Casa de Lively

Welcome 2012!

2012-01-02T16:58:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s the start of a new year. I’ve never been one to wish myself rid of a year gone by, I’ll not start now. Last year had its moments. The summer was a good one with much time spent in the pool and before that we enjoyed a late winter and early spring full of visitors from our past whose company we always will enjoy. Sure, the latter half wasn’t exactly “ideal” but what’s life without a little shake-up now and then?

I’m all about looking ahead. What is, is. What you do with that is what separates those who enjoy a propitious life from those who don’t. And, recent events have presented, to me, opportunity and education. I’ve learned a great deal about my physical resilience these last two months. The human body is an amazing thing. Given the right amounts of care and nourishment (as we know well what too much or little of either can do) it will be there for you, even under the most incomprehensible of conditions. Yes, as I grow wiser (e.g.; older) I learn that my physical limitations are not so limiting, it’s what I choose to do or not do that define my limits.

Opportunity is a moment or occasion, a juncture in life, small or large, that tests to see if you’re still awake. Great opportunities present themselves in understated and hidden ways; mediocre opportunities slap you in the face. I’m choosing to look upon my recent transition to the status of unemployed as one of those hidden opportunities. This has been a tact that has proven successful in the past and there is no reason it shouldn’t be so this time. This town is full of many good employers, public and private, and I know I can help one of them. So, as soon as I finish my physical rehabilitation I will begin, in earnest, professional rehabilitation.

Thus inspirited, I welcome 2012 just as I welcomed 2011, and all the years before. Because, it was the years past that brought me to where I am today; a happy being, married to a beautiful and intelligent woman, The Lovely Gail. The future may hold hurdles and challenges, hell, the past had hurdles and challenges. I have no reason to think that by the time I reach 2013 the weight and measure of this year ahead will not be in the favor of good and better. May the consequence of this coming year prove the same for you.

Happy New Year my friends, from myself and The Lovely One.

On the Road

2011-12-12T16:35:00.002-07:00

We’re on the road. We’ve been on the road for a while now, almost five weeks. It’s turning out to be more of a demanding journey than originally expected. You know what I mean; it’s a case of looking at a Google map of the route you need to take, only to find the map made the trip look deceivingly short and simple. So is the case of this road trip.

The road we are on is the road to recovery. Back on October 12, we posted an entry about the journey yet to come. Since, we have gone through the preparations and the event and now are on the road back to our previous normalcy. During the preparations I did many things I otherwise would have procrastinated into the New Year, or further. Completing a number of home repair and winterization chores so The Lovely Gail would be set for the next few months, at least from a home maintenance perspective.

The big event was somewhat of a non-event, at least for me. I drove myself and The Lovely One to the hospital and went through all the pre-surgery procedures that anyone familiar with such an activity can well imagine, and then I woke up several hours later. It was much more of a trial for The Lovely Gail. She was supported, however, by two dear friends the entire time. Afterward, in post-op, was when we set out on the road. And, we’ve been traveling ever since.

Along the way we’ve encountered some truly wonderful people. These are people, most of whom we’ve known for some time, who have shown us tremendous kindness and generosity. We have been fortunate to encounter many new faces as well, whether providing us services or just hearing of our difficulty and wanting to help, generous people all. This has been an enlightening trip, individuals of exemplary character have come forth to ease our passage as we move through this time and for that we will be ever grateful. Lucky we are to be surrounded by such compassion and humanity.

I knew the trip would be long. In advance of the trip I somehow minimize it by measuring its length, the time it would consume, against my remaining years, a perspective that overly simplified the course ahead. Once you’re on the road, though, the time seems to drag. This trip can’t be rushed either, as I am finding. I am at that stage, that milepost if you will, where I feel like I am nearly 100 percent, only to have that twinge of muscular pain that clearly states, “Not so fast there, buddy”. I find I must limit my gesticulations, and this in turn affects my ability to communicate. The Lovely One seems to be OK with this, however.

So, as we pull back out onto el camino a salud and resume the journey, and while not all that has come to pass has been expected or desired, we’re nevertheless grateful for friends and family, as well as health and happiness. Nothing ahead is insurmountable; it’s just a matter of time.

This N' That

2011-11-02T19:47:00.000-07:00

I might be away from the blog a bit starting next week so I thought I’d sneak in another post really quick before the big day.

Killer Bug…

Spied a two and a half inch long insect a while back hunting baby tarantulas in the rocks. It was a rather menacing little creature. It had a long black body and body length dark orange wings. I am not at all sure what it is but it was definitely a predator. It rapidly scurried about in overlapping circular patterns of about one foot in diameter. It was very methodical in how it searched and hunted. When it found a baby tarantula along the foundation of the house, it attacked it by latching onto it in a lethal way around the narrow mid-section of the furry arachnid. Quite fascinating.

After the unlucky prey was sufficiently dead it carried it off. To where I am not sure because by the time it started to cart off its pretty about a half hour had passed and I had things to do. I never did see it fly. It just hunted, killed and left, a veritable Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom right there by the front door.

This is the shot of the predator standing guard over its prey. The entire natural selection food chain drama playing out right in the front yard.

Killer Bird…

I wasn’t home for this. The Lovely Gail caught sight of a hawk of some type out on the patio furniture the other day, recently. She was finishing off a tapestry project at the dining room table and stopped for a break. Upon turning around she stared agape right at this large and beautiful bird.

Of course, the lighting is never the best, and usually the worst, when these events occur. But, trooper that she is she managed a few good shots with the camera before it took flight. A stately creature, it was probably headed south to warmer climes for the winter.

Name that Hawk. I can make out some markings but its still hard to tell what it is.

You can click once on any image and see a larger version.

Killer Winter Garden!

The winter garden is in and well on its way. The Lovely One has always had a green thumb, but ever since getting her raised bed garden not a winter or summer season has yet passed without some bountiful offering brought forth by her care and nurturing.

This winter finds us well planted with green onions and snow peas, bok choi and leeks, chard, leaf lettuce and cilantro. The peas are new for the garden but the rest have proven successful in the past and should yield abundantly. The lettuce is always a good producer and fresh from the garden salads this winter will be plenty and delicious. We can’t wait!

Another promising crop brought to you by Lovely Gail the Gardener!

Is this what they mean when they say 'eat close to the earth'?

I’ll post an update regarding my upcoming medical adventure as soon as I can type again. Until then, take care and stay in touch!

Patagonia & Nogales & The Diamond

2011-10-21T14:30:00.000-07:00

We went for an overland cruse the other day. For some time now we’ve been meaning to explore the area to the south, between Tucson and the International Border. So we filled the van full of gas and headed out onto I10. From our house it is just about 30 miles to where we turn off of I10 and head south.

The first part of the trip is pretty familiar. I have written in the past of our trips down into Southern Arizona’s wine country and that was the route we took to get us started. We headed south from I10 on AZ-83 up into the Santa Rita foothills and across areas of the Coronado National forest. Eventually we arrived in Sonoita. Sonoita isn’t so much a town as a light sprinkling of buildings over a two square mile area; a few ranches, a few businesses (very few), a gas station, a rodeo grounds and largish Border Patrol station with hundreds of various green and white vehicles of various sizes and off-road capabilities compounded out back. It is approximately 25 miles from I10 to Sonoita.

We turned west at this juncture onto AZ-82. It is 12 miles from Sonoita to Patagonia and the drive is quite scenic. The highway follows a valley that separates the Santa Rita range from the Patagonia Range. There appears to be a small amount of light agriculture occurring in areas, mostly feed grains and grasses, as well and various grazing stocks. There are many more trees up in this area, mostly deciduous types and small scrub oaks. It’s a very peaceful drive, and very different from the lower elevations of Tucson.

Patagonia is a small, old town. As we drove through and around the central town area it seemed the newest building we saw was the Post Office, which appeared to have been built in the late 60’s or early 70’s. Getting about here, at least for us, would prove quite challenging. Lots of dirt parking and almost no sidewalks, ramps were present here and there, but most were a little on the steep side and appeared to have been installed either as an afterthought or before there were codes for such things. A pretty town, just not a place where people like us would want to get out and tramp around. So, onward we went.

Downtown Patagonia

Our next stop was Patagonia Lake. This is an Arizona State Park, the turnoff to which is about 7 miles beyond the town. It’s another four miles from AZ-82 to the lake itself. When we arrived at the ranger station we chatted with the person there regarding accessible pathway and such however, it wasn’t looking good. Everything around the lake, and outward, was up. That is to say, it was pretty hilly. We drove in and checked it all out but it was definitely not a place we could travel far without some form of motorization. So, onward we went.

Back out at the highway we headed south 12 miles towards Nogales and the International Border. Along the way we drove past the Nogales International Airport. The incongruity of the name and the scene did not escape either of us. There were two buildings at this lonely little international air hub, one an administrative facility not much larger than a four bedroom house and the other was a large hanger. There were a few single engine prop planes and a large twin present, beyond that it was pretty quiet.

When we reached Nogales we decided to try and get as close to the Port of Entry as we could before we were beyond the point of no return. We got to within 100 yards before having to turn parallel to the border. It was quite congested, even for a Sunday, but very orderly. We could clearly see the port and the multitude of signage advising and warning of this and that. We moved west a few blocks and could get a good shot at the border fence and the crowded city of Nogales, Mexico beyond. Here’s an interesting statistic, the population of Nogales, Arizona is about 22,000, and the population of Nogales, Mexico is 330,000. Location, location, location!

The border fence as seen from Nogales, AZ looking across into Mexico

We were not inclined to stop in Nogales, primarily because we did not know our way around and it is a very hilly town. So we headed north in I19. This short interstate is a surprisingly scenic drive. It parallels the Santa Cruz River and there are endless groves of cottonwoods along these southern upstream reaches of the mostly dry river. We drove north past Rio Rico, Tumacacori, Tubac, Armado and Green Valley (GV). Just before reaching GV we started thinking about food. We had never really stopped in GV before so we thought we’d drive up one of the main drags and see what we could find. Well, GV is a huge retirement community, spotted end to end with retirement villages and communities and golf courses. And, with it being Sunday, it seemed like the town was closed up. It was pretty dead, save the occasional senior bicycling through the streets. So onward we went.

It was at this point The Lovely Gail said, “I know where we can go!” Outwardly I politely smiled and asked where but in my head I was saying, “Thank God! After about 130 miles in this seat my ass is ready to be out of it!” So, at 51 miles north of Nogales we exited the freeway at Pima Mine Road and stopped at the Desert Diamond Casino. We ate at their restaurant, Agave. It was pretty good, not standout, but pretty good for a casino restaurant. After a nice large Cob Salad for the Lovely One and a tasty Reuben on Rye with a Pacifico for me we received the check and were pleasantly surprised to learn that there’s no tax charged by businesses on the reservation, sweet! So we headed home.

Even though we didn’t get a chance to get out and hike around much it was still a nice little adventure. We saw some new country and interesting sights, and we did it together. A nice way to spend a day with someone special.

Off The Cuff

2011-10-12T19:05:00.002-07:00

I’ve had something pressing on my mind of late. Akin to abrush with mortality, only from a great distance. Not so much death asdeterioration, a personal and physical sense of dilapidation or disrepair. Itseems rather odd that in over 30 years of living with a disability I’ve neverreally felt myself in disrepair until recently. It must be this age thing.

Pain seems to be an ever present part of life now. Never notpresent, a good day is less and the distraction not as noticeable. Learning tobe less tolerant of it is a problem for me. Somehow I’ve managed to make itpart of my day-to-day, marginalizing it into the background noise that is apart of every modern life. Big mistake.

I’ve added a new name and address to my contacts listrecently. A professional and a professor at the university, he is a seeker, ateacher and a practitioner of skills and knowledge. He will be a good person toknow in the coming months. He told me the other day that all of the tendons andligaments that comprise my left rotator cuff are seriously damaged. Some, ifnot all, irreparably. It looks to have been a worsening process that has beendeveloping for some time. Not a singular event where everything popped andsnapped all at once, but an ongoing wearing down of tissues over time, and oneby one things tore and became disconnected. All I could respond with was, “that sucks”.

The surgery is scheduled for November 8. The primary intentis to effect modifications that will reduce pain over the long term.Secondarily, my new friend at the university will look for repairopportunities, if any exist, and exploit those that are available. As for thenear term, I guess I will be reallydisabled for a bit. Being left with one working limb will certainly put adamper on the daily routine, but then I’ve never been one to shrink from achallenge. The long term outlook is more worrisome. It points towards the needto preserve what is left as long as possible in order to maintain independenceand the inevitable limitations that will come as I age will come sooner thanoriginally expected. A slower and more deliberate lifestyle is in store.

As evolved as we humans think we are it seems, more oftenthan not, we learn only after we’ve past critical milestones beyond which thereare no U-turns allowed. Such is the case with my pushing the pain back and soldieringon. Stupid move. Certainly there are other factors that contributed to theconveyance of myself to this current location; the ever-present masking painsthat are a part of every quadriplegic’s life, a previous diagnosis for a conditionthat produced nerve related pain and not exhibiting the limited arm movementstypical of a serious rotator cuff injury have all provided a means to keep stealththe true underlying issue. If I only knew then, what I know now.

So it’s with some reflection that I lift off theaccelerator, drop a gear and cruse at a slower and more leisured speed for theremainder of the trip. You hear those stories of people who come close to deathand only then realize the true beauty in the everyday, I think I’ll get startednow and not wait for a dark shadow to first pass over me. Adjustments will needto be made and different approaches taken but it’s doable. Hell, it’s not likeit’s a broken neck or anything…

Miscellaneous Thoughts & Ramblings...

2011-09-21T18:38:00.002-07:00

Swimming

The sun’s daily journey across the Tucson sky is moving closer to the southern horizon. As a consequence of the longer nights and cooler temperatures, the pool is cooling. By 3:00 PM it is about 97% in the shade of the house and it will not be long until the shade will be covering it by 2:00 PM. So, in these waning days, we are enjoying the last swims of the season.

The pool is a freeing place. It is without gravity and that is why we like the pool. To heave my carcass from my chair and up onto the edge of the pool is to anticipate the impending freedom of movement that will come once I’m in. To weigh nothing, to move without effort, to float in the literal sense. It is to be disentangled from the ever present restraints of incapacity. The pool is a 12,000 gallon equalizer. I fly like a giant, pale, featherless bird when I’m in there. I swim every day I can during the summer season, it is a daily priority.

I never wanted a pool. It is a huge front-loaded expense and contains further ongoing maintenance costs. There are chemicals to be managed and tested, there are expensive pumps and filter equipment to maintain and we easily lose 100 gallons a week to evaporation (not to mention all the water I splash out on a regular basis). Pools are giant wet money holes.

As this season comes to an end and I reflect on my second full season as a pool owner I have but only one thought: I like my pool.

Equinox

The fall equinox is upon us. I think I’ve talked in the past about my loathing of this event. I tolerate the summer solstice, and even though I know the days aren’t noticeably shorter I still lean to repugnance upon its passing. It is the fall equinox I execrate. I make no bones of my dislike for its ever lengthening nights and the cold it brings upon me. Not until late February will I be happy again about this, the length of the days.

So, get used to it!

The Blather

I was watching a national financial news show the other morning. I always watch their pre-market show over breakfast, before I head off to work. They too, however, are falling victim to the weak minded tact of talking and shouting over one another in some lame effort to make a point. This seems to have become the modus-preferred in recent years, in news, in politics, in life. That’s too bad.

It seems that deporting oneself with decorum and civility is out of vogue. Society seems to have deduced that if one can shout loud enough and long enough, they win. Sadly too, it appears to work, as it leverages the ever shortening attention span of the majority of our citizenry. No longer do we need to remember whom had the facts straight, or whose reasoned argument stood strong on its merits. Now all we need remember is who the loud one that got the last word in was. It’s made things so much easier.

I believe that when the over-talk stops, if it ever does, we will be the poorer for it. Deep thought and a well-reasoned factually supported argument will be dismissed as unexciting and uninteresting and the vitiated public debate will be in the hands of carnival barkers. Maybe it already is. The shouters never seem to have an argument; if they did it would stand of its own, without need for the props of audacity.

Twenty-One

2011-09-13T18:55:00.000-07:00

This past Friday we took off out of town to see a part of Arizona we hadn’t seen. There are several paces in this state that are on our list to go see and we’ve just returned from checking one off the list. We went up to the city of Prescott to see it and the surrounding area. While there, we celebrated twenty-one years of marriage.

Prescott is just over three and a half hours from our place just west of downtown. The obvious route is I10 to Phoenix then I17 to AZ-69. Not a difficult drive by any stretch. The scenery along the route is all very familiar Sonora Desert landscape until we are about 20 mile south of the junction for AZ-69. It’s about here that the interstate starts climbing up to the plateaus and savanna step land, and it’s here that the expansive views become distinctly different.

Entering Phoenix on I10. An easy drive, given the possibilities.

The land here doesn’t hide its volcanic history. Cone shaped mountains and clearly exposed recent (5 to 15 million years ago) lava flows are easily distinguished. This sudden change in elevation tells you that you are climbing a southwestern edge of the Colorado Plateau, the top of which starts south of Flagstaff. The area we are in is called the transition zone. The vegetation, what there is, is low scrub and grasses with the occasional lone tree standing isolated and stark. Passing through we can’t help but admire the bleak and austere beauty.

As we approached Prescott we began to see more and more trees. Off in the near distance the hills climb to the low mountains, we were at the lower tree line, where the savanna gives way to the conifer forests. Not since last year during our trip to Washington D.C. had we been any place where tall trees grew and occurred naturally. It was surprisingly green. We like it.

The Lovely Gail, seemingly awe-struck by the enormous trees.

Since Phoenix it had been spraying light rain off and on. As we climbed in elevation the clouds became thicker and closer, the earth rising to meet them and they dropping the meet the earth. While frequent use of the wipers was required, the roadway was never “wet”. Mild thunder, infrequent lightening and, at least from a dried out Tucsonan perspective, a pleasant light rain welcomed us to Prescott. It continued to rain off and on, in greater strength, the remainder of the day and into the night. Although, each time we stepped out, for dinner or whatever, we seemed to catch a break and be in between showers.

Whisky Row in Downtown Prescott

Prescott is a small town of about 40,000. While not as old a Tucson, it is an old town, founded proper in 1883 and serving as the Capitol of the Arizona Territory from 1864 to 1867 and then again from 1877 until Phoenix became the permanent Capitol in 1883. The architecture around town reflects this history with store fronts that are of a brick built frontier town. There is a beautiful tree covered central town plaza and in it is the old Yavapai County courthouse. We could not tell if it was still a functioning municipal building or a historic site.

The Yavapai County Courthouse in the town plaza.

As with most historic towns like this, the plaza square area was awash in shops, galleries and restaurants. On the north side was Whisky Row, and there were a number of bars and clubs that remained fairly busy from noon on. We hit the galleries and looked for art to take home. We managed pretty well, surprisingly. We bought three pieces on Saturday, one measuring about four feet by four feet, and proved challenging, but not impossible, to fit into the back of the van. The other pieces were small and were easily tucked away into the recesses of our rolling livingroom.

Our first night there, the night of our anniversary, we enjoyed a very well prepared meal at a restaurant called ‘The Rose’. A nice place serving fine food located in a modest two story late-Victorian house. Arizona liquor laws do not permit one to bring their own wine and pay corkage so we enjoy a toast in our room with a 2002 Clos Pegas Cabernet that I brought along for the ride. We then sampled the pan-seared foie gras and the corn bisque. The Lovely One ordered an excellent rack of lamb while I had a delicious medium rare duck breast. It was a wonderful cap to a lovely day.

Enjoying a nice afternoon in Prescott.

On the way out of town we stopped at Lynx Lake. It’s a small lake, about a mile long and a quarter mile wide, tucked away in the hills above Prescott. It is surrounded by mostly a pine forest with other deciduous trees sprinkled within. We hiked along the lake for a ways on a paved trail enjoying the chance to hear trees rustle and see leaves shimmer in the breeze. The lake was clean and clear and it appeared that only non-motorized boats were allowed on it. It’s funny that living in Tucson we don’t really notice the absence of tall trees (at least naturally occurring tall trees) as all the tree native to the Sonora Desert are generally 10 feet tall at their tallest, but once we started walking through the forest, getting in among the trees, it felt refreshing and familiar, like an old friend you hadn’t seen in a while. Maybe we’ll finally make down to Patagonia this fall and see what the mountains down towards Mexico have in the way of “tree-age”.

Beautiful and serene Lynx Lake

As we headed south, dropping down out of the volcanic plateau, we reflected on a nice trip, the beautiful scenery, the great food, the stunning art and twenty-one years of friendship and marriage. The altitude clicked down, the temperature clicked up and the vegetation became shorter and leafless. Then we saw it, wild and natural there off the freeway in a rock outcropping, a large prickly-pear cactus. And, off in the distance, a lone Saguaro, struggling to survive at the upper limits of its natural elevation range. We looked at each other and smiled, it was the scenery of home.

The Happy Couple at Lynx Lake. Just the day before, during breakfast at the hotel, a complete stranger walked up and said we made a cute couple. We can't argue that!

Click on the pictures to see larger versions.

Things Are Growing

2011-08-18T18:28:00.000-07:00

There have been a few happenings around the Casa over the past few weeks. That’s what happens when time passes; things, things happen. The summer is a somewhat quiet, slow time in Tucson. Those who live here year-round appreciate that. Just as the heat of June hits its crescendo, and even the most stalwart Tucsonan thinks wistfully of Flagstaff, the monsoon begins to ramp up. This year has been a particularly rewarding season. The desert has turned green and lush and the air is moist and humid and the temperature has been averaging in the coolish upper 90’s. Pleasant.

The garden is in its post-peak downward cycle. All but one of the tomato bushes have been reduced to forked six inch stumps by The Lovely Gail. This year the ongoing garden experiment will explore the possibility of a second crop of tomatoes from the same plants. We have heard that it can be done here, successfully, so we’ll attempt it this year and see what sprouts.

The last of the cucumbers are just about ready to be taken. They have been a constant surprise in the thicket of the garden. We check often and do not see any, not even small starts, than seemingly out of thin air there will be a fully grown vegetable hanging there. As if someone went to Safeway, bought it and hung it there over night for us to find. Surprising, rewarding and tasty too!

A couple pickeling cucumbers approaching their peak. The Lovely One took these and a couple regular cumbers and made a fresh cold cucumber soup. The soup also had chives an mint from our backyard. Yummy!

The Lovely One tried her hand at cantaloupes this year. It wasn’t looking very good at the start. She had planted them outside of the raised bed, near the fence and towards the pool pump and equipment. The desert mice, squirrels and pack rats would regularly come by and nibble the blossoms and shoots. She constructed a two foot tall chicken wire fence in a three foot radius around it and that seemed to be a huge help. Well, that and all the trapping we did of mice, squirrels and the two pack rats living nearby. My happy gardener now has some rather impressive melons for anyone who wishes to stop by and admire. Three are nearly ready to harvest and three more the size of baseballs have appeared. We’ll be enjoying garden fresh cantaloupes within a week to ten days it seems.

Here you can see the three cantaloupes from about a week prior to this post. there are three others in there but they're about the size of baseballs.

And finally, the yellow squash has started producing. We had all but given up on it. They need to be pollinated in order to produce but the bees were few and far between early in the season. The Lovely Gail tried her hand at pollinating the plant with a fine tipped artists brush but soon the tomatoes were bearing and we needed to cover the garden with shade cloth to shield it from the intense June sun and the various creatures and critters that would seek a free lunch. Well, over the course of the summer a colony of bees somewhere off in the wild found a way creep up on the water in a far corner of the pool. They gather the pool water and take it to the hive, we suppose. This increase in bee traffic at the Casa has been a pollination plus! We’re seeing a significant increase in bee traffic at the garden and as a result the yellow squash plant has suddenly gone ballistic with vegetables. Yet another positive as a result of getting a pool.

The second half of the summer garden season is shaping up well, due in no small part to the hand and persistence of The Lovely Gail. We’ll look forward to what the late summer brings and I’m sure she has already started planning what the winter garden will produce.

This was taken about an hour prior to this post. The Lovely Gail plucked this bad boy today. There are two more that look just like it still out there and three more the size of grapefruit. The wine bottle is for perspective, that's a nice melon! Not bad for her first cantaloupe ever.

Click the pics to see them in a larger size!

Vineyards and Vistas

2011-08-12T15:37:00.003-07:00

We took a trip south to the Sonoita/Elgin area the other day. The plan originally was to drive south through Sonoita and on southwest to Patagonia to see Patagonia lake, then head further south to Nogales at the international border. However, the day before our friends from here in Saguaro Cliffs, David and Lauren, called to tell us about a new winery of which they had heard recently and asked if we wanted to take a trip to check it out. So we said sure!

This winery, Charron Vineyards, is not too far from Tucson, approximately 36 miles and about halfway to the Sonoita/Elgin area wine region, so we stopped by there first before heading on further south. They had just finished bringing in their merlot grapes when we arrived and were in the process of pressing the juice using the small batch equipment they had on premise. What is interesting about this winery is that they are at a low enough elevation to be considered firmly within the Sonoran desert ecology. It seemed very odd to be driving through groves and groves of Ocotillo and prickly pear then suddenly come across a four acre vineyard. Their elevation is at 4200 feet, the higher end of the Sonoran desert eco-system, and they have planted Merlot and Cab-Franc and seem to be having pretty good luck. They make a White Merlot (and it's white, not pink) and a Blanc De Noirs from their own grapes that are quite good and they buy juice to make a California Merlot (red) as well as a Syrah.

Looking southwest across the hilltop vineyards at Charron. Up until, and depending on, the monsoon they irrigate regularly. The soil on this area contains a large amount of limestone, which is why there is such a dense growth of Ocotillo. It was humid this day and at noon the columns of cumulus that would eventually become thunderstorms were already starting to build.

We then drove on south another 25 miles to Lightening Ridge Cellars and, the weather seemed to reflect the name of the winery very well. The Elgin region is high desert savanna and you can see many miles across the high plain. As we dropped onto the plain from the north the weather in the south worsened and more than once it felt like we should be driving in the opposite direction. Lightening Ridge produces a number of Italian style wines using Italian grape varietals. They grow small blocks of Sangiovese, Nebbiolo, Montepulciano, Primitivo, Malvasia and Muscat Canelli from which they make their estate bottled wines. We left with two bottles in hand and as we drove away from the winery the sky to the distant west was almost black and lightning strikes were plentiful. During the 15 minute drive the village of Sonoita the rain picked up a little but was nothing terrible. Besides, it was a warm 80 to 85 degrees out.

We stopped at a little café for lunch before heading back to Tucson. The drive back provided us with great vistas of thunder storms moving slowly in the distance and constant rain that varied from sprinkles to downpours. At one point on Interstate 10, where the speed limit is 75, a storm cell opened up and dropped so much rain that traffic slowed to 45. Thank goodness for the human self-preservation instinct!

Looking northeast towards the Wetstone Mountains from the front of Lightning Ridge Winery. By now large portions of the landscape were blotted out with shadows from the building thunderheads. To the west about 15 or so miles it was charcoal grey, with sheets of rain, rolling thunder and much lightning.

The trip was enjoyable for many reasons but exploring two wineries for the first time and seeing the desert get a huge dose of rain were the highlight. The vast expanse of this place always impresses upon me just how small I am. The immenseness of this region is beautiful and this trip provided yet a new and different view of the landscape. There were the colors of the land lit by columns of sun breaking through the emptiness around the storm cells, and there were moving walls of water a mile high drifting ghostly and boundless across the enormous and distant valleys. We had not covered such distance during a day of monsoon storms before, it was rewarding in its beauty.

I often forget, as I move mechanically through my daily routine, just why we moved here to the desert southwest, even though my morning commute from the outskirts is replete with its own beautiful and changing panoramas. I needn’t go far, however, to refresh my view that this place, with its occasional harsh extremes, is lush with a hardened splendor that is very unique to this part of the world.

Yours truly and the Lightning Ridge mascot. One of the few dogs I've met that can look me straight in the eye without hardly raising its head.

Monsoon Activities

2011-07-21T18:35:00.003-07:00

Get Cereus...

The Summer Monsoons are in high gear and all the beauty and danger that accompanies them are here too. There recently were swaths of the city without power due to 60 and 70 mph gusts and temporary road closures due to flash flooding were abundant. Yesterday a motorist was swept downstream after being caught by a flash flood that crossed a major roadway. He was rescued without incident. Although there are the inconveniences, there are beautiful things happening too.

The desert is turning a vibrant green and this is the start of the annual bloom season for the various types of Night Blooming Cereus. There are many species of cereus but none are more famous and more flighty than The Queen of the Night. We were fortunate to have a neighbor with a keen eye and a much better camera than our so she captured the images below. Beautiful indeed...

This is the Queen of the Night. We have one in our front yard but it has not bloomed yet this year. This beauty was showing at Tohono Chul Park. The Lovely Gail and our neighbor, Carolyn, went up one evening the the hoards of "petal peepers" to see a few of their many specimens in bloom.

This is a Cereus, but not at all the same as above. This just popped out one evening. It's right outside the front door, in front of a stack of windows that start at just about floor level. It was strikingly beautiful and delicate. It was a good thing we photographed when we did, the wild rabbits came by later that night and nibbled it all the way down to the cactus and it was but a nub the next morning.

Weather Central

We bought a weather station the other day. It’s not terribly sophisticated but it’s proving to be fun none the less. It measures temperature, both indoors and out, and it measures rain. We’re still getting familiar with it and experimenting with placement of the various components. However, the fun is in seeing what it has to tell us throughout any given day.

It is all wireless and operates on batteries using a weak 433 MHz radio. We can place the temperature sensor and the rain gauge up to 100 meters (328 feet) from the base but we think we have found locations that are much closer than that. The cool thing is that the rain gauge is self-emptying! Just set it and forget it, more or less.

It does not store data and we can’t hook it to our computers or home network, but it’s a good starter kit. We’ll no doubt learn a few things by taking this first rudimentary and inexpensive step. It’ll be fun and interesting.

This is the wireless, self-emptying, rain gauge. It has captured 0.67 inches of rain since this photo was taken.

This is the base, or receiver. As you can see, we like it warm indoors. 85.3 degrees in the office is just about right.

This is the outdoors temperature sensing unit, the least interesting of the three but useful none the less. Right now it resides on the BBQ island, until a more permanent home can be found.

Practice

2011-07-05T11:18:00.000-07:00

Independence Day has just passed. I took extra days on either end of the holiday weekend and made a five day vacation out of it. It has been a nice break and now it’s almost over; back to work.

I’m not sure if anyone has noticed, and I’ve not made any point to mention it, but I’ve been managing my time off such as to increase the occurrence of long weekends like this. I’m ‘practicing’. I’m practicing for that time, in the reasonable future, when I will retire. Now, you may be asking for what there is to practice. Well, as I get closer to the prize I gain more and more friends who have reached retirement. What I have observed from talking with these friends and acquaintances is that, to some degree, preparation and planning are required in order to successfully transition from working stiff to retired curmudgeon.

Planning, it’s not the obvious things. When one says their planning for retirement the natural inclination is to think 401K, 503B, Roth IRA and etcetera. Well, that is an important part. However, by this stage of the game, my stage, one had better be well done with that and merely managing its growth. No, I’m talking about what my day-to-day will be like.

For what will turn out to be about 35 years my day-to-day has been largely determined by someone else, and that’s fine. That’s what I signed up for. However, somewhere after 55 and before 58 I will own my own time (well, most, I’m sure the Lovely Gail has plans to secure some of that). So, on these extended weekends and on days after work, I have been exploring interests that heretofore have been shelved for lack of time. Writing these introspective essays is fun, but one needs to be in the right frame of mind to do it. And, I’m surprisingly good at fixing things that one might otherwise throw out and replace. Not that this saves us any significant money, it’s just fun to see if I can reverse engineer it and effect a repair. I am also considering metal work, small, intricate sheet metal boxes. This would be less of utility and more an artistic/creative thing.

This activity has a lot of potential. A neighbor, Eileen, and I tasting wine a while back at the Kief-Joshua vineyards near Elgin, AZ. Yes, they can actually grow grapes and make wine in Arizona.

Preparation: ready, set, relax! Retirement, by definition, means a more relaxed pace, at least initially. I believe I’m up for it. I suspect I will eventually volunteer my time some place. Currently I sit on the HOA Board of Directors and even with the politics and all that other human interaction stuff, I enjoy it. There are hundreds of organizations here in the valley that can utilize what I can bring, in terms of experience, and that kind of work can keep the grey matter happy with the obvious challenges. Too much relaxation makes me fidgety, or at least my brain fidgety. More book reading, for pleasure, is very relaxing. And, as I alluded to earlier, the Lovely Gail will no doubt insure I do not relax to the degree that I get flabby and soft. As she readily points out, there are always rocks to move.

So, on this last day of my very enjoyable five day weekend, just as my household omnipresence is obviously starting to tax the Lovely Gail’s patience, I look forward to my next ‘practice session’. I think she views these as a practice also (I hope), and the saving grace is that she knows there’s still time to adjust, slowly, to a 24x7x365 Don. I’m headed out the garage now to tear the cover off my $2,000 audiophile CD player and see if I can fix a loose line-level RCA out. Wish me luck!

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The Long and Short of It

2011-06-20T16:49:00.002-07:00

Sunlight, for all that is bad, there is more that is good. At least that’s my perspective. That is one of several reasons we brought ourselves to Southern Arizona. Tucson, you see, is second only to parts of Australia in terms of your likelihood of getting skin cancer. This is bad. However, Tucson purports to be the sunniest city in the U.S. (hence the skin cancer thing) with an average of over 350 sunny days a year. This is good.

The sunny character of the region makes itself known in June, as the summer solstice comes and goes. This year on June 21, we will enjoy 14 hour, 15 minutes and 52 seconds of daylight, on what will be the longest period of daylight in a 24 hour period. This is the happiest and saddest day of the year for me. I am happy because there are so many minutes of sunlight on this particular day. Our planet is in that celestial sweet-spot; the point in its solar orbit that brings the North Pole closest to the sun. We’ve been hurdling towards this moment since approximately December 21, and now we’re here. That’s the sad part, now we’re here. Now the days get shorter.

I guess I don’t do dark well. Yes, the days are still longer than the nights. And yes, it is summer. But, the thought of this part of the yearly cycle and its lengthening nights just bothers me. The summer solstice is a milestone in my yearly trek. At this point I steel myself for what’s to come; winter. I should fell lucky; in fact, I should count my lucky stars, as was once said. The winters here are short and quite tolerable by northern standards. The day is however, a full 4 hours and 13 minutes shorter at the solstice. An eternity!

The winter solstice is a day of wistful celebration for me. On this day in the darkest part of our planetary cycle I quietly feel cheerful and excited. We’ve turned the corner and we’re on our way to ever increasing amounts of sunlight. To quote a sappy commercial for a rehab facility, “I feel alive and hopeful again!” Yes, they were able to pay someone enough to say that on television.

In March, when the days become longer than the nights, I am so happy. There are three more months of the days getting longer yet to come! My trips up the driveway weekday mornings to get the paper get brighter and brighter until it becomes a race to get up and out there before the sun breaks over the Rincon Mountains to the east and casts it heated rays across the valley. By mid-April it’s warm enough that almost all the desert life is either back from the south or has crawled, or slithered, out of hibernation. I see a lot of activity in the twilight of morning.

By June though, the desert is holding onto the heat of the previous day. The sun is not setting until almost 7:30, and it is back by a quarter past five the next morning. The long days heat the ground so hot that the cold water runs very warm and there’s no need to use water from the hot water heater. Long hot cloudless days that are not for the faint of heart; these are the days the Lovely Gail and I most like.

So as the summer solstice of 2011 comes and goes I pause to think and reflect. I’ve come to realize that this is my halfway point. And, every December, on or very near the 21st, is my New Year, not January like everyone else. In the way that the ancients of the pre-Bronze Neolithic looked on the solstice as their turning point towards a more abundant time of year, I will look to the shortest day as a signpost to the longest.

Weather Or Not

2011-05-26T17:08:00.004-07:00

The other day I was visiting with a friend and somehow we got onto the subject of my blog. He had pointed out that I write often about the weather, weather happenings and weather conditions. I had never thought about this before but he was right. I do mention weather, to some degree (pardon the pun), quite often in my musings. So, I thought it appropriate that I write a post about my writing about weather.

Weather has always interested me and fascinated me. I think I have always paid attention to it and remembered it. Subconsciously and without forethought I have always made mental notes and recordings of it, no matter how mundane or uneventful it may seem at any given moment. The seasons and their recurring patterns, anomalies, repetition, all duly noted, recognized and remembered. Without effort or thought. As a teenage reprobate one might have perceived that I did not possess the wherewithal or mental capacity to notice the weather, let alone remember it. But I do remember the weather of the time, in that part of the world. Quite vividly. These days I can’t always remember why I drove to the hardware store, but for whatever reason the weather, then and now, sticks.

I like the weather, it excites me. Even on days when all that happens is the sun comes up, moves across the sky and goes down. On days that it rains, whether thundershowers bowling around like a bull here and there, or a gentle all day drizzle with its soft feminine touch, I notice and remember. I may not always want the weather I experience and I may give crotchety voice to that, but I like weather, even when I hate it.

Lately we’ve heard how violent and tragic weather can be. Weather is to be respected and not to be underestimated. While I have been lucky to live most my life in a part of the country that experiences relatively mild weather year-round, I have and do follow weather elsewhere. And, as I’ve grown and traveled and, recently have moved to a place where the weather is much more demonstrative, I have seen and experienced weather that causes one to pause. Weather can take from you all that you know and have, and I think knowing that further fascinates me. I do appreciate all facets of weather, dangerous and routine.

I probably will not curtail my mentions of weather, not in my blog nor in my everyday conversation. They say everyone needs a hobby to which they are unequivocally drawn, I guess weather is mine. I have dreams of getting one of those cool networked weather stations I can hook up to our home network then track and report weather data at the Casa. For now, however, I will continue to let the day’s weather caress my senses, record them in my memory and relate them in my every day.

Today is a nice day.

Where's Summer?

2011-05-22T14:57:00.000-07:00

There is only one more week left in May and 100 looks to be nowhere in sight. I suppose it could happen, but according to all the experts, the possibilities are lessening with each passing day.

Over the last 100 years the average first occurrence of 100 degrees (officially) here in Tucson is May 26. Based on this one might say I’m being a little impatient. Over the past 10 years however, the average arrival of 100 has been the 19th. This is still the second half of the month, but earlier that the 100 year average would suggest. So where is it?!

Up until last year I was content to wait. The later the better; although, that all changed with the construction of the swimming pool. Just about every opportunity that availed itself found me in the pool last year. Easily 70 days over the four-plus month swim season, maybe even 100 days or more. Sometimes twice a day and even a few night swims (my favorite!). The Lovely Gail also spent almost as much time in the watery workout room. It’s for this reason alone I want to see the temp hit, and hold, 100.

I just checked the forecast again, a moment ago, and NOAA has put up a 100 for next Saturday. That’s pretty far out though. Needless to say, I’ll be watching that prediction, along with the pool thermometer, very closely this week. Saturday, the 28th is not unusually late as measured by averages, but with the holiday weekend coming up it’s not a moment too soon. I’ll take it.

Goofing around last summer with the camera and a few patriotic chachkies sent our way by Sherri, The Lovely Gail's sister.

Twas the Season

2011-04-18T15:28:00.001-07:00

Every year from mid-February to late April is the high-season at the Casa. This is something that has occurred naturally and of its own evolution since our moving into our dream home back in November of 2007. The high-season in the tourism industry is the most active period in the yearly cycle and it seems that this time of year has become the busy season at the Casa. This year was no exception as we were privileged to be visited by friends and family once again.

Tim and Jackie

Tim and Jackie are officially, as of this year, regulars. They are old friends from Sonoma County and have passed through the Tucson area every year we’ve been in the Casa. They always make it a point to stop by for a visit. Their travels involve pulling a huge fifth-wheel trailer across large swaths of the country. Tim has a big diesel Ford F-5million and they setup camp over the pass on the far side of the Tucson Mountains then venture around the area visiting friends and relatives here in town. They don’t stay at the Casa but we can always look forward to a visit when they’re in town.

Marco and Debbie

Also longtime friends from the North Bay, Marco and Debbie seem to frequent Arizona in general and this year saw them splitting their week in the state between relations in Phoenix/Scottsdale and yours truly here in the Old Pueblo. In true wine-country fashion, they came loaded for bear with the fruit of the vine. We grilled one night and enjoyed good wine then Marco crafted his famous (at least to us) burgers a couple nights later with which we paired a nice zinfandel, or two. The weather was gorgeous, which is why we think we see so many folks from the north this time of year.

This was the exact moment Carolyn forgot she lived in the Colorado Rockies.

Jim and Becky and Lynn

Jim and Becky and Lynn flew into Phoenix to spend a long weekend at Spring Training in Scottsdale. They were there to see the Giants and this gave us the opportunity to get out of town. We drove up on a Saturday and met them for dinner and it was really nice to have the chance to get caught up. The next morning they drove up to Carefree, where we were staying, and we enjoyed a nice leisurely brunch. We all agreed that there just wasn’t enough time to really visit and we suspect we will be seeing Lynn here at to Casa for a stay sometime in the very near future.

Jim and Carolyn

Jim and Carolyn are dear friends from Colorado. The Lovely Gail and Carolyn have been friends for more years then we have been married, many more years. Jim and Carolyn now hold the much coveted honor of having the stayed longest at the Casa. The circumstances of their extended stay were less of plan and more a series of unfortunate events, however.

Jim and Carolyn. They insisted they had no intention of moving yet they left with a half dozen real estate magazines. Hmmmm....

Jim and Carolyn were the beneficiaries of a mid-90’s Ford four-wheel drive truck from Carolyn’s father; all they had to do was fly into Phoenix and then drive it home. They had also decided they would drive down to Tucson for an overnight visit with us before heading back to the Centennial State the next day. Subsequent mechanical issues, as well as process breakdown at the repair facility led to an unexpected and extended stay here in the Grand Canyon State. I think everyone agreed that there could be worse circumstances under which to be stranded and Jim and Carolyn’s warm spirit and soft presence made their stay very enjoyable. We have officially renamed the guest bedroom to “The Bentley Suite”.

The girls: The Lovely One and Sunshine. All smiles all the time.

Mom & Dad

Every spring my folks make one of their two annual visits to the Casa. They come down to feel the warm, but not too warm, weather and get a sense of what will be coming to northern Arizona in the next month or so. This year Mom took her tootsies for a swim from the edge of the pool and Dad made sure the patio furniture was in good working condition for the coming summer. Dad and I managed a couple household fix-it chores which then justified lounging on the patio most of the day. Mom, always nourishing her inner photo bug, snapped pictures of anything that didn’t move, and a few things that did.

Mom. The pool edge was a popular place this season.

End of Season

This year was probably the busiest season on the books for us. And, don’t think we’re complaining. We very much enjoy the visits and the company that they bring. It gets us out of our routine and often we do things or go places we might not have if left to our own devices. However, as we move into the hot season, and the snowbirds go north and the College students leave for the summer, there’s something to be said for quietness and routine. The summer will be on us soon, with its plus 100 degree days and stifling heat. With only the year-rounders left in town it’ll be slow and quiet. It was a good high-season this year, now bring on the heat!

Dad. All the patio furniture was certified suitable for safe use this coming summer season by our visiting patio furniture testing expert.

Click the Pics to see them full sized!

Improved Outlook

2011-04-01T12:33:00.001-07:00

The weather is improving here in the Old Pueblo. As of this writing we have topped 90 degrees three times already. The days are longer, the nights are not dropping below 50 and we are finally getting back into the weather for which was the reason we moved to Tucson. There's a mood shift, a sea change in the air. The Lovely one and I welcome it.

I wrote about the arrival of this year’s winter in a post back in November. Little did I know then that it would be a winter of record breaking cold. Here at the Casa, we lost many plants. Some well under the patio and up next to the house, others covered but still not standing a chance. Not just us either. A drive across town revealed endless carnage. There were dying palm trees and citrus, and cacti that had been thriving for over a quarter century lying in gelatinous heaps. It was a winter unusual for the Northern Sonora Desert.

The warming temperatures and increased sunlight bring anticipation, excitement and the stirring of all the desert wildlife. The Morning Doves have been back for a few weeks now and we saw the first bats of the season just the other evening. There are a greater variety of birds around and we suspect we’ll see the return of the Cardinals any day now. There also lurks a more active reptilian population. Snakes and lizards of all sorts are coming out to feel the sun and search for food. This is the start of “watch your step” season.

Relative to the rest of the nation the winters here are not hard. Never the less, the short days wear on one’s spirit. We both have mentioned just recently how lately we’re feeling good, and there’s a certain optimism in our day-to-day. And, as I sit writing this, the window in the office is open and there is a very gentle warm breeze moving past and I can smell the warm dry earthiness of a sun drenched desert. There is possibility and potential as far as the eye can see. The outlook is much improved.

A beautiful, and much welcome, spring day outside the office window...

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Gates Pass

2011-03-18T16:31:00.001-07:00

The Happy Couple in their precarious Prickly Pear perch.

We were up at Gates Pass recently. The weather has turned decidedly pleasant and visitors were in from out of town so we hit the road to show off a few of the sights here in Tucson. And, as is the case when visitors are in town, we try to stop at one place that is new for us also. This time we stopped at the scenic overlook located at the top of Gates Pass road.

Looking west towards Avra Valley

We have been across Gates pass many times. It’s an especially scenic drive with the eastern canyon offering a view of the city that slowly reveals itself as you drive down towards town. The Western face, while at one time considered extremely dangerous, has seen much improvement and affords a panoramic view of the valley below (though, the driver needs to, and should, stay focused on the somewhat narrow road). There are nearby trail-heads if you're the mountain-goaty type. It was worth the stop.

Looking east towards town. This is as far west as you can get and still see the city.

Click the Pics to see them full sized!

Out of Africa

2011-02-14T20:01:00.005-07:00

February is a busy month in Tucson. Not just for ourselves, what with birthdays, valentines and all, but the Old Pueblo in general. The month starts out with 17 days of the Gem Show, billed as the largest in the U.S., and possibly the world. Later is the Accenture Match Play golf tournament at the Ritz Carlton Dove Mountain. The world’s best golfers descend on Tucson for a week of high-stakes elimination golf. Then there is the Fiesta de los Vaqueros, the historic and traditional rodeo with roots dating back to 1925. These and many other smaller events pack this month with things to see and do, as well as with hordes of tourists, enthusiasts, athletes and vendors. The town is quite busy and quite full.

This past weekend we visited the African Village venue of the Gem Show. The Gem Show is huge! It’s spread out all over town with many, many venues. From the northern most outposts to the southern is over 10 miles. We normally stay clear of the areas where the vendors are because of all the out-of-towners. There are pedestrians everywhere, meandering on sidewalks, drifting aimlessly into the streets and hopelessly lost at intersections. Then there’s the traffic; it is a sea of out-of-state license plates and the closer you get to a Waffle House the worse it gets. A side note for our California readers, the Waffle House are to Denny’s what Walmart is to Target.

African Village, looking east towards the Motel 6, the high-rent district.

Located where 22^nd crosses under Interstate 10, the African Village is a dusty place with pea-gravel and dirt the consistency of talc. We parked in the $2.99 lot; yes, that’s right, $2.99, and oddly enough, they weren’t making change. The short hike over to the tents was a gauntlet of over-priced hot dog vendors and bottled water for $3 each, and the pale sunburned Mid-westerners were paying up. The economy must be improving. Once we arrived, though, we were rewarded with two acres of various African art and artifacts.

The day was beautiful and there was so much at which to look. The Lovely Gail had harbored an idea of buying twenty or so tribal masks and covering a section of wall in the hallway, so off we went looking at the half million carved masks. After about 45 minutes they all started looking the same so we began to focus on specific shapes. I had seen several two and three feet tall masks that looked like gazelle heads, they were attractive and eye catching. The Lovely Gail was drawn to masks that were colorful, long and narrow. We had in mind three or four that were ideal candidates, but then we saw our prize.

Trekking through the pea-gravel, The Lovely One: focused, determined, on a mission.

We had stopped to get a better look at several items lying on a tarp on the ground under a tent. While we examined the trove of wooden masks a young African woman engaged us in conversation. As we spoke I looked past and over her shoulder and there they were, strapped to a tent post with a bungee cord, two six feet tall antelope heads. I turned to The Lovely One and said, “What about those?”

We buy art in this manner a lot it seems. We’ll stumble across something and only one of us sees it, we jab the other and it’s like a fateful moment of discovery, two minds become one.

We asked the woman about them and she, in a language native to a place I’ll probably never see but would like to, asked her husband to show them to us. We loved them! We asked the price and it was border line on the high side. The Lovely One played hard to get and I did what I do best, I looked vacantly into space. Our ploy worked, he came down $50, then $100. Sold! After a bit of logistical maneuvering we had them home. They look great in the place we’ve put them and now all we need to do is name them.

Maybe you have an idea, I thought of Burt and Estelle but that didn’t go over too well…

Very cool!

OK, maybe not Bert but definitely Estelle!

Very exotic!

One of the many, many tents at African Village.

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Click the Pics to see them full sized!

Five-Oh

2011-02-06T15:05:00.003-07:00

I’m old enough now that I feel the need to point out the title of this post, at one time, would have been associated with Hawaii, a giant crashing wave and the phrase “Book’m Dano”. Not this time.

I turned 50 yesterday. If people hadn’t been making such a fuss I probably would not have noticed. It seems there is quite a bit of obligation that comes with 50. You’re obliged to relate to anyone who asks what it is like to turn 50. Like there is some sort of major life-shift that occurs, as if you’ve just passed through a tear in the space-time continuum or came back to life after being dead for five minutes. Personally, for me, it feels kind of like passing good wind, I actually feel pretty good, almost refreshed. All things considered, it’s not at all what I thought it might be.

More and Less

I have less hair than I thought I’d have at this stage. Although, I probably shouldn’t be surprised, dear ‘old Dad had even less at my age so I won’t complain too much. I need less sleep than I used to, though I always try to sleep more. I eat less than I did as a younger man, and as a result I weigh less than I probably ever have. Which is a good thing considering the health effects of a bulbous body. I have more aches and pains, mostly from my worn out elbows and shoulders. I’m far more financially secure than I thought I’d ever be at this age, and that is in no small part thanks to my lovely bride. I‘m much more happy with myself and who I am, although, I still catch myself second guessing some choices I make (you know, paper or plastic, soup or salad, Just For Men or natural). Things are more or less right where I’d like them to be.

Times They Are A-Changin

My first birthday. Fifty year later and I still had the same dazed look.

In the Sixty-first year of the Twentieth Century things were very different. TV was black and white then, and the device itself came in the form of a piece of furniture containing a large, heavy glass tube with many other small glass tubes. The country had just embarked on the space race and a great many Doctors and health professional smoked. It was a different world then. My earliest memory is running three doors down Johnson Street, where we lived in Healdsburg, to the then General Hospital with nothing on but shorts and a towel for a cape to play under the giant Magnolias on the lawn. I think I was four then. I don’t much run around with a towel as a cape anymore, much.

A future 'Foodie'. I still to this day like to immerse myself in the food I eat.

Team Lively

I met the love of my life when I was 28 and mostly willingly (but occasionally kicking and screaming) I’ve become a husband, a partner and the biggest fan of a woman named Gail. Finding someone with whom to share your life can only be good, and I really don’t get the big hang-up about gender. More love and happiness in the world is a good thing, regardless the gender of the person with whom one may find that. The Lovely Gail put together a very nice celebration of my fiftieth birthday last night. Some good friends and wonderful people came by to look on as one might for a tragic car accident. It was a scene mixed with support, encouragement, curious amusement and detached horror. I will remember this event for the remainder of my years. Only a teammate can, or would, inflict such trauma. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, I’m so glad we’re on the same team.

Below are some pictures of the carnage, enjoy.

The Birthday boy trying to look nonchalant.

The Lovely Gail and our dear friend Lauren chatting it up in the kitchen

Friends Len and David enjoying the festivities.

Friends Rebecca and Carolyn tasting the various foods and wines.

Don getting animated and Glenn devising an exit plan.

The Lovely Gail the night before. Up to her eyeballs in flour and frosting.

I totally scored on Birthday cards this year!

Frost Bites!

2011-01-20T19:38:00.002-07:00

It’s been a quiet week in Saguaro Cliffs, my neighborhood. The first few days of the year gave us a string of nights in the mid to upper 20’s. This happens at least once each year. We did our best to prepare by deploying frost cloth, burlap and pipe wrap. And every year, despite our boy-scoutean like efforts, we suffer a loss in one way or another. This year the citrus trees took a good hit. They’ll pull through, but for the time being they are going to be looking pretty crispy. We also have a three and a half foot tall Euphorbia planted just inside the fence on the north side that will probably not make it.

These are our slightly crisped Lemon (a Lemon crisp?) and Orange. The Lime looks similar.

We bought the Euphorbia at Wal-Mart for $17. It was mis-labeled (and no, we were not the ones that perpetrated the mis-labeling). It was quit the score because a succulent that size would normally sell for at least three or four times that. The fact it was labeled incorrectly, however, made it difficult to determine exactly what it was. We bought it, though, because The Lovely Gail, who regularly scours every nursery in a 25 mile radius, know her plant prices and knows a whopping-ass deal when she sees one.

Once we got the plat home we spent the next two days trying to determine its genus. There are approximately 2160 species in the genus Euphorbia. We didn’t want it to be any of them. Don’t get me wrong, we have several different species and find each of them attractive and easy to maintain plants. However, we talked ourselves into believing it was a Cereus.

Cereus is one of the oldest genuses of cacti known and a majority of them are native to the Sonora desert. We have at least 8 different species of these and find them to be beautiful and hardy with the added benefit that the Javelina won’t eat them. Most of our Cereus are night blooming and will burst forth with large, delicate, fragrant flowers over night during the peak of summer monsoon. Cereus can also withstand temperatures down to the low teens. That is why we picked a place to plant it out away from the house, where it would stand out and show well. And for this reason, we did not want it to be a Euphorbia. Well, we guessed wrong. We are now the proud caretakers of a three foot high, green and brown, half rotten, frost-bitten shriveled stumpy thing.

Our sad looking Euphorbia. Wonder what we'll plant there next.

The morning after the second night of sub-freezing temps delivered us a new water feature in the backyard. I had completely forgotten that the brass anti-siphon valve for the irrigation is attached to pipes which stick three feet above ground, over by the gas meter. Well, the night it dropped to 25 the two pipes, and the valve, froze solid. I looked out there around 8:30 and everything was dry. I looked again at around noon, when things warmed up to 45, and there was a river flowing. Luckily, the pipes didn’t bust but the freezing of the water in the valve caused all its plastic innards to bust up, and the valve became a fountain. I shut the water off to the irrigation and tore the valve apart and rebuilt it a week later.

It’s starting to warm up a little now. The nights are only dropping to the high 30’s and low 40’s and the days are making it past the low 60’s fairly consistently. We might get one more freeze, but it will not last for more than one or two nights at the most. Another sign it’s warming up is that we’re starting to see Ground Squirrels running about. Time to go set the trap.

That’s all the news from Saguaro Cliffs, my neighborhood. We’ll keep you posted next time the excitement hits a fever pitch.

This is a type of Cereus and its similarities to some Euphorbia is what allowed us to talk ourselves into the frost-bitten mess we now have.

This is a type of Euphorbia. It produces these beautiful, yet slightly stinky, burgundy flowers that attract flies. We keep this one up on the patio, but well away from the door.

This is one of the more famous of the Nightblooming Cereus, the Peniocereus greggii, or its common name the Arizona Queen of the Night. Its bloom last only that night and by the end of the next day it is gone. It may put out four to eight blooms, usually only one or two at a time. It's a big deal here in town when they bloom. Tohono Chul Park has a yearly event that people attend and stay all night the witness and enjoy the first bloom of the year. The rest of the year you might think this cactus were dead.

The Mission, 'A' Mountain and The New Year

2011-01-01T18:47:00.001-07:00

The Holiday season has just wound up here in Saguaro Cliffs, my neighborhood. The desert is still colorfully lit and many a Saguaro is adorned in festive lights. The solstice just past a little more than a week and a half ago marking the shortest day of the year and The Lovely Gail and I, being sun people, toasted its passage at exactly the moment it occurred. Good riddance! Of course, we can’t really tell the days are getting longer, but they are, and it is that knowledge that will get us through the rest of the winter darkness.

My folks came down to enjoy the Christmas holiday with us. They’re still getting around pretty well. The drive from Kingman and back hasn’t become too much for them, yet. The ‘Old Man’ has a much more pronounced limp in his gate these days thanks to a knee replacement. But in typical fashion for a stubborn old Texan he pushes on, and gives us regular reports as to the degree of pain and suffering he is enduring on our behalf. My grandmother, Dad’s mom, lived a vibrant and active life until her 90’s. Although, and according to her, she was on her death bed for the last 30 years of her life. Being Texan sounds painful as you get older.

Whenever they’re in town we try to take them out to a new and different sight. There are many things to see and do in Tucson, and there is a great deal of history here. A European presence here dates back to the 1528 with the first Spanish explorers and prior to that there were native peoples dating back to prehistoric times. On this trip we took them to the Mission San Xavier del Bac and then to ‘A’ Mountain.

The Mission San Xavier del Bac is also known as 'The White Dove in the Desert'

The current structure that is the Mission San Xavier del Bac dates from the late 1700's, when Southern Arizona was part of New Spain. In 1783, Franciscan missionary Fr. Juan Bautista Velderrain began construction on the present church. He hired an architect, Ignacio Gaona, and used a large workforce of native peoples, the O'odham, to create the present building. Following Mexican independence in 1821, San Xavier became part of Mexico and the last resident Franciscan of the 19th Century departed in 1837. With the Gadsden Purchase of 1854, the Mission joined the United States and in 1859 San Xavier became part of the Diocese of Santa Fe. In 1866 Tucson became a diocese and regular services were held at the Mission, and have been held since. The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet opened a school at the Mission in 1872. Currently, the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity now teach at the school and reside in the convent.

The front, south, face of the Mission. The left tower has been fully renovated and the right tower is next.

The main structure is a testament to endurance. The summers of the Northern Sonora can be relentless and the monsoon rains have been known to take many a building in their runoff. However, since its completion in 1797 much care has been given to insure this cultural icon remains intact.

‘A’ Mountain is Sentinel Peak. Sentinel Peak tops out at 2,897 feet and is immediately west of downtown, just across the Santa Cruz river. It gets the name ‘A’ Mountain from the giant red, white and blue ‘A’ on its east facing slope. The idea for the ‘A’ began in 1914 after the University of Arizona football team defeated Pomona College in a big game. A civil engineering student on the team convinced one of his professors to include the project of creating the ‘A’ atop Sentinel Peak as a class assignment and on March 4, 1916, the ‘A’ was whitewashed onto the mountain, measuring 70 feet wide and 160 feet tall. The views from ‘A’ Mountain are quite spectacular. It’s not very wheelchair friendly but it was still worth the trip and will no doubt be a regular stop when we tour around visitors to the area.

'A' Mountain as seen from the Tucson Convention Center

So, winter is officially upon us, the holidays have past and the New Year lies before us. 2010 wasn’t that bad for us, by any measure, and 2011 looks to hold a number of opportunities and events. We have no major projects planned at the Casa and have yet to focus our thoughts towards our yearly ‘big vacation’, but that will happen. I turn the big Five-Oh this year and frankly, I feel a lot better than I thought I would, all things considered. It’s going to be a good year. I can feel it.

That’s all that has gone on in Saguaro Cliffs, my neighborhood. We’ll update you again the next time the excitement hits a fever pitch.

Down Town and the city beyond as seen from just under the giant 'A'

Dry and Wet and Light and Dark

2010-12-18T15:24:00.001-07:00

The week passed quietly in Saguaro Cliffs, my neighborhood. An unusually warm and dry winter has settled into Southern Arizona this year. If you’re a Tucsonan of any length of time you’re used to the dryness, the lack of water, but this winter is shaping up to be very dry. It rained a little this past Thursday, but just enough to make puddles and cause the scuppers on the roof to dribble. I guess you could call it a dry rain. We recorded 0.08 inches for this past storm, not much, by any measure.

I watered the cactus last Monday. This is not an activity that occurs frequently, if at all. A cactus, or cacti as they’re called when they congregate in groups, is an expertly adapted mechanism of water conservation. They can go months on end in dry waterless soil. With their roots outstretched just below the surface they are ready for even the slighted moisture. And when it arrives, they gather it fast and hoard it, like those people you hear about, in those houses, piled to the rafters with the mundane flotsam of life. So dense this accumulation of useless artifacts that their house would burn, and then smolder, for a month were it to catch fire. It’s not a healthy thing, to live like that, unless you’re a cactus in which case hoarding a little water can one day save your life. So, I watered the cacti.

Until Thursday, the last significant water any of our cactus had received was back in the first week of October. That was when the last big monsoon storm came through and dumped about an inch and a half of water one hour prior to the Neighborhood Watch potluck we were hosting. It had been hot that day and it was looking like we were going have a patio full of neighbors standing around in 98 degree heat. While this is not uncommon, it’s not desirable. Then, out of the clear blue sky, a thunderstorm formed that was the size of Phoenix. We had already setup most of the patio with tables and chairs, and installed the plastic table cloths. A day earlier the area had been cleaned with the shop vacuum (because everyone knows a blower cleans nothing, it just moves the dirt elsewhere). Then came the wind and rain; 40 mile per hour gusts, hail and the ever popular sideways rain. Chairs were folding and falling, or just skittering across the patio on their way to who knows where. The plastic sheets covering the tables were angrily slapping in the wind and small lakes and rivers were forming everywhere. Then the power went out, with 30 minutes to go before the guests would arrive.

Saguaro Cliffs is a friendly community and the folks who live here year-round know the havoc a blast like that can wreak as it passes. Alan from two houses up came down, dressed appropriately for a monsoon storm; shorts, t-shirt and a lightweight waterproof jacket. He helped chase down stray chairs, push water off the patio and generally achieve order from the recent deluge. In no time at all, the patio was re-readied and the power returned, 15 minutes prior to start time. The party lasted about five hours and thanks to the rain it was a balmy 75 until late into the evening. The backyard cacti benefitted greatly from that wet blast and no rain has been seen since. Now we are well into a dry, warmer than average winter.

It’s Snowbird season here in Southern Arizona. Snowbirds, for the uninitiated, flock to the desert southwest in droves this time of year. They’re easy to spot as they arrive looking quite pale, then immediately molt into a bright pink after which they shed a layer of skin and then gain a healthy pallor. They come here for the sunny winter days. We average over 300 sunny days a year here and with that much light pouring from the sky throughout the winter we are bound to attract our share of northerners. Snowbirds are used to a decidedly cooler climate, however. On days when it only reaches the low 50’s, and the average (sane) Tucsonan dons long pants, a jacket and a hat while Snowbirds can found in as little as swimwear. It gives me a chill thinking about it. This year’s warm winter has a few Snowbirds panting a bit; you can hear the Snowbird houses in the neighborhood, just listen for air-conditioning condensers kicking on and off.

The nights are long this time of year. I have a set schedule during the week. I am among the folks in Saguaro Cliffs that still work; therefore I need to be somewhere almost all weekdays. I go to get the paper at approximately the same time every day that I go to work, 5:35 am. This time of year the trips down the driveway can be very special, albeit a tad cold. We are in a phase, at the moment, where the moon is not up yet when I go get the paper.

The trip out and down the driveway is a trip to the west. The sky was amazingly clear and the stars were bright on this particular morning sojourn. I decided to slow down and take this one in. This particular morning it felt like I was out there in space, right there among the stars. There were so many stars, and they are so bright; from straight up overhead and all the way down to the tops of the Tucson Mountains. Movie-like it seemed so un-real. A special morning when all the earthly elements had come together over Tucson to provide a spectacular presentation of space and stars.

I glanced east, over my shoulder, and could see the faintest of faint glow of the coming day, but west was a silent, inky black, starry winter sky. It was cold but I wanted to stop, to take it in, I just had to. Amazing. Peaceful. Far off I hear a few coyotes and even farther the city starting to rustle awake. Life is short, life is fast. Sometimes, even though you’re freezing your ass off, you should stop, slow way down, and look up. The beauty. How lucky we are and even though we could use a little rain and the warmth of the past couple weeks feels like we’re being setup, I’ll take a morning like this, and keep it.

That’s all that has gone on in Saguaro Cliffs, my neighborhood. We’ll update you again the next time the excitement hits a fever pitch.

A winter sunrise, from last Tuesday.

Sitting

2010-12-12T14:40:00.006-07:00

We’re sitting for the next four days. At this point you say to yourself, “Excuse me, but we think it’ll probably be more than the next four days.” Well, by sitting what I mean is we’re babysitting. OK, not a baby, a dog. Poochie the dog.

Poochie lives here in the neighborhood with Michael, Ruth and the twins and they are off to Disney Land. The twins, Emma and Lila, have never been to the Magic Kingdom so the whole lead-up to this day has been top-secret so as to limit the extremely heightened state of excitement that inevitably occurs when two six year old girls find out they are going to the place where Snow White, Ariel, Belle and Cinderella live. So the day has come and the girls will meet their favorite Disney characters and Poochie will enjoy a little quiet and restful solitude at the Casa.

Poochie is a well behaved dog. She was very patient with us as we both ended up fumbling with our less-the-helpful hands at putting on her leash before taking her for a walk.

When I was young, grade school through high school, we had a dog named Tyke. Poochie reminds me of a female version of Tyke. They could be brother and sister the resemblance is so great. Poochie is a lot less hyper than Tyke and at my age I kind of like that. Poochie just wants to please and seems to understand when to be around and when to lie in the sun and relax. I’m no longer a dog person, but if (BIG if) we were to get a dog, one with Poochie’s personality would be perfect.

The Lovely One with gardening tools at the ready and Poochie enjoying the warm winter day. Note that both Poochie and The Lovely Gail are shoeless, must be a girl thing.

The Lovely Gail has wanted a dog, off and on, throughout the course of our marriage. Currently she is of the mind that a dog does not fit with our lifestyle. She does, however, like Poochie very much and is “dog sitter on retainer” for Michael and Ruth whenever the need arises. I think this is just enough dog exposure to sate her need for canine companionship. The Lovely One and Poochie go for walks and do a little gardening to pass the time and this seems to make them both happy.

A shot of Poochie at her level

I imagine we’ll have future opportunities to for those two to get together for extended periods. However, while Poochie seems welcome the quiet repose the Casa allows, we can tell she misses the twins and the energy they bring to the environment. For now though, The Lovely Gail has someone that will sit and listen attentively and not make dumb-ass remarks. It’s a nice change for the both of them.

Poochie checking out the front yard. She found very little humor in the holiday decoration behind her.

The Lovely One and Poochie headed out for a stroll.

And It All Went Downhill From There

2010-12-05T18:51:00.000-07:00

Today was an exceptional winter day here in The Old Pueblo. It’s December 5, and it topped out at 82 degrees and there was little to no wind. Beautiful. As we had written a few posts back, The Lovely Gail and our neighbor, Ruth, are building and perfecting trails out onto our property. They have made great progress. They mastered the art of mixing bags of quick-dry cement with the indigenous soils, spraying just the correct amount of water onto it and then tamping it firm (yes, we now own a $20 tamper from True-Value, to be used by the G&R Trail Company). The trail is shaping up nicely.

Yesterday The Lovely Gail had, at one point, ventured out onto the great untamed portions of our three acre island. She had made it all the way out to the “Thumb”, a 25 to 30 foot tall Saguaro with one four to five foot arm that we named as such during the construction of the Casa. She suggested we go back out there so I could see for myself just how cool looking back at the house from this new perspective was. So today, that is what we did.

The Lovely One admiring the "Thumb". From the living room, master bedroom and anywhere on the patio this is the main focal point, the visual interest, out on the property.

We knocked out the chores for the day, got on the trikes and headed out. We forged through crispy dry tufts of sage, past dangerous looking cacti and around jojoba bushes the size of small SUV’s. The terrain was rocky and otherworldly and the ride was rough. When we arrived, the trip was well worth it, in many ways. We took in the view, plotted and planned new trails and noted how many more Saguaros we have on our property that we just cannot see from the house. We then headed back and The Lovely Gail proceeded to gather large rocks (we’re talking 8 to 10 pounders here) and I decided to explore another part of the property. This is when things went haywire, literally.

The Casa as seen from out by the "thumb".

Traversing the terrain back.

Camera and cell phone safely stowed I headed east away from the pool towards the north wash, which is the approximate property line between us and Michael and Ruth’s house. I was about 20 yards out when my throttle cut in and out a couple times. I paused to assess the terrain and pick a course and that was it. Nothing, no power, no movement, nothing. I had plenty of battery, the lights all showed lit, but nothing from the throttle. Crap! I fiddled with various connections and tried all the trouble shooting tricks I knew (believe me, I’ve been repairing various aspects of these things for years, I know all the weak points).

The Lovely One came back out after several minutes to gather more rock and asked what I was doing. I explained and she promptly instructed me to call a neighbor and get myself out of there because I obviously was not having any success with my various attempts at a fix. I called our friend and neighbor, Dick. He’s a retired chemical engineer/Captain in the Navy. He came down and hiked out with a well-equipped toolbox in hand and we proceeded to test circuits and current. Ultimately, we ended up removing the main controller box and that is where we found the damage. A hot-wire in the main electrical clip had fried. It’s repairable, but not there in the desert behind the house. Crap again!

The Lovely One "rock'n out" as it were.

So, Dick took the 30 pound battery out and set it and his toolbox up on the edge of the pool. Without the weight of the battery, I could push the trike myself and started to cover a little ground and then was able to roll a ways down a gradual slope to a low spot. From there the trail was in good shape and Dick pushed me on out and around to the driveway back near the garages.

The trike is in the garage now and its heart is lying open with all its innards exposed on the workbench. I can replace the toasted clip, I think, but we’re still unsure of the cause. The fortunate thing about living in a city the size of Tucson is that almost anything you need is somewhere in town. And, to that end, there are a couple places that work on, and build, electric bikes. So, there is potential resource there. Additionally, I work with a guy who practically lives to fix these kind of things (recently he rebuilt his own refrigerator). The trike is down, but not out. Wish me luck.

The controller from my trike. If click on the picture and view it full size you can see a set of seven pins on a white base attached to the circuit board. the fifth and sixth are a tad crispy looking.

My trike, sans battery and controller. The Lovely Gail's, in the back, has both items in place.

Perspective...

2010-11-26T15:33:00.001-07:00

It is a cool and windy day but the rocks all around are getting hot. The dry air passes by quickly, you would never have known that only a week ago it had rained mercilessly, beating the rocks so hard that the smallest of them jumped like popcorn. Now, just dry air blowing.

The rocks seem big but maybe I am small. There is no perspective and the shadows are relative. The season is turning and soon the days, and the light that comes with them, will burn. Shadows are relative.

I have traveled some but not sure how far. I can still see the same rocks so maybe they are big, or maybe I have not gone very far. Everything seems up from where I am. Being close the ground is a plus.

Arid, barren, stark, unforgiving, all seem to work right now, except in the distance, something green. Like a knife blade piercing the sky, rising from the havoc of randomized rocks, alone, but not alone, because I see it. Standing against the wind in the desolate field of heated rocks, green, living, alive.

Suddenly perspective, the rocks are not large and the shadows are relative.

One saguaro and inspiration...

As in life, how formidable things are depends on perspective.

Things I Do

2010-11-17T18:01:00.002-07:00

There are things I do now, now that I live in Southern Arizona, which I didn’t do when I lived in Sonoma County. Things I never imagined, ever would imagine or didn’t take time to imagine, I now do. I had not thought much about them, at least I had not thought about them much until the other day.

The other day. It was late afternoon or almost early evening, I was driving back home out of the Tucson Mountains, down the east side, near Gates Pass. The long winter shadows of the mountains were stretching from the west across the valley and just ahead of the ominous muted shade the sun twinkled in the reflections of millions of tiny windows that lay beyond in the city. Like stars against a golden background. It was not usual for me to be there, on that road, at that time, but I was and that’s when it struck me how much this life changing move has impacted me. Not in the obvious ways, big and visible things, but these new things, these little things which never would have, or could have, happened in Sonoma County.

Bugs. Having, until recently, spent my entire life in the San Francisco North Bay, I’ve come to learn that I had not had any real problem bugs in that region. Sure, there were ants and spiders and occasionally termites but they never had much effect on my life. The bugs of the Sonora desert are a whole other thing. I never imagined that I would, one night, be in the hallway of my own home in my skivvies trying to use a bucket, towel and a fly swatter to catch a six-inch tarantula. Nor would I have thought that I would now be keenly aware that if you plan to kill a scorpion, you had better do it on the first swat because they are fast and erratic when agitated. I no longer put on shoes that have sat on the floor without first giving them a good shake, and if I pick-up any rock larger than a softball I move it first to see what may come out from under it. Also, if I encounter a bee that keeps bumping into me I head the other direction, because that is the first and early warning that Africanized bees are near. I pay attention to bugs here, more than I ever did up north.

Rodents. I have become somewhat adept at rodent removal and disposal living here in the desert. I can free dive to the bottom of the deep end of the pool and retrieve a drowned mouse with great skill and agility. I can tell the difference between squirrel, mouse and pack-rat droppings at a glance. I have sprayed a liquid repellant that smells like a putrid combination of old socks, stale urine and warm vomit around parts of my yard as a deterrent (but for whom I am unsure). And, I have drowned rats and mice in the pool then thrown them into the desert, where by the next day they are mysteriously gone.

Other. Once a week I push a garbage can 150 yards. It’s good exercise but the days of wind or rain can prove quite challenging. Luckily, it hasn’t snowed yet; it will one day. Over the past two years I have gone through 25 gallons of Round-up. Visitors look around and wonder why I need so much; that is the best complement they could give me on my work. I wash my cars in the garage, because it’s just too dang hot out there. And, I cell phone my wife from the mailbox, because it’s that far back to the house.

So, as I drive down out of Tucson Mountain Park having just released my eighteenth ground squirrel into its new home I feel more at home here in the Sonora Desert. These things I do are an integration, a settling into the environment I have chosen to live in, and with. I never noticed the sunsets until I moved here and this one in particular feels good. I think I will do it again.

Note from the Author: You’ll notice that this blog entry is different than all that have come before. This blog is in the first person. We, rather I, have never written an entry, in the past four and a half years of this blog, in the first person. Always the third person. So this is new for us, er… uh... me. So I ask your patience as I try this experiment. I want to further explore this writing talent that people think I have, and I think the blog may go through another evolution, wherein I explore the more creative side of my need to write. You may have noticed a little of that in some more recent entries. If you read something you like, tell me why. If you think something fell flat, I would like to hear your thoughts on that too. I am going to experiment here, with my writing, I may even share some of the fiction I’ve been working on (if I feel brave). I hope you don’t mind.

It's Turning Cold Again

2010-11-09T19:15:00.003-07:00

It’s turning cold, again. This is important in our lives, the turning cold. Cold is the enemy, the dark force. It is met with dread at the Casa. We moved to this place for the warmth and for eight to nine months of the year we’re comfortably, blissfully, happy no matter the heat. 110? 114? We say YES! But it’s turning cold again.

There are many reasons we dislike the cold so vehemently. It is hard to move gracefully with the clothes necessary to stay warm when it is cold. And ones hands; our fingers are achy and sore when it is turning cold. Like frozen, bony, protrusions they stick out bare to the elements and turn that icy painful red and cease to function. Yes, there are gloves, but they, like the cold, just inhibit graceful movement when it’s turning cold again.

Cold costs more than hot, in terms of weather. Heating costs, especially if you’re not willing to tolerate the cold. One needs more clothes when it’s cold, more blankets, more soup, more port wine. The body just needs more when it’s turning cold again.

When it’s turning cold again people get cranky and complain. They mope and sulk, they glare and scowl. They go on and on in self-absorbed written diatribes about how much they detest the short days and long nights, the stupid sight of ones breath, the pathetic…

Well, you get the picture. It’s turning cold again.

Damn it.

Trail Blazing!

2010-10-24T17:08:00.003-07:00

Our property is approximately 3.1 acres of Sonora desert. In the process of building our house, The Casa, we developed about three quarters of an acre of that land and left the rest as nature had ‘developed’ it. It is lush for desert land. Palo Verde trees, Jojoba bushes, at least 15 different types of cacti and probably five to eight different types of sage. It is mostly flat (ish) and beautiful to look at. Well, ever since we moved in the Lovely Gail has pined to venture fourth. To set foot, as it were, on our land, to assess our holdings, to survey the terrain, to… well, you get the picture. The past Friday was the first step in that direction.

This is an aerial picture of a small part of our neighborhood. This was taken in early June of 2010 (we can tell because if you look closely you can see the Lovely Gail's garden covered in shade cloth just to the right of the pool, we put that cover on in early June). We have outlined the approximate boundaries of our property so as to give you an idea of the area. Click on the image to see it full size.

Our neighbors are back in town for the winter. Michael, Ruth and the twins are wonderful and warm people from much cooler climes, somewhat west of the Twin Cities. Ruth, a Minnesotan, reminds us of that infamous tag line belonging to The Prairie Home Companion; “Where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking and all the children are above average”. That woman has a graceful and modest confidence, and can back it up by actions that make the handiest of handy-men envious. And, this past Friday she once again set the bar a tad higher.

That morning, before Don left to work, the Lovely Gail had mention that she and Ruth were going to continue planting native wild flower seeds out on the property. An effort that took root last week, to which belongs another adventurous story. As the day progressed, seeds were planted, chit-chat was exchanged and if-I-only-coulds were revealed.

An aside: Last year Ruth had cut a trail out onto their property. It was partly for herself and partly so the twins, both four at the time, could safely enjoy the desert up close.

By the time Don returned from work that afternoon, the Lovely Gail was located alongside the south wash, just below the hammer-head (the turn-around spot by the garages). Ruth, pruners and utility rake in hand, was about 30 yards into blazing a trail onto the wilderness of our property so the Lovely Gail could realize her dream of getting out there, beyond the already developed areas. Within the period of almost two and a half hours the two women had cut and raked and clawed their way to the far side of the pool. A successful day, no doubt.

The trail blazers hard at work.

The Lovely Gail and Ruth proceeded to navigate the trail a couple more times to ensure proper functionality and safety. They then called it good. This huge bit of generosity has made the Lovely Gail a happy girl. While the trail leads only to the immediate area beyond the pool, this is the area where another acre and a half are fairly flat and easily traversed in the trikes. From there the rest is easy.

Ruth and the lovely one surveying their work.

While it may look like The Lovely Gail and Ruth are in jail, it is actually the photographer that is confined, the lovely ladies are free to roam the property beyond the fence.

15 Seconds Of Fame

2010-10-11T10:26:00.003-07:00

Some friends up in northern California were we lived for many, many years, spotted us on TV last night. We had gone to this restaurant almost a year or so before moving to Tucson, it might have been our 15th anniversary; however, I am not sure. It is located about 10 minutes north of where we once lived, in a town called Windsor. The night we went, there was a crew a from a Bay Area video magazine taping footage for a show. We ended up in it but never saw the segment and figured it got cut. It was one of our favorite restaurants. If you ever take a wine country vacation Windsor is a fun town to walk around in and visit shops. There are other good restaurants there, but Mirepoix ranks high.

Here is the 3:12 segment:

Tucson Meet Yourself

2010-10-10T16:11:00.005-07:00

This weekend was Tucson Meet Yourself. It is a festival that celebrates the diversity of culture that makes up the population of Tucson. There are over a million people living in the Tucson metro area and over half of them live in Tucson proper. With that many people living in or around the Old Pueblo there is bound to be a good representation of the world’s cultures. Outside of the sheer beauty of the area, that is one of the main things that drew us here.

"Come on! Let's go get some food!" The Lovely Gail waits while Don gets his act together at the Presidio Park pavilion of the Tucson Meet Yourself festival.

Tucson Meet Yourself happens downtown. It is about the only place in Tucson where everything squeezes
together so tight that the town sprouts towards the sky. The buildings are tall downtown and that only adds to the metropolitan feeling of the event. This event was first put on in 1975 and still to this day bills itself as a “folk life” event. This year there were over 150 performers and folk artists and 60 different ethnic groups were represented.

Celebrating the Mexican-American car culture, there was a pretty cool Lowrider show, replete with jumping cars, massive hydraulics and all. (what a perfect blend considering the status of the automobile in America)

As we walked through the five areas downtown that contained the event we noticed so much going on. There was, of course, food; there were Croatian, Laotian, African, Caribbean, Swedish, Hungarian, Greek and many regions of Mexico and Latin America. We stopped for a refreshing Costa Rican papaya beverage before heading to the Laotian booth for food. We stayed a while at the convention center plaza stage to watch Mexican Folk Dance performed by Ballet Folklorico Tapatio. We then moved on over to the stage at La Placita Village to listen to Angel Diamond and the Blues Disciples.

As we moved about there was music, singing and the smell of good food, all in the air. It was a wonderful thing to see so many different people from so many different corners of the world peacefully and happily enjoying each other. Why is it that it can only happen on a small scale?

Here are a few images of the event, enjoy!

Ballet Folklorico Tapatio performing traditional dance

There was large food prepared by large people. This was the place to be if you wanted BBQ!

Setting under giant Mesquite trees enjoying some Chicago Blues

This was just too cool to pass up. A tricked out, custom painted, cut and chromed lowrider tricycle. Notice the diamond tuck velour upholstery, the ladies love that stuff!

Just a nice day downtown.

Humanity

2010-10-05T18:27:00.004-07:00

One of the places we visited while in Washington D.C. was the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. We thought we knew all we needed to know about this historic event, this stain on humanity, but not so. One cannot help but be touched, to feel something, upon visiting this place. A perspective unimaginable, heartbreaking to know it still happens in our “civilized” society.

The Holocaust was the state-sponsored systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Jews were the primary victims, and six million were murdered. Other were also targeted, the Roma (Gypsies), people with disabilities and Poles fell victim to the destruction and decimation for racial, ethnic, or national reasons. Millions more, including homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war, and political dissidents also suffered grievous oppression and death under Nazi tyranny.

Being persons with disabilities, we were particularly appalled by the atrocity inflicted on these mostly helpless people. Under the guise of “purifying” German society, 70,000 disabled and infirm German citizens were unwilling or unknowing participants in the Nazi’s so-called euthanasia programs. Judged “unworthy of life” they were killed in gas chambers or by lethal injection or poison between 1939 and 1941. Another untold number were used in various forms of medical experimentation which ultimately led to their death.

As a part of the self-guided tour you take on an identity of a Jewish person who may, or may not, have lived through the Holocaust. There are male and female people, depending on your gender preference, and the three pages take you through that person’s fate as you move your way through the three floors of the permanent exhibit. This approach further personalizes the experience. The fact that you randomly select your own identification card yet proceed in an orderly fashion through the museum seems to further symbolize the systematic and indiscriminate nature of this event.

The permanent exhibit concludes with recorded eyewitness testimonies about survival, rescue and resistance, as told by the individuals who lived it. We had already been in the memorial for two and a half hours when we arrived at this. This recording of people telling their personal stories and experiences of the Holocaust is a multi-hour loop. We sat for about an hour, listening. It was hard to leave and it was hard to stay. You feel something, hearing these stories. We felt something, something more than we ever expected.

This memorial is a place to learn and remember. Do not forget. Genocide is ancient and is still with us today in places like Darfur. The message housed in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is simple; do not forget, “for the dead and the living we must bear witness”.

Below are the Identification Cards we selected for our tour.

(Click on them to be able to read them)

Monumental

2010-10-01T16:19:00.004-07:00

Upon reviewing the images we captured while on our trip to Washington D.C. we noticed that we took quite a few of the Washington Monument. In retrospect, it seems quite likely that one would as it is predominant from almost anywhere we were while there. We did ultimately visit the obelisk, and take the trip to the top where we enjoyed a grand view. Should you choose to visit D.C. by all means visit the top. Know this however, during the summer months tickets (while free) are hard to get and are gone for the day by 8 am. Fortunately for us, September is in the low season and only an hour in advance were able easily get two tickets (at the late hour of 11 am!).

The anniversary couple doing that tourist thing.

The monument is 555 feet 5 1/8 inches tall and is the tallest obelisk and the tallest free-standing stone structure in the world, still today! Construction began in early 1848 but the monument was not officially completed until December 6, 1884. Construction was halted on the monument several times due to lack of funding, political differences, competing interests and the Civil War.

The monument remained largely one-third complete during the time between 1854 and 1879. In the aftermath of the Civil War interest rekindled and Congress appropriated $200,000 to finish the project. If you look closely at the pictures you will notice a difference in coloration of the stone about a third of the way up. That is the delineation between the two periods of construction.

The monument as seen from about a mile and a quarter away. Don shot this from Capitol hill, he and The Lovely Gail were on their way back to the hotel after having visited the Supreme Court.

Another interesting fact is that the very tip of the monument is capped by a 100 ounce cast aluminum tip which acts as a lightning conductor. At that time it was the largest single casting of aluminum in the world. Prior to 1886 smelting aluminum was a very expensive process and at the time the monument was completed the value of aluminum was equal to the value of silver.

The "classic" shot across the reflecting pool, length-wise, from atop the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Taken by the steady hand of the Lovely Gail.

And the reverse view of the picture above, as seen from atop the Washington Monument itself.

Seeing and visiting the Washington Monument was a fun and memorable experience for us. Here are a few more images of that venerable stone monument.

Up close! In this image you can see the coloration change where construction stopped then restarted in the mid 1800's.

The White House as viewed from the top.

The picture is from the FDR Memorial, south-west of the monument and across the the tidal basin near the Potomac.

Looking down the mall from near the Smithsonian Air and Space museum.

This is a panorama looking north from atop the Washington Monument. To the right of the White House and almost center frame is our hotel, the Willard Intercontinental. As you can see, we were situated in the center of the action. If you can, we recommend staying in close, it is far more convenient.
(Click on the image to see it full size)

A Garden Party

2010-09-24T19:06:00.005-07:00

The Lovely Gail in the Garden Court at the United States Botanic Garden

On our first full day in Washington D.C. we basically just hiked around, sort of getting the lay of the land, as it were. We left the hotel and walked down Pennsylvania Avenue, just taking it all in. The sculpted art and architecture are beautiful, immense and on a grand scale. Something inside you wants to photograph it all but reasoned judgment tells you that you’ll just end up with a few hundred shots of stuff you don’t recognize. We tried to be judicious in our image capturing endeavors.

The front of the Environmental Protection Agency. A beautiful architectural work.

Along the way we bought bottled water and stuffed them into an already full backpack. This later turned out to be an ill-advised decision as you are not allowed to bring that into the Capitol building, and Don just could not allow himself to toss four bottles that cost a buck seventy-five each. Needless to say, the Capitol tour occurred on a later date. So, we went over to the Supreme Court building, which was closed, and took a few pictures.

Don begins what turned out to be an unnecessary trek up the steps of the Supreme Court. After he reached the top the guard pointed out a ramp and elevator immediately to the left...

All we had on our agenda for that day was touring the Capitol, and that was scratched because of Don’s tremendous urge to pack four pounds of water and three pounds of miscellaneous other junk three and a half miles around downtown Washington. We headed back down the hill and referenced our map at the bottom. Right across the street from where we exited the Capitol grounds was the United States Botanic Garden, and with Gail suffering garden withdrawals from being away from the Casa, it made perfect sense; let’s go there!

The US Botanic Garden was founded and establish by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison on the National Mall in 1820. It was opened to the public in 1850 and has been in continuous operation ever since. The garden has over 60,000 different plants and displays them in 12 areas or environments. The most spectacular is the jungle, which resides in a glass conservatory that is 93 feet tall. There is an elevator that takes you from the jungle floor to the hot and humid canopy where is located a catwalk stretching around the entire perimeter. This was not on our list of things to see but we’re glad we stumbled across it.

A view of the Jungle canopy from the upper catwalk inside the main conservatory at the U.S. Botanic Garden

On the way back to the Hotel we trekked down the National Mall, largely because it was shaded and flat. About halfway back we visited the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden. Here there are located some rather large pieces. The piece that most struck us was Puellae (Girls), by Polish sculptor Magdalena Abakanowicz, a haunting piece about which you can read more by clicking here. While all art is personal we both found the garden enjoyable and thought provoking.

Here are a few more pictures on the topic of Architecture and the Botanic Garden.

In the foreground is the U.S. Navel Memorial with The Lovely Gail in the center. In the background is the National Archives building.

Looking down from the catwalk we see Don lost in the humid jungle.

Beautiful and colorful orchids at the Botanic Garden

Don had some difficulty believing that we had flown all the way across the country to Washington D.C. so The Lovely Gail could study cactus and succulents. What the heck is that all about??!!

Located outside the Federal Trade Commission was this masculine and massive sculpture titled Man Taming Commerce.

The Lovely Gail pausing to think in front of the modern and whimsical sculpture Thinker On A Rock at the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden.

The Hub of Democracy

2010-09-21T10:57:00.007-07:00

We had never been to our nation’s capital before. We are aware of the history that has brought this country to where it is today, and we know (to a greater degree than the average) the functioning of our government and the state of the political landscape. It is safe to say that we are aware but not immersed and that we are engaged but not consumed. This vantage point serves us well as we were able to see a great deal more in Washington D.C. than we ever expected as one can see more from the center than from the distance of one side or the other.

What a Surprise!

The North Side, looking south. Most visible is the wing that houses the Senate. When the flag is flying over this wing it means the Senate is in session.

We were lukewarm to the idea of touring the Capitol Building. We had heard mixed reviews regarding tour content, what you see and what you don’t. We did, however, want to tour the Library of Congress and the Supreme Court, so we figured, why not see the Capitol since we’re already on the hill. It was worth the time. Prior to the tour there is a 15 or 20 minute video presented in a very impressive theater. These type videos usually are a way to fill time and usually are not too good; this was the complete opposite. An extremely well done production that stands a good chance and making even the most jaded and apathetic American feel a twinge of patriotism. We both gained a new found appreciation, or maybe a recalibration, for the many voices, views and perspectives that come together in eventual compromise to form the ideals and beliefs that are America.

The front of the U.S. Capitol.

The Capitol rotunda is hugely impressive, and beautiful. It is 180 feet and 3 inches from the floor to the canopy where is located a beautiful fresco called The Apotheosis of Washington. Further down, forming a ring at the base of the dome is a frieze which contains a painted panorama depicting significant events in American history. From the rotunda we visited the old Senate Chamber which was used from 1810 to 1859, then we visited George Washington’s crypt located under the floor of the rotunda (President Washington is not there, however. He, and his tomb, is in Mt. Vernon). We then saw the old Supreme Court Chamber which was used from 1810 to 1860. Due to a Congressional event we were not able to tour Statuary Hall.

The panorama frieze around the base of the dome. Click on this (or any) image to see it full sized and on the right you'll see the Wright Flyer and its creators at Kitty Hawk. That marks the end of the frieze and just to the right of that is Columbus founding the New World, the beginning of the frieze.

It was, we felt, a worthwhile tour. We learned a lot and had an opportunity to experience firsthand the governing house of a free democratic society. Regardless of where you may stand, politically, visiting this place is nothing but a good thing. It may seem that our nation is more divided than ever but, in fact, this is how we as a people do it. E pluribus unum - Out of many, one.

Here are more photographs of on the topic of our visit to the U.S. Capitol.

The east face, or the back of the Capitol

The house chair of the old Senate chamber

The Apotheosis of Washington in the eye of the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol was painted in the true fresco technique by Constantino Brumidi in 1865. In the central group of the fresco, Brumidi depicted George Washington rising to the heavens in glory, flanked by female figures representing Liberty and Victory/Fame. Surrounding the central group are
War , with Armed Freedom and the eagle defeating Tyranny and Kingly Power.
Science, with Minerva teaching Benjamin Franklin, Robert Fulton, and Samuel F.B. Morse.
Marine, with Neptune holding his trident and Venus holding the transatlantic cable, which was being laid at the time the fresco was painted.
Commerce, with Mercury handing a bag of money to Robert Morris, financier of the American Revolution.
Mechanics, with Vulcan at the anvil and forge, producing a cannon and a steam engine.
Agriculture, with Ceres seated on the McCormick Reaper, accompanied by America in a red liberty cap and Flora picking flowers.

Looking down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Hotel towards the Capitol.

Looking towards the U.S. Capitol from the top of the Washington Monument. (Cool!!)

The Happy Couple on their way back to the Hotel after a day of tours and a few miles of pushing. Here we are in front of the National Archives. Except for one day, the weather was perfect.

Prickly Perspectives

2010-08-15T14:09:00.003-07:00

The Sonora Desert can be a harsh place to live, and while this fact remains, this desert is uniquely lush and diverse in plant and wildlife. We’ve written on numerous occasions in the past about the animals and birds we have seen around the Casa, today we want to share with you some of the more ‘defensively prepared’ plant life which are native to the Sonora Desert.

There are over 2000 species of plant that are native and unique to the Sonora Desert and the Sonora Desert is the only place in the world where the giant Saguaro (pronounced: \sə-ˈwär-ə-ō\) cactus grows wild. We think people have a misconception of what a desert can be. The Mohave Desert is very dry, the Sarah desert, well you get the picture. The Sonora is very surprising. It has two rainy seasons with the summer being the wettest and is remarkably lush given the climate. With such a varied environment we've been able to add quite a bit of beauty and variety to our landscaping. The added benefit is minimal water usage. Of our three acres of property, three-quarters of an acre are landscaped, the rest is natural desert, and our water bill runs about $18 a month.

Below are a few interesting shots of some of the native plants with which we have chosen to adorn our property.

This is a Fishhook Pin Cushion cactus. This one is not quite three inches tall and is currently in bloom as of the writing of this entry. The flowers are about a quarter inch across.

These are Golden Barrel cactus. They are easily cultivated and pretty common in landscaping and widely available in nurseries. An interesting fact, however, is that they are rare and critically endangered in the wild.

This is a Mexican Fencepost cactus. Commonly called the Fence Post cactus because it has for many years been used and cultivated as a fence for livestock.

Here is a close up shot of a Fishhook Barrel with flower buds ready to bloom. These are the cactus you see in those old western movies where stranded people cut them open for water. However, if you were to actually do that you would get very little water and violently ill. They're best just to look at.

Purple Prickly Pear. These, in contrast the the Fishhook barrel, are edible and make for a tasty meal (so we hear). They are native to Sonora and extended cold temperatures and drought cause them to turn a darker purple.

Ocotillo (pronounced: Oak-oh-tea-yo) are an odd plant not of the cactus family. Most of the year they look like nasty and mean thorny dead sticks. But twice a year, after even a small amount of rain, little green leaves sprout all up and down its branches and bright red flowers bloom at the top. Humming birds love the flowers.

These are two small Mexican Fire Barrels. They are named for their red spines. These are very slow growing and may live for up to fifty years. We'll probably not see these mature in our lifetime.

This is looking down at the crown of a relatively young Saguaro. This one is about 18 to 20 inches tall and probably 10 to 15 years old. They say these sprout their first arm at around 75 years and will live to over 200 years.

This map shows the areas that are a part of the Sonora Desert.

Dogs and Cats

2010-07-14T19:47:00.001-07:00

While the monsoon season is upon us, this entry is not about torrential rains. Maybe soon though. No, It seems there is some debate here in town with regards to what is, and is not, a Sonora dog. Recently, the local paper judged 13 of the Tucson more well known and popular hot dog carts. Naturally, heated debate ensued. A few of the contenders take a slightly different spin on the world famous dog and a couple do a Sinaloa style dog; which really stokes the fire because Sinaloa and Sonora are two different states in the country of Mexico. One thing we know for sure is, if it is not wrapped with bacon then it is not a Sonora dog. At any rate, we thought we would share with you the article on the contenders and top dog of Tucson (click here).

This is a Sonora dog, with all the necessary goodies.

This is not a Sonora dog (however, it may be a dog from Sonora, we're not sure).

And this was just fall-on-your-butt-funny!

Rocky Update…

2010-07-08T16:49:00.001-07:00

Well, since our post of June 22, we’ve had opportunity to become well familiar with Ammospermophilus harrisii (Harris’ Antelope Squirrel). As of today we have caught and released 10, yes 10, of the little buggers. We have found a nice spot up in the park and we’re sure each time we set free another it’s a happy reunion, complete with tales of giant white fleshy monsters covered in cloth.

In honor of our tenth catch, here are a few fun facts about the Antelope Squirrel, courtesy of Pima Community College.

DESCRIPTION: Wt=4-5 oz (113-150g); L about 8.5-10" (22-25cm), without 3-4" (74-94mm) tail that commonly is held over back. Overall tan to gray above, white below. They have a white stripe on both sides of their body but not through their face (as do Cliff Chipmunks -- Eutamias dorsalis -- that live at higher elevations). Tail is mixed black and white below, compared to just white below in other antelope squirrels.

NATURAL HISTORY: It is omnivorous, feeding on fruits and seeds and the occasional insect or mouse. It is also diurnal and is active year-round. Because it is adapted to tolerate hyperthermia, it often is the only small mammal seen during the hottest parts of the day in summer. They will scurry around collecting seeds and storing them in their cheek pouches until their body temperature climbs to near lethal, then they will duck into the shade, often spreading eagle in the cool soil, to cool their temperature back down enough to go back out in the sun again. In winter, they feed on stored food underground, but they do not hibernate.

One of many Rockies, on a rock of course!

(Now you can see why we catch and release them. They're so darned cute!)

Gail the Gardener!

2010-06-27T19:20:00.006-07:00

We’re sure you have heard of ‘Bob the Builder’, well, now you know ‘Gail the Gardener’. As a part of last year’s backyard install, we added a raised bed for a garden. This past winter saw red beets, green onions, bok-choy, lettuce greens and a non-productive attempt at brussel-sprouts. Summer has us enjoying fresh basil and parsley, as well as a bumper crop of various types of tomato. Oh, and very soon, poblano chilies too!

The Lovely Gail started all her tomato plants from seed way back in January. Each bush is a different type and that is so we can see which breeds do best here in the Sonora Desert. So far, they’re all producing except one, the Black Krim. Looks like we'll not be trying to grow those again. The others, Heat Wave, Sweet 100’s (cherries) and Early Girls, are going gang busters. Also popping up in the shadow of all this is Dill, planted from seed, and a cilantro sprout. Below are a few pictures of the horticultural happenings.

The proud Mom

We've harvested plenty already and more are on the way. It is amazing the multitude of ways one can prepare these suckers!

One of the Poblano plants.

The Garden. Don built a scaffold and The Lovely Gail found custom cut 30% shade cloth on the web for cover. The shade cloth serves two purposes, one is to reduce the intense sun by 30% and the other is to obscure the fruits and vegetables enough that various birds and critters can't tell they're there and don't try to ravage our garden (like they did the first year we move here, a lesson well learned!).

Animal Kingdom

2010-06-22T19:15:00.003-07:00

It seems that wildlife is making itself at home here at the Casa. We were visited by a rather large King Snake about two weeks back. They are always welcome at the Casa as they are capable of killing and devouring a Rattle Snake, and they are not poisonous. The Lovely Gail spied the snake mid-morning as it was resting on the front walk about 10 feet from the entry. By the time she grabbed the camera the snake had made its way under a nearby sage bush.

It seems The Lovely Gail has a knack for fauna finding. Not more than a week ago while she was out watering the potted plants on the patio, a bird of some sort suddenly burst from the asparagus fern and flew off. The next day it happened again. Curious, she lifted away a handful of fern to find several Quail eggs. Now that we’re aware of the situation we’re careful to water the far side of the pot and not disturb the fern too much.

Earlier this spring we hired a handyman to rabbit-proof our backyard. He did a good job and it has been quite effective at keeping out rabbits, large snakes and the pack rats. Ground squirrels, however, are hardly slowed by this new obstacle. They sprint about the yard with impunity, digging in the garden beds and pots and eating the succulent plants. Not to mention the little squirrel poops everywhere. To combat this we bought a Have-A-Heart trap, one of those catch and release type traps. After about a week, we finally caught one of the two little terrors. Don took him for a ride in the Mustang up into Tucson Mountain Park, about four miles west of the Casa, and set it free to start a new life, elsewhere.

Other happenings included Don taking a swim with a Road Runner and an entire Quail family stopping by the pool one morning for a drink. Who needs pets! Here are a few pictures of our visitors.

This is about all we could capture of the King Snake as it headed for cover.

Here The Lovely Gail shows us the Quail eggs stashed away in with the fern.

This is Rocky I (The Lovely Gail named our squirrels after 'Rocky The Flying Squirrel'). He's a little camera shy and was trying to hide under the bait tray.

This is Don swimming with the Road Runner. You can see the bird drinking at the far end of the pool.

How cute is this? An entire family of Quail out for a morning thirst quencher.

Hot, Dry Dirt

2010-05-22T10:33:00.006-07:00

Summer is fast closing in on us here in the Old Pueblo. All the snowbirds are gone, the university is out for the summer and only the heartiest of tourists (and the odd, unfortunate business traveler) can be spotted amongst the locals. While the “official” temperature has not topped 100, certain places around the valley have.

Late May and June can be blistering. Weeks at a time with no clouds in sight and a sun so hot you need an oven mitt to open your car door. Looking out across the valley on those days when it seems like the air is barely moving you can see them, towering 100 to 200 feet or more above the town and desert. Some are as big around as a house others with the diameter of a baseball field; dust devils, strong, well-formed, and relatively long-lived whirlwinds.

We see them a lot this time of year, up until the monsoon season. Most often between 11 AM and 4 PM, when the sun is high and the temperature is still rising. It’s usually calm all around them but they’re like a wind tunnel of sand, dirt and loose garbage if you get caught in one. From a distance it looks like a column of smoke, except it’s brown and you can see bits of paper and other debris flying about. We’ve seen them coming as we drive, from a half mile away. As you close in and realize you and it are going to meet, you roll up your windows and seal yourself in. Then, for 30 seconds or so, you see dirt, dust and hear the sound of fine sand and small pebbles hitting your car. Then it is over.

Late May and June bring us these; spooky, wandering pillars of swirling hot dust. Like ghostly figures roaming the valley looking for something they cannot find. They appear, search aimlessly, and then disappear. Fascinating to see, they are just another incarnation of the many visitors to Tucson.

...

Bird Strike!

2010-05-02T19:22:00.001-07:00

No, the birds aren’t on strike. Although, there are a few in the area that should stick to walking. Those of you familiar with the Casa know that one of the great features of its design are the huge windows that face Northeast. Well, it’s not uncommon for the occasional bird to glance off one now and then. Usually it’s nothing too serious because they realize at some point they’ve made a mistake and pull up, and thereby lessen the impact. However, every so often we get a Darwin award winner. About three days ago we both were in the office when we heard a very serious impact with the North facing window in the living room. A Morning Dove (a 1.5 pounder) hit head-on at full speed. It didn’t hurt the window but it did leave one heck of a mark. And the bird, well Don ferried it to the nearby wash where some lucky coyote later stumbled across a free lunch.

Below is a couple fascinating images left by the inattentive flyer…

We don't think it knew what hit it, or rather, what it hit.

It must have been going fast when it hit because it was startlingly loud and the remains were six feet back from the glass wall.

Picacho Peak

2010-03-21T17:59:00.005-07:00

If you’re traveling along I10 about 35 miles north of Tucson you can’t help but notice Picacho Peak. At 3,374 feet, its summit is 1,500 feet above the freeway and stands like a sentinel, distinctly visible from 25 to 30 miles away. We had driven by it many times in the past, today we made a point to stop.

The wild flower season is in full swing here in the northern Sonora Desert and we had heard that the desert poppy show at Picacho could be quite amazing if you timed it right. Well thanks to this year’s rains we were treated to quite a show. The desert floor is covered in a carpet of green right now and swaths of color are everywhere. It was very pretty. There were of course poppies, but there were also Lupine, Penstemon, Brittlebush, Globe mallow and more. It won’t last much longer, so we’re glad we got out to see it.

Picacho Peak is certainly worth a visit, even when the wild flowers aren’t in bloom. If you’re a hiker there are numerous trails, one of which will take you to the peak’s summit. Unfortunately, the same poor budgeting and future planning that is afflicting most state and local governments will be impacting Picacho Peak as well. The state is closing it June 3, 2010, for an indefinite period of time. We’ll keep you posted.

This is Picacho Peak from about 5 miles south on I10

The green carpet. Thanks to the rain the desert is covered in green.

There were thousands and thousands of these! We have several patches of poppies on our property also.

Brittlebush, up close.

Mojave Lupine at Picacho Peak.

The north face of the peak awash in poppies.

The East face of the peak. This is the side you see from the freeway as you go by.

Girl's Gone Wild!

2010-03-03T16:48:00.003-07:00

This past weekend we were visited by Gail’s sister Sharmy, Gail’s niece Liz and Gail’s grand-nephew Amarre. What fun we had! Sharmy had been to the Casa before, when it was still a construction site. So for her it was a chance to see what all those 2x6’s had become. It was the first visit for Liz and for Amarre, being two years old, it was all strange and new.

They flew in on the last Thursday of February and stayed until the first day of March. During their visit they were able to get a taste of the Tucson experience, literally. On Friday Gail took them to the Sonora Desert Museum where they were able to experience all the diversity our desert geography has to offer. Day two brought the Reid Park Zoo, where Don wanted to see the new baby Zebra, but didn’t. After the zoo we stopped by El Nene and picked up a bunch of Sonora Dogs (see the Jan. 30 post). On Sunday, a day that set a single day record for rain, we went to a place that Don and Gail never knew existed until about two weeks before our guest’s visit; the Tucson Children’s Museum. All the adults found the Children’s Museum to be both entertaining and exhausting. The day prior Sharmy, Liz and yes, even Amarre, had made Gail her favorite cake for her Birthday, strawberry cake. So on Sunday, after a nice dinner out at Miss Saigon, we came home and celebrated The Lovely Gail’s Birthday. A wonderful time was had by all!

The gang at the Sonora Desert Museum

Post lunch festivities at the Desert Museum

The Lovely Gail awaits further instruction as Amarre studies the zoo map

Monkeys!!

Out front at the zoo.

Those whacky Kemper girls! I guess "The Children's Museum" is a figurative title...

And here we are at Hooter's... Oh wait! This is the Children's Museum, what the heck is going on here??!!

"Paging Doctor Amarre!"

Fun at the Children's Museum.

Sad...

2010-02-23T17:41:00.002-07:00

We just found out today that a long-time and dear friend passed away last night. We're very sad. We cried, we toasted him and we cried. He will be missed.

.

Casa Grande Ruins

2010-02-06T10:50:00.002-07:00

No, nothing awful has beset the Casa...

This past Friday we took a trip north to visit the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument. It is located next to the town of Coolidge, about an hour and 15 minutes from the Casa de Lively. It’s a very interesting and informative archeological site with the remnants of many rather large adobe like structures surrounded by a compound wall. It is known to have been constructed by the Hohokam people, who farmed the Gila Valley from the early 300s until their abandoning the site in the mid-1400s. It is believed that the structures at the monument were built in the 1200s.

This place is certainly worth a visit as it provides a wonderful opportunity to understand and appreciate the pre-European influenced North American continent.

This is looking north. The main structure, a three story communal house, is covered by a huge metal ramada to protect it from further erosion. What's interesting is that the metal structure was built in 1932, a rather modern looking structure for its time.

This is looking west. The people standing in front give a size perspective.

The Lovely Gail pausing at the southeast corner. The ground is very hard packed and quite easy to traverse.

These are the remains of some out buildings, or dwellings, that were constructed up against the compound wall.

A close-up view of the interor of the main structure.

Don at the outer compound wall.

Sonora Dogs!

2010-01-30T13:46:00.007-07:00

Don had his first Sonora Hot Dog the other day. He’ll be having one of those again soon. And, if you try one we think you’ll agree, it only takes one and your hooked.

The Sonora Dog is a uniquely Mexican street food, or more accurately, meal in a bun. Locally, the most authentic dogs come from Aqui Con El Nene, a hot dog cart/street vendor in a parking lot at the corner of Flowing Wells and Wetmore. If you like to eat your food indoors then the first choice is El Guero Canelo on Oracle near Grant.

A Sonora dog is traditionally a cart-served bacon-wrapped dog with available garnishes including beans, guacamole, fried onion, salsa, and chilies. These are considered one of the most Gourmet foods in the world, as stated by Gourmet Magazine. Sonora hot dogs date back as far as the 1960s, but they did not become popular in Tucson until the 1980s, according to Maribel Alvarez, a University of Arizona folklorist who has researched the common street food for the Tucson Meet Yourself festival. There are many variations, but in general, all Sonora dogs are wrapped in bacon, placed in a soft Mexican bun and topped with numerous condiments such as beans, mustard, mayonnaise, onions, tomatoes, cheese and jalapenos. There may be as many as 260 Sonora hot dog stands in Tucson, Alvarez estimated.

So, if you haven’t tried one of these treats we recommend you do. While their cultural roots are Mexican they too are what make Tucson Tucson.

Here the chef shows off a well-dressed Sonora hot dog, ready to eat. Note the roasted guero pepper at the front right of the paper tray. The pepper, like a fair-complexioned jalapeno, is the Sonora hot dog's traditional companion.

Here's an excellent example of a traditional Sonora dog. Important to note is the bun. It's kind of like a hot dog bun but not open at either end. That, and a few other minor subtleties, is the difference between a Mexican bun and an American bun. Be leery of anything calling itself a Sonora dog that doesn't look close to this when served.

The El Nene "cart" at Flowing Wells and Wetmore.

The kitchen at El Nene.

No Longer Parched

2010-01-22T17:42:00.004-07:00

Up until the 17th it was turning out to be a rather boring January. You know the kind of January I’m talking about; a seemingly endless string of 70 degree or better days, nights in the low 40’s, etc. Well that all changed this week. While we may not have received the voluminous rain totals the West coast did, we here in Southern Arizona did feel the impact of a ‘once in a decade’ storm.

Tucson set a record for most rain ever recorded on January 22 at 1.02 inches. It snowed and rained so much up on Mount Lemon that the Rillito River was running, bank to bank! This is a rare and exciting thing as the Rillito is dry about 360 days a year, on average. Also, the National Weather Service issued a Tornado Watch for Pima and Pinal counties, west from Tucson to half way to California. That was a little unnerving, but the night passed uneventfully. They’re forecasting snow tonight down to 3,000 feet (the Casa is at 2,662).

So, while the rest of the country will probably not think much about the weather we experienced the last few days, for us here in the northern reaches of Sonora, it was quite the storm. The rain was welcome by us and all the trees and cacti. Below are some picture of the ‘aftermath’.

This is the Rillito River at La Cholla Blvd at about 8:15 AM. This is about 100 yards outside Don's office window.

The pool at about 9:30 AM, filled to overflowing!

Transformed overnight from a negative-edge pool to an infinity-edge pool!

Winter Rain!

2010-01-19T19:12:00.001-07:00

Rain, down here, is an exciting thing. In some places rain is looked upon with dread and disdane. Not here in the northern Sonora Desert. And, over the next few days things look promising. Besides keeping the dust at bay, the rain makes our desert green and keeps the wildlife out in the wild. The monsoon this past season is being referred to as the "nonsoon" as it left us well under our yearly 12 inches a season. This water season has started off poorly as well. In December we received only .3 inches of rain, the last smattering falling way back on December 22. As much as we disliked the rainy season in Northern California we want to see just a little here. The wild critters, large and small, that roam the desert out where we live are eating plants and roots they normally would not touch. This makes keeping a yard in the rural reaches of Tucson that much more difficult. At any rate, it looks like we're in for a reprieve tonight. Word from California is that this one's a whopper. We've got out fingers crossed. Bring it mother nature, bring it!

The five day prognostication...

To Our Friends: Happy New Year!!

2009-12-31T12:36:00.002-07:00

Well, another year has past and life moves ahead. Wonder what is in store? Honestly, given the tumultuous nature of this year past for our fellow inhabitants of the planet we can’t complain. That’s not to say we’ve gone without discomfort or inconvenience, but it is all relative. On the whole it was neither a standout nor an ordeal. Would we do this one again? No, but that’s the point. Life is about moving ahead, looking forward with eyes front in eager anticipation of the next challenge, good or bad. After all, there are more victories than failures in our lives.

A toast the victories of the past and those yet to come! Happy New Year!

Winterhaven

2009-12-25T11:26:00.001-07:00

Every year a neighborhood here in Tucson decks out in lights and decorations for the holiday season. The neighborhood, Winterhaven, has been doing this since 1950. We have wanted to go since moving to Tucson but it seemed like schedules never worked out. This year, however, we were able to go and Don’s folks, who were visiting for the holiday, joined us as well.

It was far more than we expected. The people of the neighborhood really go all out. While not every house participates, most do. Below are a few images of our Christmas Eve trip to the Winterhaven Festival of Lights.

Here the Happy Couple pose in front of a display done by a family who has been decorating their house in lights for 45 consecutive years. Yes, since 1964!

Don's Mom and Dad strike a pose...

There were several hay-ride operators. To see the entire neighborhood is to walk about three and a half miles so some opt to ride.

This is "Grinch and Grouch". They were a part of an all "green" display made entirely of recyclable materials.

This ginger bread house was one of the award winners.

This tree won "Best Lighted Tree".

There was even a mini Bellagio. Lights and water fountains all coordinated to music! No doubt a Raytheon engineer with too much free time.

The High Season

2009-11-21T13:59:00.003-07:00

The high season has officially kicked off at the Casa. It started last weekend with a four night visit from our long time friend from Northern California, Bob. Bob works in the wine and hospitality industry and, thanks to the current economic climate, is “in between assignments”. So his lovely wife, in an effort to get him out of the house, sent him our way for an extended weekend. Good fun was had by all!

Our next guest will be our friend Mark. He winters in Carefree, north of Scottsdale, and summers on the Sonoma coast. He’ll be joining us overnight for Thanksgiving. After that Don’s folks do a three nighter for Christmas then The Lovely Gail’s sister, niece and grand nephew (yes, three generations, how cool is that?!) will be here right around her birthday in February. After that the next scheduled visitors are our dear friends Dick and Lynn in June. So, if you’re planning a visit the Casa is booking up fast!

The Happy Couple out for a stroll in the desert at Sabino Canyon National Park. If you come down, don't miss this stop. Especially if you're a hiker.

Bob literally fell in love with the place!

Pandemic Preclusion Ploy?

2009-11-06T13:32:00.006-07:00

No, even though most of the planet is in a panic regarding H1N1 (and we Americans love our hysterias), the Lovely Gail is fending off allergens. Seems our Princess’s delicate schnozzola is adversely impacted by airborne deviants this time of year. So, in an effort to comfortably enjoy gardening and other outdoor activities around the house (like rock moving) Her Royal Sweetness is taking preemptive action. She is definitely a much happier camper since implementing this precautionary protective procedure.

(...Click the pics to see them full resolution)

Madera Canyon

2009-10-28T15:16:00.005-07:00

Fall is a nice time of year to get out and look about and this past weekend was a perfect example. On what is starting to look like the last mid-eighties weekend this year we decided to get out of town for the day and head south to a beautiful canyon located at the base of the Santa Rita Mountains, south and east of Green Valley. Madera Canyon is a beautiful retreat from the familiar Sonora Desert low scrub and cactus. The elevation ranges from 4,500 feet at the ranger station near the entrance to 5,400 feet at the “Roundup” picnic area at the end of Madera Canyon road.

There are 0.7 miles of accessible trails that connect the first two picnic areas, Proctor and Whitehouse. We went for a short hike from the Proctor area. The views across the valley and up towards Tucson are spectacular! Next we drove up the canyon to the very end and had a picnic. We had bought some sandwiches before leaving town and it was rather nice to sit among the pine trees and relax. We also saw a few birds that you don’t usually see down in the desert valleys. Afterwards we made a slow and unhurried drive back down to Interstate 19 where we cruised north back to the casa.

Looking east. That farthest mountain range with the bump about center frame is Kitt Peak.

Don practicing his John Muir imitation

This is looking north towards the Santa Catalina Mountains and Tucson.

A Casual Night Out

2009-10-18T11:59:00.003-07:00

We’re in the midst of a late October heat wave. Yesterday topped out at 99 degrees, officially a record, but up where we live it bested 100. Needless to say, most of the plans we made for an active and productive weekend were delayed largely due to the fact that it was just getting too hot to move too quickly.

The morning was productive. Gail planted a couple plants and moved a few rocks and Don sprayed weeds around the property and put a new set of tires on his chair. Things slowed dramatically after that. At about noon an hour long siesta ensued, followed immediately by rather sluggish movement. A few more things got done but as the temperature approached the upper 90’s the day had taken a decidedly more relaxed and unhurried pace. Our plans for the evening looked to include an old cabernet, two BBQ’d New York steaks and a movie.

At about a quarter to three we received a call from one of our neighbors, and dear friends, Lauren and David. They wanted to know if we were interested in going out to one of the local Mexican restaurants for dinner. Sure! As you can imagine, Tucson is swimming in Mexican restaurants, and they span the entire range of quality so it’s always nice to find one we’ve not been to that is good. El Sabroso on Grande Avenue, just off Saint Mary’s, is one of those finds. We enjoyed delicious food, good margaritas and wonderful company.

After dinner, at about 7:30, there was a breeze blowing and it was still comfortably warm. David suggested ice cream and the recommendation met little resistance. So we loaded up the van and drove about a mile to a Carvel’s ice cream where we sat outside until just after nine at night eating sundaes and other decedent concoctions. All spontaneous and all wonderfully enjoyable.

Thanks Lauren, thanks David, for not letting us miss another one of Tucson’s wonderful features; a casual night on the town enjoying 80 plus degree weather at nine at night …in late October.

We took this shot of the full moon rising over Tucson and our pool a couple weeks back. It too was a nice evening to be outside.

Rats!!!

2009-09-12T11:18:00.003-07:00

Fished out our first floating mammal last night. It was some species of pocket mouse. The Lovely Gail spotted it when she and Don went out to do the weekly water test. She promised to scream like a frightened school girl if Don would perform the deed of removal and disposal. She didn't scream, instead, she ran off and got the camera. So, for your viewing pleasure, a Casa Kodak moment!

Obviously, swimming lessons are in order here...

Bobcat

2009-09-11T10:11:00.006-07:00

In the time since we moved into the Casa we have seen Bobcat five or six times. They're a solitary animal and tend to prowl about around sunrise and sunset. Only once have we seen one mid-day and we think on that day it was headed to the neighboring house to drink from the fountain they have out front.

Today, Don saw one walk by the bedroom windows as he was getting dressed to go to work. It's always an unexpected sight, seeing a cat that size strolling two feet out your window. It didn't seem to be in any hurry. A healthy animal, it was about 18 inches tall at the shoulder and still had its light, spotless, summer coat. We figure it was looking for rabbits or pack rats as they are out in force that time of day. We like seeing them and the snakes around, they are our "all natural" rodent control. The EPA would be proud...

This Bobcat atop a Saguaro is not an unusual sight although we did not take this picture. Unfortunately, we've not had the camera ready when we've sighted Bobcat.

This too is a Bobcat and we've seen these around the Casa a few times also.

Back To "Normal"

2009-08-29T13:26:00.005-07:00

Well our big backyard project is all but done. The pool is complete save for painting the stucco on the outside. All the pumps are primed and working and the appropriate chemical balance of the water has been achieved. The landscaping is 95% complete, there are a few small items outstanding on the punch-list and the contractor isn't entitled to their final payment until they finish (their little 1/2 yard loader is still here also, so we're sure we'll see him again). So, its back to normal, whatever that is...

Here's a cool link. It's the U of A web cam. It's located on the main campus and points towards the Catalina Mountains. It also reports the temperature, although,that number is a trailing average and is not what the actual temp is at any given moment. It's a good representation of what we're seeing from the living room, dining room and patio. Here are a couple more pictures of the finished pool.

This is Don hang'n out enjoying the view.

This is a panorama shot of the entire pool. It's made by joining two separate pictures so if it looks a little odd in spots, that why

Water… Give Me Water…

2009-08-22T17:05:00.007-07:00

It’s been a noticeably below average monsoon season here in Southern Arizona. We saw two decent storms very early in July and since then only the odd weak buildup. Well, this weekend and into next week as the pool is completed, filled and setup to run, it appears the '09 monsoon season will go out with a bang. And so this weekend it seems appropriate that a 30 mile long and 15 mile wide band of thunderstorms, replete with outrageous thunder and lightening, would pass overhead and soak the desert as we were filling the pool. A dry summer at the Casa coming to an end.

Yes, that is correct, the pool has been filled! With the landscaping 98% done, this past week the focus has been on the pool. On Tuesday a couple guys came by to clean and prep the concrete shell for plaster. Wednesday at a quarter to six two trucks and six or seven guys from Rodriguez Pool Plastering showed up to apply the plaster. Thursday two guys from Rodriguez returned to acid wash the plaster and do general cleanup of any leftover mess made by the effort the day before. Thursday afternoon, at 3:22 PM, we dropped the garden hose over the edge into the pool and waited. 36 hours and 18 minutes later (yes, that was around 2 AM Saturday morning) 12,100 gallons of water had filled the pool. Can’t wait to see the water bill!

Take a look below at this weeks events…

The pool plaster being applied. We actually went with an exposed aggregate finish called a Stone-Scapes finish, the color is called Tahoe Blue.

This is the pool later Wednesday afternoon, prior to the Thursday acid wash and clean up.

This is Don starting the fill-up. It was going a lot slower than he anticipated.

Saturday morning poolside.

Looking south across the newly filled pool. The ground in Tucson during the summer is so warm that the water coming out of the hose was over 80 degrees. By Saturday afternoon the water temp was a comfy 86.

The Lovely Gail taking a dip in her brand new swim suit.

Late Friday afternoon a thunderstorm rolled through and dumped a lot of rain in a very short period. So much so that this Diamondback Rattlesnake decided to hang out on the patio for several hours. Fortunately the patio is big enough that we all could give each other the room we needed. It was long gone by Saturday morning, after all, there's no food on the patio...

Accelerated Growth

2009-08-15T13:43:00.008-07:00

The back yard is alive with plant life! The landscaping is all but done and it looks great! This past week saw numerous developments which have ultimately put us so close to the finish that we can almost taste it.

The crew from the landscape company, Cutler Landscaping, showed up early Monday morning to begin the final push. The week started with them putting down the tubing and wire for the irrigation and low voltage lighting. The next day, Tuesday, was “salvage a cactus” day. The Landscape Architect had previously gone out and hiked around our property looking to see what was growing out there. He managed to find a number of barrel, hedgehog, saguaro and ocotillo to transplant up into the back yard. Also on Monday and Tuesday, the pool company installed the pool equipment and the electricians finished off the remaining electrical work. Wednesday was “New Plants” day and saw the remaining plants arrive from nursery and get placed around the yard. Finally on Thursday, "DG" day, the guys brought in four or five yards of decomposed granite (Santa Fe brown), spread it around and compacted it to an almost cement like firmness. Not much happened on Friday, the fence and gate guys came back and did paint touch-up on the fence and that was about it.

Below is evidence that things do grow in the desert...

This is taken from the pantry looking out the patio door. The Mexican Fence Post frames up perfectly. When we told the landscape architect he confessed it was purely an accident. Well, we like this accident!

From next to the patio furniture looking out to the point. That's one of the Saguaro cactus they transplanted from elsewhere on our property. Same with that Ocotillo and those two Fishhook Barrels. It took three men to manage that big barrel cactus into place!

This is the north side looking towards the street. Here you can see The Lovely Gail's two dwarf citrus trees. A Lisbon Lemon and an Arizona Sweet Orange. Yummy!!

This is from the north end of the pool looking back to part of the patio. The blue pot sneaking into the left of the frame is a Mexican Lime. Those are the ones you're traditionally supposed to put in margaritas. Better get some tequila!

Our three Ocotillo and a good look at the smaller barrel.

Just outside the bedroom is our Saguaro garden. Three Saguaro are around the mound with Hedgehog cactus interspersed. There is a fourth Saguaro across the way. The path goes on past The Lovely Gail's raised garden bed to the mechanical yard and garage.

All the pool equipment is in and hooked up. From right to left are the mineral sanitizer, the filter, the pool pump and the waterfall pump.

Hit'n The Bricks

2009-08-07T16:08:00.005-07:00

This entire past week was all about the paver stones. The team from Cutler Landscaping started with the first stones on Monday and by Friday afternoon they were about 98% complete. It looks great! We had some preconceived notions about paver stones going in, but the installation these guys put in this week have made us converts. The surface is surprisingly smooth given it is made up of hundreds of individual bricks, and the look is very nice. We are very happy with how it turned out.

Here are pictures of the latest developments.

This winged bird of prey paid us a visit mid week. We think it's a Cooper's Hawk, but are not sure. It stood there in the shade for about 15 minutes before flying off into the wash. We think it was just taking a rest in the shade, it was over 106 the day it stopped by.

This is the path around the back to the garage, under construction. It took several yards of sand for the base.

This path leads from the north side of the house, by the media room, over to the area we call "The Point".

This is "The Point". It'll be a great outdoor party area. Maybe a fire pit centered out there?

Here's the finished path to the garage.

The monsoons came back last week for a brief visit. We received a smattering of rain. However, most of it missed us.

The storms moving west across Oro Valley at sunset.

Hit The Deck!

2009-07-31T11:42:00.008-07:00

Well, the big event this week was the installation of the pool deck. We went with a tinted concrete and The Lovely Gail chose a color that complemented the tile work very nicely. The team that put it in got started early, and it was a good thing as it eventually hit 107 that day. There was a cement mixer backing onto the property just before 6 and the guys were pouring by 6:15. The Lovely Gail had an 8 AM appointment to look at (and buy) giant ceramic pots that day, she returned by 11 and the guys were done and gone.

Also this week, the landscape guys finished leveling the backyard. Although, it would be more accurate to say they drastically reduced the slope, such that water drains away but it looks level to the eye. The pavers arrived Thursday, all 11 pallets! And, the electrician doing the relocation of some existing electrical also finished up.

Here are the latest visuals of the progress…

This is Ken. He's the person from Pioneer Pools with whom we've been working. And, like James Brown, he's the hardest working man in the pool business!

All kidding aside, he's been a real pleasure with which to work. If you're local to Tucson and need pool work, restoration or installation, ask for Ken, he's thorough and accommodating.

Here's the pool with the forms in place. It's kinda cool how they do that. The forms are Styrofoam and the inward facing side is shaped to form that 'roundy' edge along the bottom. They're held on by these plastic hook thingy's that stick through the form then they fasten these button looking things on to the outside of the form to hold everything in place. Rather simple and very interesting.

Here's the finished product. The color of the concrete really complements the tile.
(Don't forget, you can click on the pictures to see them full size)

"Special delivery for Mr. & Mrs. Lively!"

Moving Dirt

2009-07-25T10:13:00.008-07:00

The landscape part of the project swung into motion this week. All week long the team from Cutler Landscaping has been working to transform the backyard into something more attractive and useful. They’ve installed sleeves through which irrigation and low voltage wiring will run and they have but in drainage to better channel all the water that runs off the roof during the summer rains. They have also used a great deal of the dirt dug from dug from the pool site to raise and level the backyard area.

In addition to all the landscaping work, the stucco, tile and fencing sub-contractors were by. The pool tile is all in and will be grouted next week and the stucco work is mostly complete. Paul Cutler, of Cutler Landscaping, stopped by Thursday afternoon (actually, he stops by everyday, often twice a day, to direct the crew) and indicated he is shooting for completion by August 2. And, looking at the project plan given to us by Pioneer Pools, it seems quite plausible that they should be done by then also... Woo Hoo!!

Here is a good look at the tile. Also, you can see the waterfall sticking out along the top edge.

The sky is beautiful this time of year, hard to believe it was 104 when we snaped this shot.

This is the area we're now calling "The Point". It's about a seven to eight foot drop over the edge and will offer a great view of both the near desert and the city off in the distance.
These are the some of the new additions back in the mechanical yard. The new wall and electrical sub panel, and the pool equipment will set on a cement pad. The wheelbarrow is only temporary...

Looking north from the mechanical yard you can see the raised bed garden and the back of the pool.

They've started installing the fence in its new location, down below the rip-rap out of view. Nice!

Visitors for breakfast! With no fence around the backyard we have been getting all types of wild creatures wandering through. These javalina, mom, dad and three babies, stopped by Thursday morning at around 6 AM to chew on The Lovely Gail's potted plants.

Gunite at OK Corral

2009-07-17T14:30:00.010-07:00

This past Monday the guys from Desert Shotcrete (located on N. Showdown Place) arrived bright and early to turn the pool into a solid structure. We now have a giant concrete trough in our backyard. The process of putting the concrete, or shotcrete as it's called, in the pool is quite interesting. The first to arrive Monday morning were a few guys who started with initial site prep. Next to arrive was a large truck with a cement pump on the back and lots of large rubber hose. After the pool was readied for the concrete and the pump was all hooked up the first truckload of cement arrived. The cement is of a specific consistency and is a 1600 PSI mix which means when fully cured it is very strong.

"Shotcrete and gunite are two commonly used terms for substances applied via pressure hoses. Shotcrete is mortar or (usually) concrete conveyed through a hose and pneumatically projected at high velocity onto a surface. Shotcrete undergoes placement and compaction at the same time due to the force with which it is projected from the nozzle. It can be impacted onto any type or shape of surface, including vertical or overhead areas."

What’s interesting about this process is that the cement is the consistency of soft-serve ice-cream, which allows the guys to make vertical slabs with a wooden form only on one side. This cement also sets fast so that means the guys have to work fast. Added to all that was that fact that Monday was, so far, the hottest day of the year at 108 degrees. These guys obviously know their stuff because they pulled it off. Later in the week, after the Pioneer Pool guys came back cleaned up after concrete team, and back filled all the trenches, the tile guy started setting the tile that will be at or above the waterline.

Below are pictures chronicling this week's events. Enjoy.

Here, the first truck from Cemex is backed into place and is beginning to offload cement.
The guy in the foreground continues prep work while the other guy begins applying the stotcrete.

Here, well into the process, the steps into the pool are given shape while more shotcrete is applied to the back wall of the pool.

The guys continue to shape and finish the shotcrete.

Here is a good wide shot of almost all the team at work. "It takes a village to raise a pool!".

Towards the end of this week the tile guy got started. This is the south end of the pool and most of the tile facing is on, but not grouted. That notch in the top center of the pool wall will support fountain that will produce a four foot wide arching curtain of water. Way cool!

Ultimate Cage Swimming!

2009-07-10T18:21:00.006-07:00

This week saw two “men of steel” come in and install the rebar that will give the pool structure added strength. They worked for three days, in some nasty heat and humidity (perfect pool weather BTW), bending, cutting and placing a ton of rebar. OK, maybe a half ton. It is a bit of industrial artistry what they did. While the pool design is somewhat custom there are still strict requirements regarding spacing, layering and the gauge of rebar used for any given segment of the pool. For those of you who thought it was the hole in the earth that held things together, think again. That negative edge sheer wall along the far side required a lot of steel in order to meet its strength requirements. And any part of the pool the stuck up above ground had to have a double layer of rebar space a few inches apart, horizontally. When they finished it looked like a giant, upside down, cage.

We also had the electrical put in. That part of the project started to unravel, somewhat, early on. Long story short, once we got the experts out there and started fully assessing the actual obstacles, and evaluating alternatives that would truly meet our needs long term, the issues fell away. Our approach added to the cost but it was the right way to do it, for many reasons.

Below are the latest graphic representations.

From left to right are the auto-fill, the leaf basket and the skimmer. They'll be encased in concrete and accessible via lids along the top edge of the pool.

A lot of steel went into this baby. The rebar itself was manufactured in Japan by Kishiwada Steel Company. They're known for their high-tech approach to rebar manufacturing and quality control. According to the Kansai Council of Investment, their integrated production system incorporates electric furnaces and rolling equipment. Their advanced rolling equipment is new, two year old technology and a block mill is used for finishing stands, resulting in excellent dimensional accuracy and surface characteristics. – Just in case you’re into that level of background knowledge…

The far side wall that will have the negative edge. Notice the multiple layers in the footing.

Looking from the entry steps towards the shallow end and where the waterfall will be.

One of the many trenches crisscrossing the backyard. The grey is electrical conduit and the white is water to the auto-fill unit.

Monsoon storms moving from the northwest to the southeast across Oro Valley.

Sideways!

2009-07-04T12:45:00.010-07:00

No, not the movie, the rain! (Though he was right, Merlot is way overrated.) Monsoon season in the Sonora Desert is well underway and over the last two days has made its presence unmistakably known. Late on Thursday afternoon we got slammed by a slow moving cell that contained some pretty wild winds. As most of you know, we have a pretty large patio with a deep overhanging roof. Well, the rain and wind was blowing through there at a remarkable rate. So much so that all but the two north facing windows remained mostly dry. The other windows looked as though we had no patio roof at all, the patio itself had standing water everywhere, the patio furniture (the big chairs) were slowly creeping northbound and one of The Lovely Gail’s potted plants actually flew a short distance - pot and all! We know it sounds clichéd but the rain was actually going sideways across the patio for about 10 minutes. Pretty freak’n awesome!

It rained again Friday night, at about 10 PM. Lots of lightning. We lay in bed with all the lights off and the shades all the way open and watched the light show. Lots of thunder too! The room was ghostly with shadow flashes and indescribable silhouettes. Monsoon season is our favorite time of the year here.

This is looking north out the window next to the fireplace. That's the neighbor's house across the wash. If you look close you can see that there's so much wind and water hitting the east facing walls that its blowing water up and over the house.

A shot looking west out the stang's garage.

There's water in the pool!! Quick, let's have a pool party!

This is the wash on the north side. There's actually water in it! This happens maybe only twice on any given year. The wash on the south side of our property was also running.

Plumb Season!

2009-07-02T16:14:00.009-07:00

It’s been a couple weeks since the last post and a lot has happened in that time. We took a long awaited and much needed vacation for 10 days mid-June and drove the van up to Sonoma County to visit family and friends. While we were gone not much was done on the pool, they did come in, however, and excavate the pool. After we returned things kicked into high gear and the plumbing phase started. The first day saw the crew finish off the forms for the pool structure and secure the skimmer, leaf-basket and auto-fill unit into place. The next day The Lovely Gail was treated to more jack-hammer and the sound of a miniature diesel excavator digging trenches all across the back of the house. Also on that day, The Lovely Gail finalized her pick on the pools tile and the concrete color for the exterior steps and cap for the pool edge.

Today saw the actual PVC pipe installation, which is a rather interesting process in and of it self. The pipe, you see, needs to make gradual and sweeping bends in order to facilitate free and efficient movement of water through the system. To accomplish these snake like bends and curves they heat the PVC pipe via a long metal pipe like device which they attach the exhaust pipe of their work truck. With the truck idling at moderate RPM’s they slide the PVC onto this device and the engine exhaust heats the plastic pipe into a pliable state. The guy heating the pipe then runs the stretch of pipe into the back were others bend it and set it into position. Pretty cool (pardon the pun!).

Below are a few images of our latest developments…

Here we are at Goat rock, near the mouth of the Russian River, on the Sonoma Coast. Three years of living in Tucson reminded us just how much we missed seeing the Pacific.

Don and The Lovely Gail in front of the school house, in the town of Bodega, that was made famous in the Alfred Hitchcock movie"The Birds". We heard birds, but did not see any...

The excavated pit that will contain the pool.

Access to anywhere but the cement patio is all but cut off by these World War One era trenches that crisscross the entire back of the house.

The mini-excavator in action!

The Lovely Gail does her best "Vanna White" imitation while showing off that part of the system which will hook into the pumps and filters.

A look into the pool to see where the various pipes will surface in the pool bottom.