Spring Training Dodgers 4 - Diamondbacks 4

Tie game, well I suppose both teams should be happy to have that.  Strange occurance in this game when Kemp & Ethier were listed as 3rd & 4th on the roster, but batted opposite.  Diamondbacks figured it out in the 3rd when Kemp made the last out (otherwise they could have had him declared out). The home plate umpire had Eithier bat first the following inning to correct the lineup (even though he had already batted just before Kemp).  Ethier goes and hits a home run to tie the game 1-1.

Jogging around the bases is OK, I guess, when you're a superstar.

Ojeda later hit a home run.

It was funny to watch him when someone was on second. He would step up behind them then wave his hand at them as if shooing them out of the way.

Spring Training Dodgers 0 - Rockies 12

An amazing game for Rockies fans - not so much for Dodger fans.  What started out as cold, breezy and very threatening clouds turned into a cool, but sunny and still breezy afternoon.

Even Scott wore a sweatshirt, so you know it was cold. He's standing by our seats behind the visiting team's dugout. Very, very nice.

OK, I am so bad with names, I won't even try to name the players. Just some shots from our seats.

One of Colorado's pitchers who pretty much held off the Dodgers to pop-ups and very few hits.

Dodger knuckle-baller preparing to pepper one in there.

Colorado had quite the day at the plate. A few Dodger errors and some missed fly balls didn't make much difference in the outcome...

...As the Dodger bats never did come alive.

One or two good fielding plays didn't outweigh the poor ones.

Hmm, watch them be a different team tomorrow against the D-Backs!

I'm heading to that game, too, so I hope to have more good shots tomorrow

Dominos!

Every so often the boys get the dominos out and build a run for them. I was going thru Karen's camera and found these pictures of the boys setting up a domino run.

I'm not sure what the army men had to do with anything, maybe just atmosphere.

Even More Rain

You can't quite tell from the picture, but its raining (again). I was thinking how cool it would be to have light poles with little (actually not so little) water bird statues on them.

I was looking at this picture and realized the heron has no 'thumb' on the right foot.

here's the left foot - three toes and a 'thumb'

here's the right foot - two toes and no 'thumb'

Irresponsible fishermen leaving fishing line out? Probably the most likely cause. It seems to have adapted well enough.

Caught an egret in flight. It had tried to land on the fishing dock where the heron was, and I guess that's not allowed!  Crazy thing is that looking closely at this picture it seems the egret has the same missing toe & thumb - odd coincidence, or just a trick of the angle in this photo?

Calm waters, blue skies and white, fluffy clouds. Must be the end of the rain (for now).

Shoo Fly!

A couple weeks ago while taking close up pictures of lichen, I came across a very large fly (horsefly?) on the rock.  It was cold enough that it would rather take a chance on letting me get close than fly away.  I figured with all the flies that have bothered me over the years a little bothering back would be in order.

Rain

With all the cloud pictures lately, it was only a matter of time before I got around to taking pictures of the rain. February was a wet month and I nearly forgot to get any rain pictures. The last rain it suddenly occurred to me I aught to do that, so here goes...

A day fit for ducks

Even a good rain can't last forever. Blue sky peeking through signalled a temporary end to the rain.

The ground can only soak up so much rainfall and the rest runs off. Although for planting, the ground is the softest I've seen it in ages.  Good, slow rains like our winter rains do soak in better than the heavy, fast downpours of summer monsoons, and the ground does soften up with all the moisture.  I've been planting in places where the pick normally bounces off the ground.

Awana Grand Prix

Last year I don't think we won many - if any - races.  This year we did much better. We weren't the fastest racer, but we were in the top 7 or 8. Below are most of the cars...

Here are some of the faster racers

Here's ours losing to the first & second place cars

Here are the top two going for gold & silver.

The red car was easily the fastest all night.  Thanks to Mr. Murphy for being the Grand Prix Master.

We didn't win, but we did get 1st place for best design! Jake was pretty happy about that!