Citrus Nirvana

Today we met with our new found citrus neighbors and helped harvest a ton of fruit.  Even after we were done picking, their trees are still loaded with grapefruit, oranges, and lemons.  Dave gets so excited I had to force him to stop picking or he would have wiped them out.

When we got back to our place we spent an hour juicing half the grapefruit and we yielded 2 full gallons of juice.  Really delicious!!  Either straight or with a bit of vodka thrown in for a nice Greyhound.  Dave still can't believe how much citrus he has.  I have enough lemons to make at least one lemon meringue pie each week (which I would love to do and eat).

The Ritz Carlton Hike

Today was our first attempt at doing a hike with the Hiking Club.  Our hike was the Tortolito Mountains and we hiked the Wild Burro Trail plus the Alamo Trail which ended up being a 6.1 mile trek.  There were a total of 20 people, of which we were the youngest.  One man talked about hiking the north and south rims of the Grand Canyon when he was 71 - and he referred to that as being a long time ago.

It's almost funny how the "old guys" are so into their hiking gear.  Everyone is fully outfitted with their hiking poles, appropriate hiking hats, and their Camelbaks.  There was no wildlife to be found on this  hike and Dave has yet to see a Javelina anywhere.

Life in General

Now that the house is running "smoothly", I have time to start tackling some of the bigger projects.   Here are the before and after photos of the hall tree we inherited when we bought the house.  I gave chalk painting a try and figured that a free piece of furniture was the best guinea pig.

It's not a bad piece, but I'm trying to make the house more contemporary and definitely more Southwest and less "old lady".

We have been trying to attract birds to the yard but only have one tree in the front yard, a Mesquite.  I have been making some bird feeders in pottery and the one I hung on the tree has already had a lot of action.  In the back yard we have the hummingbird feeders and now have a little friend, the Costa's Hummingbird - which we don't have in Oregon.  No photo of him, yet.

And lastly, I have noticed that the old people here have a hard time letting go of Christmas.  We still see lots of santa hats all over the cactus.  I think the main reason is to protect the Saguaro from frost, but it is almost February.

A Road Trip to Tucson

From our house it is about 40 minutes to get to "downtown Tucson".  There we found the visitor center and picked up our Turquoise Trail walking map.  At first it was really easy to just follow the turquoise line painted on the road.

Every block or two there would be a historic building to look at.  

Sometimes the line disappeared and we'd have to consult the map.  Sometimes the line was white with turquoise flecks.  We finally figured it out and saw everything.  After lunch on 4th Avenue we walked to University of Arizona.  Dave finally found some wildlife to pet.  We managed to "sneak" into the McHale basketball arena and briefly watch the girls team practicing.  However, we weren't able to get onto the football field.

I liked the artwork at the entrance to the science buildings.  There were dozens of sculptures of people in lab coats all working in a different field of science.

The downtown area of Tucson was very easy to get around in.  We had no problems parking or driving.  It actually seemed deserted compared to what we are used to in Portland.  This was a good field trip day.

50 Year Hike

On Tuesday we ventured out early to try out this hike.  We were going to go with the Hiking Group, but they cancelled, so we decided to go on our own.  This hike was rated a C, with A being very difficult and D being the easiest.

This hike begins only about 5 miles from our house.  We had trouble finding the exact trailhead and may have taken a longer hike than the 6.1 mile roundtrip is was supposed to be.

We learned that this trail was very popular with mountain bikers and we met about nine of them - and they were all very polite.  Just a few other hikers and a couple on horseback.

When we got home our internet was still on the fritz.  I guess everyone in Saddlebrooke was screaming at Orbitel, but we had no service all evening.  Hence, the delay in these postings.  Dave is going on a 13 mile hike with the Hiking Group tomorrow and I'm going to take care of a lot of painting in the house.

A Saddlebrooke Cook's Kitchen

While we were splashing around in the outdoor pool, enjoying the 75 degree weather, Dave happily realized that though it was a weekday he was not sitting in his office handling problems.  So far he's enjoying his 21 days of retirement.

The kitchen is not quite a cook's kitchen, but each day it gets better.  It helped to get a 1970s hand mixer from my 93 year old step-father.  He had no idea he even had it in his kitchen, and he certainly has never used it.  But now it is happily working in my kitchen.  That appliance, along with my 25 year old Cuisinart just about complete the kitchen tools shortage.

Here is a photo of the Post-its that we had on each kitchen cabinet door, identifying the contents.  After living here for 16 days most of the Post-its have been removed.  We still have a few lingering to help some people in the house find things.

Our First Arizona Road Trip

Today's big adventure was to get up early (5:30) and drive down to Patagonia, AZ to do some birding.  The morning started out on a bad note when 15 miles into the drive Dave realized he was wearing only his slippers, well, and yes his clothes too.  So we made a quick Home Depot stop so he could buy Duct tape.  Duct tape is his favorite product to solve all problems.  He reinforced his slippers and was good to go.

At one point we were only 12 miles from being in Mexico.  Though in Arizona, the highway signs all changed the distance in kilometers rather than miles.  Weird.  We arrived at Patagonia Lake Park and later met with our birding tour group.  Birds were a little sparse at 9am.  We split off from the large group and went on with a more youthful group (65 year olds) and did see more birds.  The big payoff was finding the Elegant Trogan.  Apparently he is such a prized find that when searching for him you don't dare say his name but rather refer to him as ET.  It wasn't horrible bad luck since we found him.

Photos of Lake Patagonia

 We stopped into the town of Patagonia for a nice lunch then meandered into a couple of shops that sold local art.  Here is one of my favorite quirky pieces of "art".  Camo horse, ragged clothes on doll, feathers on her back and peacock feathers for the horse's mane.

A very successful birding day and nice adventure down to southeastern AZ.