The First Week

November. Wow – how did we get here? I don’t even want to think about how many days until Christmas.

So we’ve been in the beautiful Coachella Valley of California for a week. A week of sunshiny days, temperatures into the 90’s and generally good stuff! I thought I’d share a batch of some random shots from the past week.

The first thing we did when we got here (besides taking that nice long shower) was to help out with the Fall Festival that they had here at Jordan Outreach Ministries.
About 800 folks turned out for a free BBQ, games, candy and a concert with a Gospel message.

(did I mention the kids were all in costume?)
And then there was the fun in the gym…..

Out back they had chairs set up for the concert/meeting –

It was a great evening for all the folks. I confess we left early so we could watch the Phillies in the World Series. (and I’m sure you know how that worked out!)
If you stand at the building behind the bandstand and look back, you can see where we are parked.

And while we mostly have a view of the school buildings, we have been blessed to see some fine sunsets and sunrises…..

Can you see the ladders hanging from those palm trees? Those are date palm trees (well overgrown I believe), and the ladders are never taken down. Apparently not even when they grow too tall and too old to actually produce the dates!

They do a LOT of watering down here. Because of where we’re parked, sometimes it’s quite a challenge to navigate through the sprinklers to get to the buildings. 🙂
This one was from just last night. The clouds look so beautiful!

We’ve also enjoyed getting acquainted with some of the local birds! Today we identified a cactus wren and an black phoebe, and we’ve seen this fellow perched on nearby light poles a couple of times.

That’s an American Kestrel – the smallest of the American Falcons. We think he’s pretty cool.

But we haven’t spent all of our time at work or sitting in our house. It’s much too lovely here to do that!
We drove out to Lake Cahuilla in nearby La Quinta

and generally enjoyed the lovely scenery just driving around.

And finally (at last, you say!) a shot of a beautifully landscaped Walmart sign.

And yet for all of its designer landscaping, it still seems to collect carts.
Oh well.