When you can’t grow flowers…

 

grow birds.

This lovely dove has laid two eggs in her “nest”.  Can’t let a flower pot sit empty around here for very long.

It is a bird bath, after all…

 

 

Here’s  a picture of one of my favorite people on the planet.  Little Justin who stole my heart the moment he arrived. He’s always moving so forgive the blur.

I had something I wanted to post regarding the trend toward bringing the arts to Ajo, but it needs more time than I have this morning. On my way to see my Mom and work on some things for her today. 

Ta Da…

 

I got all the intel from Annie about the artist I was telling you about.

His name is Mike Baker and his studio is called Lizard Flatz. The little sweetie in his arms he found wondering in the desert and brought her home.

 

 

This piece graces the end of his art studio.  It really is huge.

 

This door on his art studio is made from the floorboards from some of the homes in Mexican Town.  Mexican Town was an area years ago in Ajo designated for the Mexican mine workers and their families to live. I’ll tell you more about that tomorrow. The tile inset in the door was made for him by a close friend.

 

Mike is relocating his studio and this piece has a concrete base being made especially to display it at a friend’s house.

Mike is also the artist who did the “Night of the Lepus” mural.

 

He did this mural commemorating a scene that was filmed in Ajo for the movie “Pocket Money” starring Paul Newman and Lee Marvin.

 

He did this fence in his backyard from bottles and when the sun hits it just right, it’s a thing of beauty.  Living next door to Mike is a council member of the Tohono O'odham Nation.  When he saw Mike building the wall, he very nicely told him that the Tohono O’Odham people were the only nation to never go to war with the White Men, but that would change if that wall whistled at night and kept him awake.

There are so many talented artists that live in Ajo and they all gladly and proudly share their stories with anyone who’s interested in listening.  They are working hard to develop it as an artist’s community.  I still have more to share about that also…did I say I wouldn’t post all 128 pictures in my Ajo file??  I may have been wrong.

Ajo Art…

 

Ajo was such an interesting town and I took a lot of pictures. Today I’m going to share with you some of the many murals that you’ll see around town.  (I’m waiting to share information about the gentleman who painted “The Night of the Lepus” mural once I get my facts straight from my all-things-Ajo source, Annie.)

 

These pictures were on the side of a food co-op.  They represent all the aspects of how the indigenous peoples harvested the bounty of the desert.

 

 

 

 

 

And I’m thinking if you live in Ajo, having a sense of humor helps. :)

 

This piece especially impressed me.  Nicole told me it made her think of a tessellation.  I’m not sure it qualifies since they seem to deal with polygons. This piece is huge – on the side of a building and how it goes from the negative spaces and the positive just blows my mind. Sadly,  I don’t know the name of the artist who did this one, because I would love to give them credit for their amazing work.

There is a lot more artsy about Ajo that’ll I continue to share.

Night of the Lepus!!!

 

By popular demand…okay only one person asked, but she’s a pretty popular girl…I present to you the chemically altered rabbits of the desert surrounding Ajo. Now these rabbits are big enough to eat a man and believe me in the movie, they do.

 

I have, shall we say, a very warped taste in movies and once I heard about this one from Annie, I had to have it.  I found it on the internet and we girls had a fun day curled up under blankets eating junk food watching it.

I met the man who painted this mural that graces the side of the bakery in Ajo and I’ll share some more of his work soon.

Happy Friday and don’t have bad dreams!!

Ajo - How did this happen?

 

Last month I went to see my BFF, Annie, in the sweet little town of Ajo.  I rode along with my other rock hounding friend, Alice, and her cousin, Dawnella. (And I know I just massacred the spelling of Dawnella’s name and I’m sorry.)  Somehow I didn’t post any of my pictures.  I just don’t know how this could have happened…especially since I’m desperate for new pictures and here I have a file of 128 shots available to share. Don’t worry….I won’t share them all…maybe.  :)

You can travel to the link above and learn all about Ajo.  It was a company town built originally for the miners of the New Cornelia Mine.  But I thought I would start off this series of posts with pictures of the open pit mine.

 

You can see the many layers of material that have been taken from the mine. This was a copper mine but has been shut down since 1983 when the price of copper dropped.

 

Is this photo you can see the lake formed at the bottom of the pit by a spring.  The roughly round pit measures one and a half miles across and 1,100 feet deep.

 

This is a close-up of the “lake”.  In the middle left of the picture there is a metal shade cover. That cover stands 60 feet tall and 120 feet long.  But even as zoomed in as much as I was, it looks like a toy.

I’m on the fence about mining in all forms, but there are convincing arguments on both sides. 

I’ll have more to share with you about Ajo in the next couple of days.  

Swarming to “bee” near you…

 

Yes, it is that time of year as Chris at Las Aventuras pointed out.  The bees are swarming.

I wondered why Nicole and Kayla came in the front door after school…this is why.  They were greeted by this swarm of bees at the back gate.

It took the swarm a few minutes to calm down enough and snuggle in all close to one another…and another…and another.  I love bees and I know how important they are to have around, but I am happy with the small hive in the hollow of one of our trees and I hope these guys move on in the morning.

I had to find just the right spot so I could see them and get a halfway decent shot. Nicole was thinking I might have gotten a little too close.  But they weren’t bothered by me and I left them alone.

We’re sitting out in the evening air now enjoying the coolness and can hear the bees softly buzzing a lullaby.

Memory Lane…

 

I’ve been working hard at getting things sorted through and packed of my Mom’s since she is in the Assisted Living Facility.  Some days it’s slow work because I’m spending a lot of time looking at old pictures or reading letters from my grandparents. While going through a box yesterday, I came across these old post cards that were my grandfather’s when he was very young. They sent them for all occasions and several years ago, I selected a few and framed them.  Those are still packed in storage along with most of my things.  But I did find four that I thought would be fun to share.

The two on the bottom are definitely worth a closer look…

 

I couldn’t get a very good photo of this one, but it’s a young lady standing on a ladder getting the hem of her dress adjusted.  The young man seems to be quite interested in the process.

 

Well, and this one opens itself up to so many possible comments…I’ll leave all those options open to you guys.

 

They are sweet and it was a lovely practice.  I do enjoy looking through them.    

Happy Friday!!

 

Well, it’s another Friday the Thirteenth and I’m not even a little bit scared…knock on wood. 

I was going to do something cool and slick about tripping into the techie age with my new phone…but alas, even I’m smart enough to know this phone is really already outdated.  But it is MY new phone and I now have unlimited talk and text.  Once we transferred my Mom’s phone service to her new place, I came to the realization that 1,000 minutes shared between my 17 year old daughter and myself, were just not going to be enough. So yesterday I updated (and of course – extended) my plan to accommodate our needs.  Now when I get texts from my nieces and nephews, I won’t have to pay that extra charge…but then it goes without saying (then why am I saying it?) I will need to learn how to text back to them.  Here I come into the techie age dragging my stone tablets and chisels. :)

Happy Friday and enjoy your weekend!!!  Watch out for those black cats.  :)

Whole Hog…

 

We had Easter dinner at Bill and Tracy’s this year. What a wonderful time we had. Everyone brought delicious things to eat. Bill and Tracy went “whole hog” and prepared a scrumptious ham.

I, unfortunately, didn’t a picture of it while it was still pretty…cloves and pineapple rings.

But I did get a picture of what we got to bring home.  The makings of breakfast ham steaks, ham salad and we brought the bone home too for beans and ham.  There’s a lot to enjoy about a ham.  Thanks Lisa for working so hard to trim that bone!

This was the sad Miss Sadie after she learned she couldn’t have any ham because of the potential for pancreatitis.  She’s so cute when she sulks.  She did cheer right up when she learned she could help with the dishes…

 

I’m a bit slow with posting this thank you to them, but I’ve been busy taking care of that ham.  :) 

Bag Lady…

 

I have an addiction…yes, I’m here to tell the truth.  Okay, if I’m going to tell the truth, I have several addictions…books, cameras, flowers, birds, Dr. Pepper…  Oh, sadly the list just goes on and on.  But today I want to talk about my addiction to bags.

 

These are just the latest additions to my stash.   Starting at the top right – that’s my new laptop bag. It’s so chic and trim and has a lovely pink lining. Going clockwise – this beauty will soon be a new camera case. It’s actually a purse that Tracy and Kathy helped me pick out at TJ Maxx, but I’m going to buy inserts to transform it into a camera case. The next camel colored one is the purse I’m currently carrying.  The dragon fly bag came from Joann’s Fabric and is one of those “save the environment and reuse me” kind of bags. I LOVE it. Then the small black one in the middle is actually a camera case that I use as a camera case!  Imagine that. 

I’m challenging Tracy to fess up to her addiction and share her bag collection with you also.  You’ll see she has a lot more pizzazz than I do.  That girl loves color. We’ve also recently discovered we love to shoe shop together.  That will have to wait for another day.

Taking a little rest…

 

I spotted this little guy resting before he had to make deliveries.

Happy Easter!!!  

Okay, I threatened…

 

and here it is…a Blast from the Past.  You’ll have to check out the link to see what random archive I clicked on.  What’s really funny about this is that just the other day I was talking to Tracy about  this post, but couldn’t find it when I went looking.  I don’t tag things or have any kind of “filing” system.  But I guess it’s kismet that this is the one I clicked on.  I would love to see some of your “Blasts from the Past” too.

 

Blast from the Past

 

Happy Friday!

Random clicks…

 

Okay, I have been really bad and I mean REALLY bad about this blogging thing lately.  I haven’t been out getting any new pictures and I haven’t been inspired to do anything fun.  Well, I do have one idea, but I need to go to Tracy’s to make that happen.  So in the meantime, I closed my eyes, scrolled through my albums, opened one at random, and clicked on a picture…this is the one I clicked on.

This is kinda fun because it brings back nice memories of the day that Annie took Tracy, Kathy and I out to the rock house. 

Maybe tomorrow, I’ll scroll through the blog archives and go back to one of my first blog posts…boy, was I kinda nerdy then.   You know because I’m not kinda nerdy now.  :)

Connections Made – Part 2…

 

Today I’m sharing with you another connection I have made during my blogging experience.  Pat lives in Canada, but she and her husband have a second home in Surprise, AZ.  That’s a town not too far from where I live.  I can’t exactly remember how Pat and I came to follow one another’s blogs, but I’m so glad we did.

Recently, she posted about getting to unpack some of her treasures while in the process of moving.  What do you think I spied in the seventh picture down?

 

A music box very similar to the one above that was my Mom’s.  It was like the world didn’t feel so big.

My Aunt Jean (Mom’s older sister) gave this music box to Mom while she was still in high school back in the late 40’s.  Pat’s treasure belonged to her Dad’s mother.  Isn’t it wonderful the little pieces of ourselves we can see in others? 

Connections Made – Part 1….

 

I have really enjoyed my time expressing myself and experimenting on my blog over the last couple of years.  I can’t thank Tracy enough for showing me the way into this wonderful world.  I have “met” some interesting  people and come across some that see the world differently than I do…but that’s okay. Because as it says below my header “it is our differences we must learn to respect.”

Today, Chris at Las Aventuras, posted some beautiful pictures of a Great Horned Owl.  I love owls and it made me think of my favorite, right now, at this moment owl.  I told him I would take a picture and post it for him.

Now, I’m not sure what breed this owl is….agate, maybe?  But this owl means so much to me.  Tracy gave me this owl as an early birthday present because she thought it made a good-luck-before-your-surgery present too.  I am not lying when I say it must weigh at least 15 pounds or more.  So I couldn’t pick it up and move it to more “natural” surroundings to take his picture.

Thank you Chris and all my other blogging buddies for sharing your little piece of the world.  And thank you Tracy for showing me the big, beautiful world of blogging.

Tomorrow, I have another Connection Made to share with you.

Silhouettes…

 

 

I saw a piece of the past today through my father’s eyes.  It touched me deeply and made me want to fix everyone’s pain. Life just isn’t fair sometimes no matter how much we wish it were.

Building Reserves…

 

 

 

 

 

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.”   Rachel Carson

 

Not out getting any new pictures right now so you may have seen some of these before.  But I thought they warranted repeating. 

Loving Life….

 

 

and reflecting on my many blessings. 

All went well during surgery. No signs of cancer.  The mass was a cyst and all he had to take was the appendix itself.  Hallelujah!  It did end up being more days in the hospital than I expected.  I’m sure my “advanced” years had a lot to do with it.  Although I was the spring chicken in the ward at the hospital.  The surgery was Wednesday and I got to come home Friday afternoon.  Home never looked so good.  I am just taking it easy and trying to finally get some good sleep to allow my body to heal itself.  Hospitals, sadly, are not good places to rest.  Thank you all for your prayers and positive thoughts and even the loan of a guardian angel or two.  

Simply being…

 

“There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect.”  G. K. Chesterton

Tomorrow is surgery day.  I’ll see you all on the other side of this little journey.  Hopefully, I’ll be back online by Friday. Blessings!