A Mouthful Of Moth

When you have something spectacular to eat, do you try to recreate it?  That is one of my favorite kitchen exploits ... to see if I can make something just as good.  I usually fail, but when it involves caramel, white chocolate and COOKIES, it's hard not to come up looking like a real cook!

 Such was the case a couple of days ago.  While at the Taco Shop, I noticed salted caramel cookies.  YUM YUM!  As I was moseying down the bakery aisle the next day, I spotted these!!  It was fate!

On a quick side note, since this is in the desert where little rain usually falls, Arizona apparently does not have engineers with experience in water.  This is a brand new street, a multi million dollar project turning a two lane road into six.  You might think they would put drains of some kind in the dips, but someone made a boo-boo and forgot.  Previously, this puddle was halfway across the road.  That doesn't bode well for last night's rain that came down in buckets, ALL NIGHT LONG!

Yes, another puddle buster flew through, which is still dumping considerable amounts of rain as I type.  I imagine the river below will be rushing again!!

At any rate, what better way to spend a rainy day than baking cookies!!  There was a slight glitch when upon taking them from the pan to the cooling rack, I got one of those little nuggets of molten lava stuck under my fingernail.  Good grief!!  When I finally got the faucet on, it was too late.  My finger burned for an hour.  I'm sure that chunk of flesh will grow back at some point.  I soothed my pain with a big bite of cookie.

Oh yeah ..... that helped quite a bit.  Although they may need a bit of a tweek, these taste just like the packaged ones at the taco shop.

What DIDN'T taste good was this moth.  The rain has done one thing really good ... made every moth on the face of the earth hatch and fly around my back door.  Every time I open the door to let Cooper out, I have to have the flyswatter in hand.  Never open the door with your mouth open ... YUCK!!  I think I can spit with the best of the men!!

On a very good note, Mrs. Hummingbird builds this nest every year in the perfect spot by my front walkway.  The cover over the walkway keeps him high and dry.  I thought he was a goner when I never saw Mom after he hatched.  I don't know when she feeds him, but I haven't seen her in over a week.  He looks like he's almost ready to fly the coop.  

In other exciting news, there apparently was a problem with the Amazon driver.  There's plenty of room to turn around in my driveway, but someone needs backup lessons.  I found my motion detector laying on the ground.  It's been bumped a couple of times, but never broken off completely.

The threads are stripped, so I imagine it's toast!!  Otherwise it works just fine.  I guess I'll have to find a new location for the replacement I need to order, or maybe I can just wire it to a tree.  

The next time I looked outside, my buddy the horny toad had come back for a patio visit.  Although he looks okay, his tail tells the story.  It should be fat and sassy.  There's just not enough ants in my back yard, which is a good thing.  The ants around here are a quarter inch long and HUGE!  

So this time I put on some gloves (the oil from your hands isn't good for these critters), picked him up, whereupon he froze, and carried him down by the water station.  They feel just like they look .... prickly, hard and inflexible.  I think he will have a much happier life with more food.

Too bad mushrooms are not on their list of edibles.  With so much rain, these things popped up by the hundreds.  Little white squiggly things.  I'm hoping Cooper doesn't decide they would be a tasty snack.  I rather imagine they are not edible.

So there you go, a day in the life of a desert dweller.  Rain is expected most of the day and into the night again.  I think it may be bathing suit time!!!

The best news ever ... I survived Friday the 13th!!!