

I’m not a very accomplished birder, so if you have any insights (or corrections) to my attempts at identifying my backyard neighbors, jump right in!

I might even venture out of the bedroom to find more interesting feathered friends!

I’m sure you’ve heard me say before how many different things we get to do as Sowers. While we often do the mundane – folding laundry, cleaning restrooms, painting trim – sometimes we get to learn new and different skills. This was just the case for both Gary and I as we were given the task of “making” 300 T-shirts!

First you line up the T-shirt on the special T-shirt iron-on pressing gizmo.

Then you line up the iron-on decal where you think it should go.

Then you pull down the 400 degree top, and wait until the beeper goes off – about 10 seconds.
Do NOT wait until you begin to see smoke. That’s a bad thing. Trust me.

The RIGHT AWAY you remove the backing of the decal. Do not get distracted by your wife.

And there you have it – a customized T-shirt!
Ok, now do another one. And another one. And another one…..

Gary handled the “machine” and I handled the folding.
It was fun to work together (we don’t often get to do that) and we felt quite accomplished as our pile of “completed” T-shirts grew.

We love learning new skills.

So today was my birthday. Since our project here prefers that we work Tuesday through Friday (instead of Monday through Thursday), we had today off, which worked out very well because it was, you know, my birthday! I’ve been intrigued by the Date palm groves in the area so we took off to do a little research. Right out of our driveway is an old, unused grove. There were no dates in sight, but judging from the ladders hanging on at wierd angles, this was a thriving grove at one time.

We didn’t know a lot about date growing, but we had noticed a large grove with bags hanging from all the palms so we headed there first. But bad news – apparently they had been harvested.

The trees were bare (of dates),

the bags were all on the ground, and the dates were in the crates.

I was disappointed, but we headed to the largest date store in the area- Shield’s Date Gardens - to get the scoop on the Date harvest. Oh, and to try one of their (highly recommended) Date Shakes!

While we enjoyed our delicious shake (and healthy too – 6 grams of fiber!!!), we learned about dates and how tricky they are to cultivate. We thought it was pretty interesting, but you might be rolling your eyes, so if you’d like more information about the facinating Date Palm industry – check it out here! But I’m sure you want to know about the bags, right? Well, each date bunch is wrapped in paper or nylon to order to keep off the rain , and also to deter birds, sunshine, and insects from ruining the soft mature dates. I’m telling you, this date growing business in LABOR INTENSIVE!

But I still wanted to find some dates still on the trees! The fellow at Shields suggested we try a Date grower little farther south in the town of Thermal. Full of our Date shake, we headed out!
Along the way we found these – no bags, and I’m not even sure it’s a active grove, but there they were – dates on the tree!


No ladders, so I haven’t a clue how they’ll actually harvest these babies!
But on to Thermal -

These bags are a little different, but still serve the same purpose.

I think these dates will be in the crates soon!
But I wanted to see some big TALL date palm trees, so we pressed on!

Ah, Tall Date Palm trees…..



While these trees did have their ladders up high, we also saw a cherry picker down one of the rows. I think that makes a lot more sense. And might just speed the process up a little.
Here is a new field -
In about 15 years they’ll produce their first crop, but in the meantime – it’s a pretty good view, isn’t it?

So it was a good birthday. Lots of mail (some birthday related, some not), phone calls from family and lots of Facebook birthday greetings. Plus I know a litte bit more about Dates.

And maybe you do to!

Disclaimer -
Beautiful place + Beautiful day = lots of pictures.
We tackled part of Joshua Tree National Park on Saturday. (It’s a VERY BIG park, with lots to see, so we decided to do it in stages. We’ll be in this area later this season, so watch for more about JTNP in the weeks and months to come!). When I mentioned to a dear young friend that we were going to be near Joshua Tree, she replied, “I LOVE Joshua Tree! That is some of the best rock climbing anywhere!”. Well, did you know that? And I thought it was just about Joshua Trees! Who Knew? (well, among us non-rock climbing oldsters, anyway!) We did some driving, a little hiking and a lot of picture taking! The desert was beautiful with it’s surrounding mountains and monzogranite rock piles. We went from being surrounded by rocks to driving across a dry lake. And then there was the drive home….but that’s for later!
So come along for our drive and hike through the park – Keep your eye out for those rock climbers!






(Look closely – I bet you didn’t see ALL the folks on that rock!)







We saw this fellow sunning himself on a rock, and he even let me get pretty close before he scurried away.


(Just so you know – he’s a Western Fence Lizard)


There was a drive to an overlook, where if there hadn’t been a layer of smog, we could have seen Palm Springs -

and looking the other way, the shore of Saltan Sea-

We decided to take the Geology Road Tour because it looked pretty interesting and it involved a dirt road. You KNOW how we feel about dirt road adventures!

This is the dry lake I was talking about (with the road we came down on hugging the mountain on the right)



At this point in our day we had a decision to make. Do we go back the way we came and continue on through the park, or do we take that dirt road on the map that gets us closer to where we wanted to end up for the day. Now the road sign did say things like “unmaintained” and “4 wheel drive required”, but it didn’t have words in it like “grade” or “shelf” or “pass”. Our trusty truck has 4 wheel drive and after all it was called Berdoo Canyon Road. Canyon. Seemed safe enough. So off we went!
It started out nice and level, and pretty much like the dirt road that had been part of the geology drive. But soon we were getting into the “canyon” part of the drive!

And soon we were beginning to understand the “4 Wheel Drive Required”.


This picture is looking back up that incredible stretch of “road” -

and I’m happy to report that the skid plate in the dirt belonged to someone else.
We thought we were out of the worst, but hey, we still had miles to go….

(again, someone else’s inside wheel well cover. Phew!)

This fellow led us down the road for almost a mile. I took lots of other picture of our coyote friend, but due to all the bouncing, this is the only one that came out remotely clear!

As we came closer to the end (we did have a GPS with us that was helpful in letting us know how much farther, but not very helpful in knowing where the road actually was!), we suddenly were on macadam!

We thought that was a good thing, but the problem with macadam is that when it disappears (due to being washed out by flooding) it stops pretty abruptly and with a big drop off.

(I confess this isn’t so much a picture of the drop off as it is of where it starts again – with about a 12″ rise.)
Gary did a SPECTACULAR job driving. A couple of times he even had to get out to make a plan to get through the maze of rocks in the narrow canyon. We never hit once (trust me, that’s amazing), and I never yelped or gasped (even more amazing!).
We did finally make it to the end of that canyon road, and back to at least a promise of civilization.

And the best thing was that we KNEW that when we did get back to civilization, THIS would be our prize -

What a Great Day we had!

PS – I know this will be a surprise, but if you would like to see more pictures of rocks and blue sky (oh, and a couple of the windmill farm we passed on our way to the park), you can check them all out HERE!