Meet Our Cockateil Bird

Meet out cockateil bird. He been with us for several years already. As im writing this blog post right now, he is standing in my shoulder next to my ear doing his little loud whistles, next to my ear? (yup, common birdie bird...) We are powerwashing his cage and giving it some thorough cleaning today. While the cage is drying outside, I decided to let him hang-out in my hand, but he walked all the way to my shoulder and he been in my shoulder for almost an hour now, staying busy making his loud little noises. We normally dont let him out of his cage because we have dogs and we dont know how the dogs will react to the bird being outside the cage, his comfort zone and his safe haven. All we know is that when our dogs are outside, they chase wild birds all the time and try to catch them. Thats why we dont want to take chances and let the dogs hurt our bird.

Here is a video of our Cockateil bird:

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Hot And Strange Weather

The other day, we starting noticing dead leaves falling off the trees already and scattered all over our back patio. Few hours after the leaves were swept, there were new leaves that fell. Made me think, is it fall already? I thought its still summer basing on how hot its been for weeks.
When I watched tv this morning, we heard the weather guy announced that its going to be super hot in our area today, they were talking 100+ degrees fahrenheit, and its bad news for me because I needed to go out today. Unfortunately, car airconditioning in my car still needs fixing, its not blowing cool air very well anymore, so going out in an extremely hot day (like today) is something that I am not looking forward to. 

The weather people was right with there prediction, its was extremely hot outside. Thats why when I went to stop by at the supermarket, there were tons of people, maybe trying to stay away from the sun and just chill in the airconditioning room. Might be a great idea though, save their home airconditioning bill and simply cool off in a controlled temperature mall or supermarket for free :-)

Thank you for visiting Honestly Fresh today. If you have time, feel free to visit Dogs Circle or Planting Diary blogs.

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Water The Lawn

With the peak of the summer season, its becoming hotter and hotter everyday outside. And one of the most noticeable effects of this hot weather is the color of our lawn. Even if we frequently water our lawn, its definitely taking the beating from the sun really quite harshly and its started to turn brownish and if left unwatered it could die. We try to water our lawn after the sunset inorder to give it some really good soaking and and let the water soak into the ground and not just let it evaporate in the middle of the afternoon sun. Sometimes, our built-in sprinkler system is not enough to do the job, we have to drag a hose and a rotating sprinkler system attached to the hose to add more water to the ground. Its no surprise that during summer time, our water bill goes up to almost double because both the lawn and the garden needs more water during this season and its necessary for the lawn and plants to survive the heat.

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Living In A Secure And Safe Home

When one of the people that I know asked me for an advice about moving to a new city and finding a home there, I told him that its not just about the physical features and ammenities of the house that he needs to consider but most importantly the neighborhood as well. Moving to a new area can be exciting and full of promise to be able to start a whole new life surrounded with almost new people and new surrounding but the pitfall is that you are starting from the ground up, you dont know anybody and you dont know how safe and secure the neighborhood is.

Safety and security must be a top-most priority when it comes to living in our homes. There are several areas nowadays where neighbors come together and organize a neighborhood watch by trying to get to know who are the people living in the neighborhood inorder for anyone in the area to recognize when there are some uncommon activity that will take place. But aside from neighborhood watch, its good when homeowners have a home surveillance system inorder to monitor anything suspicious that may occur. Nowadays with the rapid growth and advancement of new technology, its easy to get a really good security video camera that is a high resolution for clearer and better viewing of video inputs. When you install these security devices, its important that you have a backup battery and equipment guide inorder to know how things operate, and during power failures, your equipments still do the job for you and you can still rely on it.

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Whats Up With Avocado

I was just reading this blog post about avocado at Whats So Random blog saying that she cannot figure out exactly what avocado is, if its a fruit or vegetable. I personally think that an avocado is a fruit but it can be used either way, both as a fruit or a vegetable.

I grow up with avocados. We had avocado plant in our backyard, so we had tons of it growing up. We always had some uses for it as a fruit. I personally dont eat avocado on its own, but i can eat with sprinkled sugar on it. When we were young we also made homemade icecream bar out of an ripe avocadoes, we simply mashed the riped avocados, add sugar and evaporated milk, or condensed milk and freeze it, they frozen bar came out surprisingly great snack bars! We also sliced chucks of avocadoes and add it in our fruit salad with either milk and sugar, or condensed milk, or whipped cream. Avocadoes definitely have some really great flavor when you add sweetness into it!

Avocados are also great for burritos and taco mexican foods. Especially seasoned avocados with some spices added into it, they just make burritos and tacos taste even better. Ive tried eating burritos and tacos both with and without avocadoes on it, and i definitely prefer having avocado in it because it just add more twist into the flavor.

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Emergency Alert Test

I heared the emergency alert siren being tested in our neighborhood again today. They seem to test the emergency equipment every now and then, probably once a month or something. During the testing process, the voice in the speaker says that this is only a test. I live in a busy area and a busy freeway is not very far. So when we go outside, we hear a bunch of car noises in the air. And there are some good winds in the area too. So everytime the emergency alert system goes off for a test run, its always been hard to really understand what is being said in the speaker. People can probably pick up few words when they are outside, but I can hardly hear the siren when Im indoor with the tv or music on. I think, inorder for it to be very effective and let everyone in the area hear the siren and hear what is being said in the speaker, it would be better if they add more speakers in so much square block, just to make it more effective and reach all people, not just some people. With the cars and winds blowing, the sounds that travels thru the air seem to be distored and other times just blown elsewhere and remain unheardable.

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Tropical Theme Yard Decor

When we moved here in northern California valley, we know the weather is going to be tropical-like with lots and lots of good sunny wheather most days of the year. To compliment the weather we have, we decided to have a tropical theme in our home decorations both inside the house and in the yard. We planted several palm trees in the yard both front and back. And add some comfy outdoor furniture for relax setting outdoors as well.

One day, when we were seating and enjoying our yard, we talked about adding tiki torches in our decors to add more tropical theme into the space.  So when we went to a local store and check out few of their tiki torches, we didnt like it because they only have very few selections available. We wanted safe and stylish tiki torches than not only do its functions but will work as a decorative element as well even when its not lit.

During our visit to Hawaii one time, it definitely re-affirmed our desire to add tiki torches into our yard decor because it was so cool to be greeted by a bunch of lighted tiki torches at the entrance gate of the hotel that we stayed in. It definitely fits the tropical theme that we been working to achieve.

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The Appearance Of A Rainbow

We were watching the Finale of The Bachelorette (Ali) tv show last night (August 2, 2010) and it was definitely a surprised twist that Ali sent home Chris a day earlier than what the show normally have it in the past, during the rose ceremony. After all that he been thru recently in his life, Ali did it more as a concern for Chris so he doesnt have to hope for Ali's decision to choose him when she already made up her mind at that point. And thats when a rainbow appeared in the Bora-Bora in Tahiti Island which reminded him of his mother. When they showed the rainbow on air, it was such a stunning rainbow specially in a beautiful island setting of Bora Bora.

As per my photograph above, i took this picture outside of our place, right after we had rain one time. With all the trees and houses nearby, it was hard to see the whole rainbow but it stand out pretty good in an amber cloudy day. There is something about rainbow that is so magical, it carries a message of hope, a peace and beauty after a storm.

Written and Photography by Jazevox. All rights reserved.

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