Our Winter in the Desert

We were woken this morning at 6:00 am by something running on our roof. So we snuck upstairs and looked out the window to see our little bobcat friend scampering, running and playing with himself and his imaginary friends. He often comes meandering in the backyard and even onto the patio where he casually walks and looks in the glass doors. But this is the first time we saw him playing on the roof. And he ran wildly and playfully back and forth for a good 15 minutes till he wore himself out. What a wonderful way to wake up!!!

Sitting on our roof...

Tired of playing and walking away down our driveway...

So as we are once again getting ready to leave our desert home for the sea, we are reflecting upon our winter here. It was a busy wonderful time of a few travels and visits from family and friends. We had several trips to California to visit friends and we flew back to Charleston to surprise Richard's mom on her 95th birthday in March.
We had another fun trip to Las Vegas in January where we saw Santana perform:

We went to beautiful Sedona over New Years for a spiritual retreat. Here's my handsome husband with the red rocks behind him...

But most of all, we relished our time here in our desert home. We live in such a rich environment of wildlife and they entertain us all the time. From the bobcats, to the javelina, to the hawk and cardinals and the occasional ducks dropping into our swimming pool. Yeah, i just swing in the hammock and take it all in:

Here are the ducks walking around the pool...

And the hawk comes to visit often. Here he is on the edge of the pool looking all around...

But best of all are the many cardinals in our backyard. We have a special cardinal feeder and it certainly attracts them. We have several generations feeding now. We call the majestic red males Jamie and the females Claire. (You have to read the Outlander book series to find out why).
Jamie sits on top of the lemon tree and serenades me every morning while i drink my coffee in the hammock.

And here he is in all of his beauty ... (Claire is really shy and doesn't like her picture taken)

We also had a beautiful springtime of flowers on the cactus...

The gardenia full of flowers on the patio. The smell was intoxicating...

And a new plant we bought called an Addenium with new blooms...

Our lemon tree and orange tree gave us more fruit than we could eat, so we were happy to share. And our little orchard now has 2 grapefruit trees, a dwarf peach, a blood orange, and 3 lime trees. Between the lime trees and our mint we had wonderful mojitos all winter long.
Yes, life is sweet here in our desert home and we are so thankful for the abundance it blesses us with. So reflecting on the winter time here we say "Thank you" ....

We also had a lot of meditation time with a new teacher, Bentinho Massarro. He offers a free online course called Trinfinity Academy. Check him out if you're interested. So as always with life, many insights and learnings to expand and grow into. Aaahhh...

And now it is time to leave the desert and reunite with Ecstasea on the sea. And yes, we are ready and excited for all of the new places and experiences that our ocean home will bring to us.

And with that we say is "YES"!!!!