Out on a limb…

 

or up a tree either one works. I just need to get some new pictures.  I didn’t get very many from the last trip up to Strawberry.  I was way too relaxed to get out and about.  Hang in there with me.  I’ll try and find something to take pictures of soon.

Home sweet home…

 

I’m back!  I had a wonderful time in Strawberry with Annie.

We missed the blooming of the irises.

 

We had blue skies for most of the time.  Saturday was cloudy in the morning and windy and cold all day.

 

 

But from Sunday on, the sun was bright and warm.

 

 

It was wonderful to spend the time away from responsibilities and to enjoy long talks with Annie and watch spooky movies, but it is always good to get home.  I’ve been working hard to catch up with all yours posts. I’ve missed my blogging buddies!

This is the day!

 

It’s finally here!  Annie and I are headed up to Strawberry and the cabin for some much needed R & R.

I’m hoping for some weather – that would mean rain to me.

And a little time spent doing this with a good book.

I hope you all enjoy your weekend as much as I’m planning on enjoying mine.  Be safe and drink in nature, family and friends.  I’ll be away from my computer, but promise to catch up when I get back.    

Some things are worth…

 

waiting for.  This is my Mother’s Day present.  I finally got to use it two days ago.  It had to be ordered, painted, assembled and  hung up before I could enjoy it.  It has a wonderful view of the night sky.  That’s a good thing because this time of year in Arizona, that’s the best time to enjoy it.  It really takes me back to days spent on my grandparent's porch.  Or snapping green beans with my grandma in the evening light…talking girl talk with one of my favorite people ever. 

Bowls Full of Fun…

 

 

 

 

Full of water not air…just the right kind of fun for a hot summer afternoon.  I was absolutely forbidden to take pictures of all the fun because they are all “too grownup for such foolishness”… 

Hope you’re out there being foolish just enough to have fun.

It’s been a stretch…

 

but I made it to the other side.  I had a  wonderful time with my out-of-town company this past week.  Greg’s sister and brother-in-law from Georgia came to visit and we had lots of BIG family get togethers.  Life is returning to what passes for normal for me, but I miss the early morning visits and gossip fests. 

Gearing up…

 

I’m so excited!  Annie and I are planning a trip to the cabin! 

I’m looking through some of my older pictures of past trips to the cabin and getting anxious to be gone.

 

 

Between all the wonderful wildlife and the gorgeous scenery, I’ll be as close to heaven as I’m going to get on this planet.

 

 

One thing that Annie has assured me of…I will never see this again – at least not with her.   :)

Don’t know about you, but that sounds like a challenge to me!!! 

I have company coming in from out of town and may be a little scarce over the next few days.  I’ll check in whenever I can.

The real skinny and the straight poop…

 

In continuing with yesterday’s post, I want to share more bird’s nest in unusual places.

 

This is a house finch nest in a pot of what I’ve always called Wandering Jew.  At least one of the eggs have hatched…maybe two.  But since this family built in a pot with a plant in it, I have to be extra careful when watering the plant.

 

I know I shared with you another story about how the finches like to build their nests in my clothespin bag.  But what you need to understand is that raising four younguns in a confined space creates a poopy problem.  This is the aftermath that I get to clean up after the little ones have left the nest. 

I’m not really complaining because I love sharing my space with all these creatures.  Their songs give me such pleasure there’s no way I want them setting up house somewhere else.    

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.