Deck Update

Today's weather:

Cloudy
High - 66
Low - 37

Our deck project has been put on hold because our builders have left town, to return January 3.  They are setting up an O gauge train display at Roger's daughter's house in Whittier, California, for Christmas.  I guess it's a big project.  I think he said it's 10 feet by 16 feet.  He used to set it up here every Christmas, but we were never here to see it.

Anyway, here's what the deck looks like now.  We are able to use it, but obviously it has a way to go.

We've put all our deck furniture on it to see if it fits, and it does.   We've also strung a rope around the front end, just as a reminder of how close the edge is.  We're really pleased with the size.  There's plenty of room for our two chairs and a small table in front, and a large dining table and four chairs at the other end.

Roger and Jeanne have promised to have it finished by the time we return in January.  We'll see.  They've been pretty consistent at underestimating the time things will take.  But they are doing a great job.  It's very sturdy.

We've finally had a Broad-billed Hummingbird at our feeder!  I'm trying to get a photo of him, but so far he's been elusive.  

New Deck

Today's weather:

Sunny
High - 71
Low - 40

Work has begun on our new deck.  Last Thursday all the materials were delivered.  We can no longer park in our carport.

We have a two-person team working on it, both residents of the park.  Roger is the former head of maintenance.  He is ably assisted by Jeanne, an Air Force retiree who loves to learn new things and build stuff.  They make a great team and seem to be doing a wonderful job.

Here's what it looked like on Monday.  We've lost the use of our front door, as the steps have been removed.  Fortunately, we also have a back door.

By Tuesday it started to resemble a deck.  The steps were starting to take shape. 

No work was done today because Jeanne has a volunteer job three days a week and Roger was called in to help with driving.  They both volunteer at the local VA hospital.  With any luck, Roger will be back on the job tomorrow.

We seem to be the talk of the park.  It's a wonder they get anything done at all.  We're on a very busy corner and everyone stops to look and chat.

The other news is that we've put up a hummingbird feeder at the front corner of the house.  We had our first hummingbird within an hour of filling it.  It was a Costa's.  We've been told there are also Broad-billed hummingbirds in the park, but we haven't seen one yet. 

Sabino Canyon

Today's weather:

Sunny
High - 65
Low - 48

We took advantage of a cool day today to do some hiking in Sabino Canyon.  This is a recreation area in the Santa Catalina Mountains just to the north of Tucson.  It's actually several canyons, with riparian areas between stretches of desert vegetation.  We hiked about two miles up Bear Canyon, then back down.  It was a bit difficult because much of the trail is rocky and uneven.  You can cheat and take a shuttle to the top and walk down.  Maybe we'll try that next time.  We had hoped to find some birds, but we didn't have much luck.

Last Saturday we went to an open house at the local Master Gardeners demonstration garden.  So guess what!  More flower pictures!

This one's called Bignonia, or Queen of Sheba.

This is Tecoma 'Orange Jubilee'.

What's Blooming

Today's weather:

Sunny
High - 81
Low - 61

There are so many plants blooming here right now, and most of them are plants I've never seen.  So I thought I'd include some of my favorites.  This little guy is right at the corner of our driveway.  I assume it's a native.

Here's another native that's growing along the wash behind us.

This is ocotillo, my favorite of all the cactuses.  It usually blooms in May, but we've found quite a few blooming now.

The rest of these are in people's yards, so I assume they are not natives.  But they sure are pretty.

This one has flowers that look like sweet peas, but the vine is very large and dense.

The bougainvilleas grow like weeds here.

This one is a chilopsis, desert willow.

This one looks kind of like a butterfly bush, but it's a huge tree.

I'll report again later when other things bloom.

Cool Down

Today's weather:
Sunny
High - 77
Low - 48

As you can see, we're having a nice, if brief, cool down.  Early in the afternoon the pool was deserted.  But by 3:00 there were a few people out. The pool is the perfect temperature.  Warm, but just cool enough to be refreshing.

Cool decor, huh?

Last year I was really disappointed in the local produce available.  We tried to find a farmers' market without success.  But as I mentioned previously, we have a new market very nearby.  We've gone every Friday since it opened, and it gets better every week.  In addition to produce, we now have local grass-fed beef, cheese and butter, and now eggs, among other things  The produce has been very impressive.  We've had wonderful green beans, amazing red potatoes, and a really nice summer squash called Mexican gray.  It's a light green squash like a zucchini but shorter.  Very good.  But our real find was melons.  I bought one called Magnificent, which truly lives up to its name.  It has salmon pink flesh and is the sweetest, juiciest, most flavorful melon I have ever had.  I'm hoping they still have some next week.  Because the winters here are so mild, apples and pear don't grow well here.  But there were some at the market from Wilcox, which is southeast of here and obviously at a higher elevation. 

David keeps saying he's worried that we might get trick-or-treaters tonight, even though it's a gated community.  Actually, I think he just wants me to buy some candy.

Happy Halloween!

Big News!!

Today's weather:
Sunny
High - 91
Low - 58

Maybe it's all the free time here, or maybe it's the dry air, but we did a lot of soul searching and talking today.  We've decided to take our house in Salem off the market.  I know, you're all saying, "What took them so long?"  I guess everyone else was right to question our decision.  So even though the house is too big for us, and the yard is too big for us, we'll stick it out a while longer.  We really do love our house!

As for our cottage here, we continue to add things to make it our own.  We bought an outdoor dining set, and a small wicker set for tea and reading the newspaper in the morning.  For the last two days we've been able to eat all three meals al fresco.  And as we've done in the past, we put the old white plastic table and chairs out on the curb and they were claimed almost immediately.  I don't think anything ever leaves this village.  It just gets relocated.

With the weather being quite warm, we've been spending time at the pool every afternoon.  This is living!

Arizona Sonora Desert Museum

Today's weather:
Sunny
High - 88
Low -51

Today we decided to visit one of our favorite places in Tucson - the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum.  We've been there several times.  In fact, we are members.  The weather was perfect.

The Desert Museum was founded in 1952 on 21 acres to the west of Tucson.  It's in the middle of the desert and re-creates many different habitats with the native plants and animals.

Here are a couple of photos of the museum.

This is the desert's idea of fall color.  The ocotillos are turning yellow.

This beautiful mesquite ramada provides an overview of the whole museum.

The wolves pace almost constantly, but at least they look healthy.

Sometimes the javelinas are hard to spot, but today four of them were lined up in the shade under a bridge.  They look cute here, but they're quite large.  They also stink!!

A lot of the wildlife is contained for viewing, but there are lots of critters who are there by choice.  We spotted these two large lizards sunning themselves on a rock.  The lower one was green and was about 18" long.

It was a fun day and interesting to see the museum in the fall for the first time.

We've Been Busy!

Our first week in Tucson has been very busy.  We had a number of projects we hoped to complete, and so far we're doing pretty well.  We've had our heat pump replaced.  We haven't had to turn it on yet, but we have faith that it will work when we need it.  We also bought a new refrigerator.  The old one was original (15 years old), so it was time.  We've also ordered new carpet.

The last village newsletter had a plea for someone to take over maintenance of the library.  So, being library lovers, we decided to take it on.  We were encouraged to make changes, and we've done it in spades.  It's really looking good, and we've had lots of compliments.

 

The other thing I've done, which will come as no surprise to anyone, is I've planted some vegetables. I found a planting guide and discovered that this is an excellent time to plant lettuce, carrots, spinach and chard.  So I got some seeds and a few plants to get it started.  I also found a small tomato plant, which may or may not produce, but I have to try. The biggest challenge is putting them high enough so the rabbits can't get to them.

Last Friday we learned about a new farmers' market just a few blocks from here.  We've been to it twice now, and it's really nice.  They have several produce stands plus cheese, bakery goods, tamales (yum!), tea and coffee, and several other things.  We hope to walk there next week. We're still looking for a couple of used bikes, and we have some good leads.  So maybe next time we can bike there.

Big Storm

Late yesterday afternoon, as we were going to Home Depot to buy a new toilet, we noticed that the sky was getting really dark.  By the time we came out, there were very high winds and dust was blowing everywhere.  The temperature dropped rapidly from 86 to 66 in a very short time.  Soon we had thunder and lightning, and eventually rain.  We're not sure how much rain there was, because our rain gauge has stopped working (sigh, another project!).  Because of the storm we had a wonderfully cool evening and night.

Here's what the mountains look like normally:

Here's what it looked like during the dust storm:

 

The really good news is that we now have a working toilet!

October 13 - We Made It!

We got an early start out of Show Low, a little after 7:00.  The final leg was really gorgeous.  Mike had suggested that we take Highway 77 and it was good advice.  Thanks, Mike!  The road had some very steep and curvy patches.  This photo is looking back where we had been.  Notice you can see the road going back and forth on several levels.

The highway goes through the Salt River Canyon on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation.  The views from the overlooks were amazing.

About 80 miles from Tucson we saw our first saguaros and ocotillos.  We knew we'd be home soon. 

We arrived at Far Horizons at 11:45.  The temperature was 90 with a nice breeze.  Our trip ended up being 1850 miles.  Our Prius averaged 53.5 miles per gallon for the trip.  Not bad. 


In general, our cottage appears in good shape.  A number of units had had some wind damage recently, but ours was fine.  We had a few minor glitches.  The air conditioning wouldn't come on.  It turned out to be dead batteries in the thermostat.  It's fine now.  We also have a leak around the toilet, so we'll deal with that tomorrow.  After cleaning house, unloading the car and stocking the pantry we're pooped.  Hopefully tomorrow we'll be able to relax a little, maybe take a swim.  It really feels good to be here.

October 13 - More Rocks!

After yet another sumptuous breakfast we reluctantly left Robert and Mike.

We left Colorado, but it seems we didn't leave all the interesting rock formations.  This one is in New Mexico.

This is Shiprock, which lends its name to Shiprock, New Mexico, on the Navajo Reservation.  We stopped there at a grocery store.  We felt like we were in a different country.  I think we were the only non-natives in the whole town.  The grocery store was a real eye-opener.  Now I can understand why the they have such a high incidence of obesity and diabetes.  We tried to find some whole-grain crackers and cheese for lunch.  The only crackers were things like Cheezits, and the cheese was American.  The produce section was very small.  How can you be healthy when your food options are so dismal?

Our next stop was the welcome center at the Arizona border.  Again, rocks!  This one is called Painted Rock. 

We stopped for the night in Show Low, Arizona.  After a trip to a local wildlife area to look for birds (we found a couple) we returned to our room for an early night.  Tomorrow, Tucson!

October 12 - Mesa Verde

Today Robert took us on on a tour of their town, Dolores.  It's a beautiful little town of 900 people.  The town sits along the Dolores River just below a mesa.

Next, Robert took us to Mesa Verde National Park.  We ended up spending most of the day there.  It is so amazing.

The area was inhabited by Pueblo Indians about 1400 years ago, and they remained for more than 700 years.  They first built pit houses, which were dug into the ground and covered with logs and mud.

Eventually, they built their communities along the cliffs, under protecting eaves.

In the late 1200s the Pueblos left Mesa Verde and headed south to Arizona and New Mexico.  The move may have been prompted by many years of drought, or perhaps the soil was depleted.  In any case, they left an amazing complex of buildings for us to enjoy.

We really hate to leave here, because we've enjoyed visiting with Robert and Mike, and the weather has been beautiful.  But tomorrow we're off to Tucson.

October 11 - Moab to Dolores, Colorado

The town of Moab is not particularly exciting.  The main street is lined with overpriced motels, restaurants, T-shirt shops and Indian souvenir shops.  But the setting is spectacular.  The town's main focus is adventuring and you can do anything from rock-climbing to cycling, river boat trips to Hummer tours.  Just north is Arches National Park and to the west is Canyonlands National Park.  We had limited time, so we decided to visit Arches.  The formations are composed of Entrada Sandstone (salmon colored) and Navajo Sandstone (beige).  The scale of the formations is hard to comprehend from photos.

 

 

From the Arches we headed southeast.  Just off the highway was another wonderful structure, Wilson Arch.

 

 We took a side road to see Newspaper Rock National Historic Site.  It's a large rock wall with 2000 years of petroglyphs.

From there we went to Dolores, Colorado.  We stopped at the Anasazi Heritage Center, where Robert works.  It's a really beautiful museum, with a trail to the top of the mountain.  There were Pueblo ruins and 360 degree views of the surrounding area. 

 

We had dinner at Robert and Mike's gorgeous home, then off to sleep in their cozy guest room.  Tomorrow we visit Mesa Verde!