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.