Cactus Nursery

Ok, I thought if I lived in AZ and I wanted a cactus, I'd head to a garden nursery to find one. 

At Good Life Resort, people here use "rarely used" rain gutters as a place to start new cactus'.

Or, it may be that they don't clean their gutters often.

Hiccup 2

Poor dog. 

A jump became a fall and hurt her neck and back.  

Nothing broken but what a big pain for her. 

Intervertebral Disk Disease.  

 Poor doxie. 

Lots of pain pills and anti-inflammatory medicine 
and full crate rest for 4 to 6 to 8 weeks.

bubbles in tummy are gas per vet :o)

She's not happy.  We're not happy.  
But we sure hate to see her hurt.  
So crate rest will be what we do.   

A Hiccup

We weren't quite to the Phoenix area when we had a hiccup.
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After a big scare when mom hadn't been located for 14 hours, she was found safe in Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup.  She has suffered a stroke. 
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With the strength in her arms and legs, they considered her a good candidate for their well-known Rehab.  She has made progress.  The stroke has made her dementia more pronounced and so it is tough on the therapists to keep her on goal. There has been lots of encouragement through visits and phone calls.  Fingers crossed that she can get to walking again.

Mom holding the rogue left arm down

NOVEMBER 30th.  Still not walking but able to move herself out of bed with help. Now in Life Care Community for more rehab.

Fall Journey South

We've never headed south early enough to see fall colors through the northwest and travel through Las Vegas and to Phoenix in warmth! 
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Temperatures in the 70's to 80's.  Very nice.  Flowers in bloom. 
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And finally we arrived and had a great time sitting out in a clear warm night watching stars and enjoying the campfire at Usery Mountain Park.

Pink tortilla chips to remind us to support the fight against breast cancer
Kelso, Washington

Fall colors along the Columbia Gorge in Oregon

Farewell Bend State Park along the Snake River, Oregon

Valley of 1000 Springs, Idaho

Pony Express Trail crossing Hwy 93, Nevada

Cathedral Gorge State Park, NV

We followed US 93 from Twin Falls, Idaho to Kingman, AZ
sometimes it was very boring
and we entertained ourselves by checking our reflection in the back of a fuel truck

Slotzilla, a huge slot machine at the Fremont Experience, Las Vegas
Above are 4 zip line riders zipping past

Many performers in the black dots on the floor.
This person was a mime.
The X-Rated performers are not in this Blog.

The hourly show at the Fremont Experience, Las Vegas
millions of LED lights overhead in the 3 block area

A quick trip through Jerome, AZ with friends Kay and Steve
Lunch at the Haunted Hamburger

Our first experience with a plastic jigsaw puzzle with Meredith and David
Pieces way too small for ancient eyes

And finally we are here - our favorite park in Arizona, Usery Mountain County Park
Enjoyed the peach-faced lovebirds again

Peach-faced lovebirds awaiting their turn at the feeder
Counted 19 visiting at one time

What a new experience: to head south for the winter in nice weather.  
Not the usual endless rain down the coastline avoiding the snowy passes.  
Good traveling weather!  Will have to remember this for future years.

Harvest Time

Four Warty pumpkins were our compost harvest this year.  

They have a very unique look.

Learned that pumpkins looked this way before being bred to make a smooth skin.  

Crazy and fun. 

 

Wonder what will come up next year.

 

We love the Northwest - We really do

But after a few weeks of rain, rain, and more rain we are ready to run for dry land.  Getting tired of scraping the moss between our toes, for sure.

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13" of rain in October so far and our yearly average is 35" – 

one-third of our expected annual total!  

Egad.

400% more rain than average 

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Did you hear about our "big storm" last week?  
It's name was "All Threat No Action" Storm 
after a certain current presidential candidate.

Lots of rain but not much wind.  

Biggest damage was trees falling because their roots had become saturated.  

We survived.

I periodically check a weather blog from Cliff Mass, a professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington : http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/

And a few of his latest comments tickled me: 

If you are still watering your garden, stop. - Well, duh.

Ducks are very happy.  You bet!

Sharp Saws & Strong Help

The tree was down but the wood was still there.  

Over comes the next generations with sharp chain saws. 

 They made short work of some big logs.  Much appreciated!

WHAT WE'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR

An empty trailer

From two of these

 

plus an additional 6 more trailer loads: gravel (3) dirt (2) and bark (1). 

Summer jobs are done.

And we are celebrating!

The Pine Tree Goes Down



This is the tree before starting
Note the crane to the right of the tree

View from the street

First of four tops

Lifting to the grinder

Half-way down

Mid-point

Nearer the bottom

Last Cut

Final product for now - Gnome house to be

Needles

There are needles to repair your clothes. 

And needles to knit a sweater.

You can use pine needles to create a basket.

But if you own a pine tree you have more needles than you would ever want.

You have pine needles to cover your grass – (really there is grass under there).

And pine needles to cover ALL your gardens. 

After many years of sweeping up pine needles and looking at the needle-bare pine, we had the tree taken down.
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What's left?  Only the gnomes know for now.