Arts and Craft Sale

My first attempt as being a vendor worked out pretty well.  I made money, not a fortune, but enough to pay for my clay.

I decided to try and sell my favorite jack rabbit jar.  It was the first item bought!  Now I know what I need to work on.

Blooms

Here are just a few shots of nice blooms.  I hope when I get back from Japan in 10 days that there will be an explosion of cactus flowers.

Sightseeing in Phoenix

Last week we had a fun day with my aunt and uncle.  We headed out at 6:30 a.m. as it's a two hour drive to get to central Phoenix.  The first thing on our agenda was a tour of the Ping golf club factory.  I would highly recommend this tour, and I don't even play golf.  It's so popular I had booked our March reservations back in October.  Then we headed to the State Capital building and enjoyed learning a bit more of Arizona's history.

My attempt at a selfie with the state seal.  Of course I am leaning backwards over the railing which is how people who take selfies die.

Then we headed to south Phoenix to Lolo's Chicken and Waffles.  That was a real fun restaurant specializing in southern cooking.  Very popular but worth it.  Next year we will try to do more things in Phoenix.

Quick Trip to Mexico

Or so we thought.  The drive into Nogales was just under two hours, problem free.  We parked the car in a lot on the north side of the border and it cost $4 to park.  As we entered the border building we just walked right through.  No one even looked at us and no one stamped our passport.

Nogales looks very similar to a lot of Latin America.  Broken down, a lot of rock, people just milling about, hot, music playing loudly.  And there is even that very familiar smell that always reminds me of the cities in India.  I can't quite figure out the source, but I don't like it.

Did some shopping and headed back to the border crossing.  There we waited in line for 75 minutes, with no explanation or signage as to why this took so long.  Hundreds of people in line to cross.  That alone makes me think it will be a long time before we head to Nogales again.

Madera Canyon

When I agreed to go on this hike I misread the elevation gain and thought it was about 1000 feet.  It would be tough but I could make that.  Turns out it was 1800 feet of gain.  No wonder we were both complaining and struggling.  The canyon was very peaceful, cool, and relaxing.  But really there were no birds.  All we've ever heard about was the great birding at Madera.  We must have been too high up or in the wrong spot.  We did see a squirrel.

One tree had flowers, other than that just a lot of brown and green.

Saddlebrooke's Big 5

Just like Africa has the Big 5 animals everyone wants to see, we have the same thing here in SB.  Rather than the elephant, lion, zebra, giraffe, and rhino our goal is to see a bobcat, coyote, javelina, jack rabbit, and rattlesnake (well, not all of us want to see this one).

This morning on our morning walk/animal hunt we saw nine deer, several "normal" bunnies, a juvenile roadrunner, a Gila woodpecker (I think, since this one is very similar to a Ladder-back), and a curve-billed thrasher, plus lots of people walking dogs.  None of the Big 5.

Tonight we are celebrating my aunt's 75th birthday.  In honor of her and the abundance of lemons we have I made a lemon-blueberry cake.  And with this we'll try the lemon meringue ice cream I made.  At least one of the desserts should work out.  Everything has to be lemons around here when it comes to baking!

The cake came out much better than the photo!

Less than five weeks to go

It's hard to realize that we'll be leaving this 80 degree desert in five weeks.  Some snowbirds stay for one month, some two, and we enjoy three months here.  The only thing we really can't do here is take strolls in the evening because it gets dark by 6:30.  And I mean dark!  There are no street lights where we live and if you don't know where you're going, you'll never find it.  So evenings we are a bit housebound.

                        

                     

Some views of the beloved Saguaros while on a hike deep in Catalina State Park.  I know the men on the hike were hoping to see a rattlesnake, but I was not.  Now that it's 80 degrees, and warmer, this is the time to watch out for rattlers!

Last Round of Company

Yesterday was a crazy, whirlwind day of visiting Sedona, the Grand Canyon, and Montezuma's Castle and home by 9:30 pm.  And somewhere along the way a huge nail/bolt got imbedded in my tire.  Luckily we didn't even notice until the next day and we were able to get home safely.

The Grand Canyon was extremely windy and cool.  Cloudiness prevented a full view of fantastic color, but it was still spectacular.  Sedona was equally gorgeous.

Approaching the Devil's Bridge in Sedona.

Montezuma's Castle.

My best photo of a Jackrabbit yet!  We were able to show our guests this really unique animal and he was nice enough to pose for us for quite a while.

Next Round of Company

We've been spending the last few days with our California friends relaxing and doing some hiking.  Yesterday we explored the Chiricahua National Monument which is about 140 miles from our house, in the southeast corner of AZ.

All these neat formations were made millions of years ago due to a volcanic eruption and the ash.  On the Echo Canyon Park trail we were able to get quite close to these fellows.

This was a great 6 mile hike because there were lots of pine trees and shade and it was not too hot at all.  Probably 10 degrees cooler than in Tucson.  We also drove to the Cochise Stronghold, but it turned out just to be a sign in the road.  Nothing worth photographing.

Ventana Canyon Hike

Whew, this was a thigh burner!  It was only six miles, round trip, but there was a lot of elevation gain.  This is a beautiful hike and our reward were the Maiden Pools stopping point for lunch.  The water was ice cold which felt great since our temps are now, unseasonably, in the low 80s.  Really too hot for much hiking.

View overlooking Tucson.

Nighttime Activities

                       

The Cinema Club here hosts movies every Tuesday in the DesertView theater.  This was our first time going to a movie here and it turned out to be quite fun.  We saw The Martian and loved it.  But you have to realize, this being a place for predominantly people over 75, we were just watching a DVD projected on the fairly large screen.  And the english subtitles were on for the english speaking movie.  Hearing problems, I imagine.  Still, a fun night.

                           

The monthly Bingo night.  This time we had 238 players, so you can imagine that my hopes of winning were low.  By the time we are on the 11th, and last, game my eyes start getting buggy.  One of our friends who sat with us did win the Blackout - $150.  We have one more chance which will be next month's night.

Typical Crazy Things You Do in AZ

Put your arms in the wings of a vulture and wear a vulture head at the Desert Museum.

Pose next to cactus.

Pose next to more cactus.

Desert Museum Animals

Great day for photographing the animals at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum.  Still one of our favorite places to visit, though it's just over an hour's drive from our house.

Great Horned Owl.  Always a favorite.

Hummingbird in the hummingbird aviary.  So cute!

Masses of frogs.

Cactus Wren, the state bird.

Holly and Dave at the museum.

Our Second Guest of the Season

Dave's sister arrived on Wednesday and flew into Tucson International.  What I love about this airport is that while you are waiting to pick up people you can watch them walk down the hallway without them knowing it.  There is a TV screen so you can see who is about to walk into the waiting area.  I don't really understand the purpose of this, but it's fun for me.

Then we whisked Holly off to see the Asarco Copper Mine for a tour.  Quite interesting and it was a nice bus ride that got us up close and personal to the workings of this mine.  My favorite part were the grounds where there were zillions of these rodents running around.  Ground squirrel? Small Prairie Dog?  We don't know.

Pottery is taking over

This is only about 1/3 of the batch of pieces that I got out of the kiln today.  Now the arduous task of glazing each one will take me a few weeks.  There is going to be a craft sale on March 12 and I am working towards having enough good pieces to have a booth.  Dave said he will help be a salesman at the event.

Today there was a Club and Activities Fair to lure new members to join.  I helped out at the Hiking Club table and met quite a few new people - some even from Oregon.  It's interesting when fairly old, shakey looking people inquire about the hikes.  I probably shouldn't, but I immediately tell them about the easy "D" level hikes.  Looks can be deceiving around here.

                          

My favorite club was the English Country Dancers.  Here are their members at their table enticing people to join.  I guess wearing those hats is the big draw.

Hair today, gone tomorrow - in most cases

This taken on the sly photo doesn't quite due justice to this fellow wearing a toupe.  I had to take his photo because it was so unusual to see so much black hair on an older man.  Half the men here at SB are bald and the other half are gray.  What was he thinking?

When Saddlebrooke gives you Lemons...

you make lemon meringue pies, lemon bars, lemon chicken, lemonade, and lemon bread.  Now that I have exhausted all the regular lemony favorites I am branching out into alcohol.  My niece suggested making Limoncello.  So I put a lot of lemon zest into a jar of vodka.  I guess after a few weeks I will strain this and add simple syrup to make a nice liqueur.  If this works out I may try a grapefruit variety too.

Citruspalooza

We've waited patiently for the three and a half weeks we've been in AZ to get our piles of citrus.  This morning we went to the home of a kindly fellow Trivia player and thinned his many citrus trees of fruit that were too hard for him to reach.

Dave could only be happier if there was a cat on his lap admiring the fruit with him.  After the harvest Dave spent about two hours juicing in order to get 2 gallons of juice.  There is still tons of fruit untouched.  However, in Dave's zealousness, he burned out the little juicer and it's a goner. 

                           

Southwestern Projects

I don't know if a rustic headboard for the guest room counts as Southwestern, but it's certainly not Asian.  Rather than use pallets I ended up buying "common boards".  The pallets were just not easy to procure.  My uncle used his table saw to slice up the pieces and I then put them back together is a random way. Then drilled, sanded, stained, and screwed.  And it's up!!

Cactuspalooza

I like how this Saguaro has a wiggly look to the center growth.

This is the famous, and rare, Crested Saguaro Cactus.  Really neat to see.

We discovered this hearty cactus basically growing out of a rock.

Friday's hiking group taking a lunch break after two hours of hiking with a few dicey areas.  At least dicey to the 77 year olds.