Winner of the Chili Cookoff

Yes, I know... I repeated the same picture but it's the only one I had.  This shows the first step, before the meat gets added.  The recipe came from Stephanie Anderson's "Killer Chili" and is originally from Cesare Casella's Maremma restaurant in Manhattan.  I think the Garam Masala and chocolate are the key ingredients.  You can't place them in the final outcome, but they give the unique flavor.  Don't let the long list of ingredients daunt you.  It's not a difficult recipe.  I changed up the wording of the directions a little for brevity purposes.

Cesare Casella's Tuscan Chili

1 red onion, quartered
1 small carrot, chopped
1 jalapeno, chopped
1 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
1/2 tbsp chopped fresh sage
2 stalks celery, chopped
4 cloves garlic
2 oz pancetta, chopped
8 strips bacon
3 tbsp olive oil
2 lbs beef chuck or skirt steak (I used a flank steak)
1 tbsp garam masala
1 16 oz can tomato puree
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp fennel seed
1 1/2 tbsp chili powder
1 small potato, peeled and cut into 1/2" cubes
2 cups water
1 cup brewed dark-roast coffee
5 cups beef broth (I ended up using 4 cups)
2 cups canned red or kidney beans
3/4 oz unsweetened chocolate (I used 1/2 oz)
freshly grated Parmesan cheese for garnish
1 small white onion, coarsely chopped for garnish
1 avocado, peeled, pitted and coarsely chopped for garnish

Cook the bacon.  (Cesare does it in the oven - I did it in a pan because the oven was in use). 

In a food processor, chop the onion, carrot, jalapeno, rosemary, sage, celery, garlic and pancetta.  In a large, heavy pan combine the olive oil and chopped vegetable mixture and cook over medium-high heat for 10 minutes.

In a large bowl, season the meat with the salt, pepper and garam masala.  Add to the vegetables in the pan and cook for 12 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add the tomato puree, cumin, fennel seed, chili powder, potato and water.  Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.  Add the coffee and 2 cups of beef broth and cook for another 20 minutes, stirring occasionally (Cesare says constantly... ).  Add the beans and 1 more cup of broth and simmer for 30 minutes.  Add the remaining broth and simmer 15 minutes more.  Grate in the chocolate and cook for another 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

Serve the chili garnished with Parmesan, crumbled bacon, onion and avocado.  Serves 6

December Wrap-up

December has been a busy month.  It's almost finished and I have yet to think about New Year's resolutions...other than the annual "I WILL lose weight".  Still have to pay my car registration fees as well.  I still have a day!

My son turned 21 this month.  I still think of myself as about 27 so how can I have a 21 year old kid?  We had all the birthday hoopla - he had more than us as it should be.  He celebrated for about 4 days between friends and family.

And someone who is ALWAYS underfoot in the kitchen got in the way during birthday cake decoration - or at least that's the story.  He did eventually manage to lick off all the frosting.

We dog-sat twice in December for my son's rambunctious puppy, much to the dismay and disgust of our 2 cats and the old-man Jake dog.  Puppy-ness is cute, but it sure takes a lot of energy out of everyone else!







 We had all of the usual Christmas activities.  I feel as though I spent the month listening to horrendous music in stores, shopping, cooking, washing dishes, planning, planning, planning, more cooking, more shopping and GADS!!!  More dishes!  I also managed to fit in my job.  I'm sure they were happy about that.  Why do retailers play the worst renditions of Christmas songs?  Do we REALLY need to listen to the latest singers trying to fit 15 warbles into each word of "The First Noel" or shall we say "The first ir ir ir ir ir ir ir ir ir ir ir st No o o o o o o el el ele elelelelelelel".  My ears hurt.  And if I have to listen to Jingle Bell Rock one more time someone might get hurt.


We wrapped up the festivities on the 26th with a Chili Cookoff.  Chili chefs were myself, my daughter, and my brother.  The rest were either working all day or scared of the competition.  Some fierce competition...














This one was a chicken based chili.  Lots of cumin and jalapenos.

 

The others were a beef based one with toasted cumin - excellent flavor.   And I'm pleased to say that I had the winning chili... thanks to my room-mate's new cookbook.  But they were all worthy of winning!  I'll post the recipe separately so that it will print better.
 

Winter in the Desert

Two years ago, or was it three, I spent the day at a rugby festival held locally.  My daughter and I and the occasional rugby boy manned the T-shirt booth all day.  It was COLD!  We were both in multiple layers, gloves, hats... she melted my fleece gloves getting too close to the propane heater.  This year is a completely different story.  It's a beautiful morning.  I'm not at the rugby fest...though it's going on today.  That's my boy in blue in the photo.  Rugby is a wonderful sport if you haven't ever seen it.  Once you get the hang of the rules it's great!  But not for today... we have other plans.

 I've been outside admiring my salad greens growing on the front porch, petunias of deep midnight purple and burgundy on the back porch and the orange bell peppers ripening on the bush in my garden.  T-shirt weather.  T-shirt and shorts and bare feet weather.  I love it.  Mooch has grabbed "the kitty chair" in my bedroom and is taking his morning bath prior to a long nap.  Peaceful day.  It's a day for a good long book read on the back porch but I think it will end up being a day of shopping, putting up a christmas tree and baking (there's a birthday going on tomorrow!)

May your Saturday be as peaceful as I feel right now!

Mutt Lucks

Ever heard of Mutt Lucks?  My dog is very happy with them at certain campgrounds.

He is at Sunset Crater in northern Arizona in the above photo.  The ground is cinders - of varying sizes and are very sharp to the dog's pads.  Within a few hours the dogs are limping around and licking their paws excessively.  Not my dog.  Although he didn't like these at first, he now patiently offers his paws to have them put on.  Heavy duty leather on the bottom and ripstop nylon on top with velcro to go around the ankle.  Need a pair?  Try REI.

Colors of Fall

Here in the low desert we don't get a huge amount of fall color.  Things start to look a little less crispy and begin to green up a little in the cooler temperatures.  It's time to plant petunias, marigolds and other fall flowers.  Yes, I know easterners think petunias are a spring plant - but here we plant them in October.  They don't like the heat very much, though with enough daily water they can survive it.  This year though, I did get a taste of fall color.  I visited my brother and his family in Tennessee just as the colors began changing.  So not the full blast of yellows, reds and oranges... but a taste nonetheless.

One little red tree amongst the green.

Yellow just starting to show around the edges.

Reflections give me a bit more color.

And a last bit of red and orange...

Beautiful, but we have our own color here in the desert...

Reds, greens and blues...

Yellows and more blues...

And golds...

Bane of the Peppers

I've been waging war on these suckers for the past few weeks.  Tomato Hornworms.  Big, squishy, and wiggly when you pry them off the plant.  I have no clue where they hide during the heat of the day, but dawn and dusk they are rapidly consuming my various peppers.  I was squeamish about them at first, but when they stripped a beautiful plant of all its leaves and buds I got mad.  Now I have my worm-stomper flip flops right by the back door. I pry these guys off my peppers throw them to the dirt and stomp.  The one in the photo above was the size of my index finger.  I've pulled them off when they were a half inch long.  They turn into Sphinx Moths.  I felt bad about all the Sphinx Moths being caught by my hunter cat as they never seemed to survive the encounter.  Now I tell Mr. Meeps that he is a great hunter (just leave the lizards and geckos alone please) and that he should target the moths.

Rain - or lack thereof...

It has been a long time since we've seen rain.  It seems like forever.  I took this photo last March as I drove home from Tucson.  Unfortunately, I only got to look at the storm.  Raindrops never came my way.  And now that the temperatures have soared here in the desert I am craving rain.  I can't wait for the first big thunderstorm where I will sit on the back porch and listen to the thunder boom and watch the wind have it's way with the trees.

I now work on the 6th floor of a building that is all windows.  It's very hard to concentrate when the storms begin to blow in. To heck with the programming, let's watch the clouds!  We probably won't get any storms until the end of July.  Hopefully I'll get a little taste of rain when we travel up to the Colorado high country later this month.  Thunder there is phenomenal as it echoes around the mountain sides.

Meanwhile I torture myself with these storm photos, trying to conjure up the smell of rain in the desert (ahhhh, creosote), feel the excitement of the electricity in the air, watching lightning zot down to the earth.  Soon, soon. 

Has it really been that long?

I logged in to update this blog and realized I haven't posted anything in over a month.  That's not good.  It's not that I don't think about blogging...I "write" quite a bit in my mind.  In my mind isn't posted though.  In my mind is just that.  So I need to get off my duff and write.  Helps that I got a beautiful new writing desk from IKEA.  It's purple.  It called me from across the room.  It's small - just big enough for a lamp, a coaster for my ever present beverage (desert living - always have water handy), my laptop or pad of paper, and an extra something...currently my camera.  I caressed it in the store.  Shouldn't spend the money but it's purple and it's perfect.  My daughter (for whom we were really shopping for) just got a little smile on her face.  "Write the number down Mom.  You can think about it as I pick out my dorm sheets".  I thought and thought.  The typical "can't justify the dollars", the "But  it's perfect", the "we're here for Mariah", the "NO! DON'T" and finally, the "It's what I've always wanted - I'll kick myself if I get home without it".  So here I sit at my beautiful purple writing desk... but I digress.

This post is really about flowers, Sunflowers in particular.  I like sunflowers.  They're cheery and very easy to grow, at least they are in my climate.  But I prefer other flowers like petunias.  They come in a billion colors and smell so nice in the evening.  Of course, my favorites are the purple varieties.

I also have a beautiful Monarda species that I'm loving currently.  I bought a plant labeled "Oregano" at Home Depot and yes, there was a dying little sprig of oregano in that pot.  But I wasn't paying attention to it - I saw what I thought were nice lush oregano leaves.  Nope.  That little oregano sprig quickly gave up the ghost and the other plant sort of flourished.  It was a Phoenix summer.  Not the best time for plants in pots to flourish.  So the plant limped along and made it to winter.  It did fine over the winter - morphed from a low soil-hugging plant into several tall spikes.  Then as our weather warmed up (and UP!) it got buds.  This beautiful plant burst (well, 6 spikes did) into bloom exactly on the day that my daughter was having a high school graduation party at our house.  Perfect timing.

Monarda... bee balm.  My mom has a whole patch of this plant up in Colorado.  I tried many times to grow it and it always died as the temperatures hit 100º.  So now I have a mislabeled plant - or a rogue seeding - and it does fine.  Scraggly, but the spikes that grew are healthy.  The flower is about the size of a raquetball.  Bigger than a golf ball, smaller than a tennis ball.

But this was supposed to be about sunflowers.  My daughter planted a variety of sunflowers in the raised garden bed we put together back in February.  First to bloom was the typical "Mammoth" variety that kids love to grow.  These things would grow an inch or so a day!  Very gratifying for elementary kids that can't wait for things to grow.

The above flower isn't the first that opened.  I missed getting a photo of that one.  Or it's on the other SD card that I've misplaced.  This one is pretty small - about 4 inches across.  The first one was yellow like this - but about a foot across.  Gorgeous and very gratifying given the amount of water I've put into that garden.  Next up were the red-brown varieties:

Beautiful flower and the bees love this one.  As you can see.  This variety has about 6 or 7 flowers on each stalk whereas the larger varieties (like flower number one) grow only one large flower.  Finally, the orange ones have opened:

This looks more yellow than it really is due to the backlighting.  But you can see that this is another that has multiple flowers on the stalk.  All of these are standing about 6 feet tall - 7 feet in some cases.  My daughter is ecstatic and is searching for more colors for next spring's garden.  Meanwhile, I'm enjoying my pink, purple and bluish petunias.  Don't get me started on the gardenia that went to town this spring.  Sigh.  What a scent.

Springtime in the desert

Today is one of those perfect days which reminds me of why I love the desert so.  Mornings are cool - a good time to water plants and do the yard work that needs attention.  Palo verde trees are all in bloom this week.  Beautiful bright yellow blossoms against the green of the tree.  The city is blanketed with fallen yellow blossoms which swirl in the breezes.  My gardenia plant is in bloom - scenting the day with its beautiful smell.  Every once in a while as I work on the computer I get a waft of the gardenia. Lovely.  Birds are all singing - particularly the mockingbirds.  My yard is the corner of 2-3 males' territories.  So I benefit from a lot of singing.  White-winged Doves were out this morning, eating seeds from the acacia and cooing.  Finches are working over the hummingbird feeders.  Afternoon is warm.  We're in the mid-nineties which is perfect to me.  But soon it will be hot.  That's when I pull out photos like this one and remind myself that cooler times will return.

Snow in the Grand Canyon is always a beautiful thing.  It was chilly this day - with snow showers blowing through the canyon.  Wind was icy to our faces and we didn't linger anywhere for too long.

But now back to my beautiful day.  Split pea soup in the crockpot - thanks to the Easter ham bone that my brother saved for me.  2 salads as I couldn't choose between them.  Dinner and swimming at my brother's house - it's a wonderful day.

Harris' Hawk kind of Day

Yesterday was just one of those days I savor.  Very nice weather, great sports, good food and a great bird to end things up.

Weather was warm - but not hot, with high clouds sailing through.  Every time I looked up to the sky there was a different formation.  Not puffy clouds,  but big banks of wispy clouds.  Great Blue Herons and anonymous ducks flew over, somewhere nearby there must have been a park with some water.

I spent most of the day at a rugby tournament.  The Wolves played hard, but lost in the end.  An enjoyable game to watch as it wasn't one-sided.  My son is an assistant coach for the team.  He played with this team as a high school student for 3 years and then 1 year with his current school - ASU.  He's loving the coaching side of things as he is a born leader.  Loves to talk and explain things, wants to make the people around him aspire to greater things.  But I regress... rugby is a great sport to watch once you figure out the game.  I stayed on to watch the Mens' game.  My son now plays for that team, though he didn't play yesterday.  Much faster paced.  Much more colorful language.  :)

On my way home I saw what I thought was a BIG grackle drinking from water in the gutter in an neighborhood intersection.  As I got closer I realized it was WAY too big to be a grackle.  Two young boys stood nearby, straddling their bikes with their mouths wide open.  I pulled over as I realized it was a Harris' Hawk.  I was hoping he wasn't injured.  They usually sit way up in trees or on light poles.  You never see them on the ground.

Harris' Hawks are interesting as they hunt in packs.  I once watched a trio wear down a rabbit in the desert.  One would fly after the rabbit which would zig and zag and eventually find shelter under a bush.  When a second hawk would suddenly show up on the other side of the bush, the rabbit would bolt to zig and zag to another bush.  They kept this up until the rabbit tired at which point the third swooped in for the catch.

This guy wasn't hunting and he wasn't injured.  Just thirsty.  Mockingbirds were mobbing him, annoying birds when they take it in their heads that they don't like you. Ask my cat.  The hawk eventually drank his fill and tired of the mockingbird swarm over his back so flew up to a giant mesquite.  Just as an aside, this particular mesquite is one of my favorite trees in the area.  It is enormous and the trunk twists like a piece of candy up to about 15 feet where it branches out into a huge umbrella of green.  It is beautiful.  And, a great hawk perch, which is where this guy flew along with his accompanying swarm of mockingbirds.

He proceeded to preen himself, trying very hard to appear oblivious of the noisy bunch around him.  He gave himself away, not as calm, cool, collected as he would like to seem, when he occasionally flinched as a mockingbird whacked his backside.  They were careful to not get to close to his face.  I like this picture as it shows the mockingbird's patches well.  They use those to frighten bugs into flinching and giving away their hiding places.  Wasn't working on the hawk though.

I eventually left the hawk to his "peace".  A Gila Woodpecker had joined the fray and was being very vocal about hawk's not being wanted in his neighborhood.  It was getting too noisy for me.  Besides, my porch chair and book were calling me.  Dusk is a beautiful time to read.

There is nothing bluer than an Arizona sky in Spring.  Well, perhaps a New Mexico Spring sky... but as I'm 2 miles from the AZ/NM border as I write this the sky overhead belongs to both states.  Blue as can be.  Not a cloud to mar the blueness. Against the pink rock and yellow-green and sage-green lichens the sky is vibrant blue.

A soft breeze wafts over me and hums through the junipers, blowing cottonwood tufts around the campsite.  The creek behind me tumbles over rocks, blurbling and chortling, perfecting my afternoon with its song. 

We were here last year about the same time.  At that time the creek barely held any water, surfacing for a hundred feet before sinking back into the sands.  It was the first time in over 30 years of traveling here that I had seen the creek dry.  A worrisome dry that confirmed my worst fears when a huge wildfire broke out in June.  The Horseshoe 2 fire burned most of the mountain range over a month plus.  This canyon was protected for several reasons: several residences, the Southwestern Research Station, incredible birding, and some great firefighters.  This year you could see the results of the fire... black toothpick trees sticking up out of the snow on the mountain ridges, areas with no debris under the trees with black bases, entire mountain faces that were brown with no green at all.  But you could also see other life.  Some of those mountain faces had canyons that still held the green of junipers and oaks, new growth poking up through the sooty ground, and the mountains themselves, stoic and rejuvenating.  I felt a sadness at seeing the burned areas, especially knowing that the fire was human caused, but I also feel a good vibe as I see the life springing anew.

This small campground is peaceful.  Gangs of Mexican Jays fly through regularly - looking for food and talking constantly.  They come in waves - like the wind - you can hear them swooping through the trees.

A pair of White-Breasted Nuthatches also checks us out - very unintimidated as they jerk up and down the trees right in front of me.  They are probably feeding babies as they grab crumbs and dog kibbles and fly away to the same area across the campground.  Just as quickly they are back - hopping into the dog bowl.

I love this place.  I first discovered it back in 1980 when visited with my grandmother during our glorious roadtrip summer.  I skinny-dipped in a hole in the creek at that time.  The creek was fuller then and fewer people.  Doesn't matter though.  I'm such a cold water wimp that I wouldn't dip again.  Wading is enough. The peace of the canyon is the same though.  It renews the soul.  It reminds me of what is truly important about life.

And so as the breeze increases and cools in the late afternoon, the birds are returning in hopes of new crumbs.  Potential campers cruise through the campground and move on.  I'm about to start a rich Chicken Tortilla Soup for our dinner.  Time to put the journal down, wander the creek edge, and soak up the peace.

I am the epitome of "Happy Camper", enjoying my glass of Dos Cabezas' dry blush wine, and just being...

Desert Garden

Being sick has one advantage.  Lots of books get read without interruption.  I actually made a dent in the piles next to my bed and my Kindle list has temporarily shortened.  But that's the only positive.  I didn't even get to sleep in as I still had to get my daughter off to school.  But the bug has finally run its course and I am back in the Land of Living.  Just in time for a beautiful weekend.  Blue skies and warm temperatures beckoned me into the yard for the first time in a week.

It is THE weekend.  Finally.  I can put together the 6' x 8' raised garden bed that I've been thinking about for a LONG time.  We have officially passed the frost-free date for our area.  No guarantees, I know, but I can't back any longer.  The area in the side yard has been chosen.  It receives enough sunlight to make plants happy but gets afternoon shade so that they don't wilt and cry "Uncle" when our temps get high.  I moved the composter (full of larvae churning the kitchen scraps to nice black soil), cleared the old gravel, assembled the bed using my Christmas gift of bed corners from Gardener's Supply, and then began the arduous work of turning over a foot or so of the concrete - like "soil".  After about 5 shovels full I started to question my sanity.  I'm less than 24 hours from my sick bed  - what the heck am I doing?  Still, orange trees are blooming with their sweet, sweet smell which I could occasionally get whiffs of when my sinuses decided to momentarily clear.  Bees buzzed amongst them.  I guzzled water and reassured the hummingbird that was keeping up a running commentary on my progress.  Eventually I finished the digging and lugged over the 5 huge sacks of soil.... hmmmm... clearly not enough. So another trip to Home Depot and oops... 4 more plants made it onto my cart along with the bags of soil courtesy of my daughter. But how can you NOT buy this one:

This photo is from the Learn2Grow site here:  Learn2Grow

It's called "The Ravers/Pink Sugar" and it's an African Daisy.  Gorgeous desert sunset colors!  Once home, my kids unloaded the soil and turned the bed over.  Saved my back a little distress.  And then we began the fun work... planting!  We did a mixture of plants and seeds.  Tomatoes and marigolds together, herbs up front where I can pinch leaves and smell.  My daughter's sunflowers in the back where we can eventually tie them to the wall so they won't fall over when the summer winds start. Basil seedlings transplanted from the volunteers in my porch pots. Now it's water and wait.  Dream of the chiles and tomatoes that I will enjoy later. And start to scheme up ways to keep the neighborhood quail from devouring my tomatoes at the exact moment that they ripen to perfection.  My quirky daughter is looking forward to the nights when we go out with flashlights and pull of the cutworms and tomato hornworms and squish them with bricks.  Funny the things that kids remember happily from their childhoods!

So now I check the garden on an hourly basis, hoping that my seedlings have popped up.  I'll get bored in a few days and will stop checking.  At that point they will spring up.  In the meantime, I smile.  I love gardens.  I love the hard work up front preparing everything.  I love the gift of plants popping up and gaining strength.  I love cooking and being able to step out the back door to snip some parsley or thyme.  And I love being drawn outdoors where I can watch the mockingbird picking for bugs amongst my pots, listen to him sing his territory boundaries, hear the palm berries drop and bounce as a starling picks them over, and listen to the kestrel scold the world before disappearing into the palm frond nest.  Spring in the Desert.  

Dog eyes...

Sammy didn't like the rambunctious young 'uns.  She held herself aloof that first day.

There are three sets of eyes drilling into me.  My dinner is done, but all three are hoping that there is a tidbit somewhere that I've hidden away.  Sorry dogs.  It's all done and gone.  I ate it all.  I know my father has led you to believe that tidbits exist.  But not tonight.  I was hungry.  And you didn't offer me anything from your dinner.  So I don't feel bad.

But I look into your eyes.  All so different.  Sammy stares at me with an intensity that is hard to ignore. Black eyes in a yellow face, not blinking.  She doesn't move at all. Everything is focused like a laser on my mouth.  Maybe there's a tidbit hidden there.  Meanwhile, drool begins to form a long string from her right jowl.  Uck.  It appears at the least possibility of food.  Paws shift on the couch next to me, a slight intake of breath that isn't regular and my attention is shifted to Jake.  He's horrified that "his food" might go to another canine.  His golden eyes hold a panic, an intense "Oh no!" look.  He's also upset that the newest dog on the block (Buster) keeps stealing borrowing his bobos (toys).  Jake is torn between watching for the potential tidbit and watching to make sure that Buster doesn't make a move towards the nearest bobo.  No drool from him... just a lunge into my lap to make sure that he still the favorite dog.  He conveniently manages to wipe his mouth across my chest and take up the whole couch so that Sammy can't climb up.  Multi-tasker Jake.  Yep.  And finally a huge sigh is heaved from across the table where Buster has concluded that there will be no more food.  His dark brown eyes are almost invisible in his black face.  He smiles at me, with his pink tongue shining out of his face and then flops down to nap.  He's too new to worry about food too much.  Wait until he meets my Dad.  That will change things.

Such different personalities in these dogs.  My worried, needy-of-constant-love dog.  My brother's laid-back, sneaky dog (she can slide out of a room and get in the garbage faster than any dog I know).  Buster, Terry's dog, is the young kid whose biggest concern is getting someone to throw a toy for him.  He can play catch for hours.  The other two older dogs appreciate one or two throws and then need a nap.  And now as this is written, Jake has gone outside to see what the neighbor dogs are up to. He's barking his opinion to the world.  Sammy has taken the spot next to me on the couch and keeps trying to lay her slobbery jowls across my keyboard. She oozes love but I know she just wants as much body contact as possible.  Buster keeps spitting bobos at me, hoping that I'll throw them.  He left when Sammy quietly growled.  The old lady keeps him in his place. He's now laying with his head out the dog door, unsure whether to go out or not. He wants to join Jake, but isn't really happy with the dog door.


I shall leave the dogs to their lives...and go get my daughter from work.

Jake and Buster about a half hour after meeting. This is before Buster started borrowing bobos.  They aren't so close now. :)

My morning's Cool Bird

It's Sunday and I HAD planned on going birding today.  I wanted to go to the Rio Salado Habitat as I haven't been there and it is the season for migratory birds to be moving through.  Alas, as usual, life gets in the way of what I want to do.  So instead, I'm being a good girl and getting some of my work out of the way as I know Monday and Tuesday I will not have enough time to get it all done and meet two deadlines.

I woke up early - not that I wanted to but my body chose differently.  Once I heaved that sigh both the cat and dog KNEW it was time for morning kibbles.  They started the full court press.  Cold nose under the quilt, looking for warm armpits, fluffy tail flicked right under my nose, louding purring, and equally, no..., louder panting.  Dog breath.  Yuk.  That was enough to get me out of bed.  Kibbles done. I went outside and listened to the Thrashers as they called back and forth.  My morning "Witty-wits".  This morning one of them was singing.  Really nice to listen to that sweetness and watch the sky go from violet to lilac to pink.  I went back inside before it went to the apricot hue.  I was cold and the coffee had finished.  Morning Sudoku done.  2nd cup of coffee has gone cold.  Time to go out and rid my yard of the dog's week worth of poop.  Lordy, how he can poop! As I worked a sound kept tapping at the edges of my mind.  Not one I'm used to hearing around my house.  I wandered around the yard, looking for signs that the plants are ready to explode into Springtime bloom.  Nope.  No signs other than the Fouquieria that my Dad planted is in full leaf.  

He planted it as an 18" 3 pronged stick.  I think he picked a good spot to plant it as this puppy is definitely a happy Fouquieria.  It isn't an Ocotillo - though it is related.  Meanwhile, that sound continued to tap at my brain.  Wasn't getting through completely.  As I turned to go inside, I heard it clearly.  Kind of a wheezy "creer" that just didn't belong to my usual yard sounds.  Whatever it was, it was up in the pine tree in my front yard, and wasn't big and showy.  Ran and got my binocs and headed into the front yard.  Of course the sun was shining right about where the bird should be.  Repositioned myself so that the palm tree blocked the sun, raised the binocs to my eyes, and Voila!

Not my photo.  I got this from Wikimedia Commons.  Photo by Calibas.

 There it was!  A Red-naped Sapsucker!  Not a common bird around my neighborhood.  In fact I've never seen one in Phoenix before.  Guess I don't get out enough as other birders have seem them, and often enough that they aren't considered an oddity.  Ah well.  Cool for me!  I watched him for a while as he picked about the branches, round and round the tree.  And I realized that the "creer" sound was very much like the Hairy Woodpeckers up at my parent's home in Colorado.  Just got to get the brain in gear a little faster.  AND! After reading up on this bird, I'm willing to bet most of the birds I've been calling Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers here in the desert are probably Red-napes.  I really need to get back on the ball with birding.

So now I can go back to my work that I don't want to do.  Except that my daughter just called and wants to go buy storage containers so she can begin to pack her room in anticipation of moving to the dorm this August.  Anything that gets her to clean her room I am willing to help with!  And yes, Mom... I'm going to send the birthday photos right away.

Thrashers and Life

I just watched a documentary that set my mind spinning.  It's called "Life in a Day". People were encouraged to video life on 7/24/2010 and submit their videos.  The vignettes were then edited down to a 1 1/2 hour movie.  As expected, there is a wide variety of life styles from all parts of the world.  And yet there is a similarity: sleep, awaken, wash sleep from the eyes, eat , start the day.  There are celebrations, smiles, tears, hardships, faith, love and poverty.  All sorts of homes. Bicycles, cars, trains, planes and feet.  Lots and lots of feet.

All of the people were ordinary, and yet extraordinary.  No celebrities.  We see too much of them already. People living through what I think of as difficult circumstances, smiling and accepting of life, seeing the good in the world around them.  Beautiful people, even with dirt and grime in their pores.  All sorts of children, old people, a Korean man bicycling the world, eyes that peer into your soul, and African women pounding out a threshing rhythm that wove through many pictures.

What really kept with me was the very last scene. A young American woman upset that she had had to work all day, with no time to video.  It was close to midnight as she sat in her car.  She called herself ordinary and thought about the fact that "nothing had happened today worth telling".  Yet she was a beautiful young woman, and oblivious to the barooming thunder and the flicker of lightning going on around her.  She called it a nothing day and yet Nature was celebrating around her.  We must remember that Life is not just us.  It is the world around us and the people all over.

And with that thought I switch gears slightly to my own little slice of the world.  A few days ago, after a string of overcast, cool and gloomy days, we had a short period of sunshine and warmth.  During the gloomy days the birds around me were finches and hummingbirds, fighting over feeder space and ownership.  A lone Verdin scolded anything/one that moved (particularly our cat), dashing in to catch a drip of sugar water before it fell to the herb pots below.  Sunshine however, brought out joy in others that I don't normally hear.  As I settled into my chair with my book, ready for the sunshine to warm my joints and the book my mind, a burst of song came trilling from the mesquite in the corner. Liquid, sweet notes tripped over one another, not quite a melody but definitely not an identifiable string of notes.  Already guessing, I grabbed my ever present binocs and yes...there he was.  A Curve-billed Thrasher was telling the neighborhood of his pleasure in the moment.  He of the first light "Witty-witts" was letting loose with his seldom heard song.  A treat.  There is a similarity to the mockingbird's short, repeated phrases and yet no mockingbird sings with such purity, sweetness and melody.  Curve-bills are in my top ten favorite bird songs along with Dippers, Canyon Wrens, owls hooting at night, and the completely non-melodious ranting of hummingbirds.

Although we people are very wrapped up in our individual worlds , there is another beautiful world around us, that can offer great joy if we only open our eyes, ears and minds.  And with that thought, I vow to get out birding WAY more than I have been lately.

I am definitely feeling the need to go camping.  A little on the chilly side this weekend.  But soon!

A storm is coming!

I wrote this 2 months ago.  Time to get it posted.

I feel as though I am awaiting something BIG.  There is that aura of anticipation such as a kid feels before their birthday.  Surely this is worth waiting for. Surely this will be the BIG one!

The weather people are all breathless when they talk about this storm.  Chaos and doom are sure to reign.  Don't drive this road or you're sure to be involved in an accident.  High pollution due to dust in the air - EVERYONE!  STAY INDOORS ALL DAY!  Wind! Rain! Snow! I do hope some of it actually happens.  Weather that is... not the accidents.

Weather is a good thing, especially here in the desert. Wild weather can be scary and destructive and yet there is an attendant exhilaration that goes along with the storms.  Listening to wind slashing through trees makes me wonder if the tree roots are truly strong enough to hold the tree in place.  Rain pelting down has me hoping that my roof is snug.  I worry about where the birds go in these storms.  When they have to cling to a swaying branch all night do they get much sleep?  Are birds grumpy after a night of interrupted sleep?  What is their equivalent of coffee to keep them alert after a stormy night?

We are anticipating (breathlessly!) the first winter storm.  High winds are predicted, along with rain and snow in the high country.  Temperature drop of 20 degrees between today and tomorrow's highs.  Because we have so much sunshine we desert dwellers always enjoy any big changes.  A single cloud in the blue sky "could" morph into a monsoon storm.  There is always hope.  So these impending storms have us excited, waiting impatiently, checking the world outside our windows.  Come on wind! Come on rain.  Let us have it!