Getting Active Again

I'll blame it on El Niño. Late 2014 through the "Holiday Season" and into January of 2015, I was pretty active with various outdoor projects. This late autumn and winter, of 2015-6 we've had more rain and grey days. Not so active.

Now we've had a stretch of warmer weather with clear skies, and I feel as if I have emerged from quasi-hibernation. This kind of weather begs a person to go outside and be active.

Stepping stones seem insignificant,
until your back strains trying to lift one.

In the garden, Shari is cultivating, planting, tending and watering kai-lan (a type of Chinese broccoli or kale), garlic and herbs while I weed grass and Nazar the Wonder Dog watches.

There are a couple of crossings of the dry watercourse that's at the bottom of Coat Hanger Valley.  I have been thinking of a bridge, or maybe stepping stones. Scrounging around our acre, I found enough large flat rocks suitable for my back to embed as stepping stones.

The trail to the south point.

I have been mining more rocks to support the bench I dug into the east side of the Valley that serves as a trail to the south. The trail has been expanded to the southern most boundary marker of our Sonoran acre, and a small area cleared and flattened there on the hillside. The site is hidden from neighbors and offers an interesting view south looking over lower San Simeon Drive, parts of Tucson, and the Santa Rita Mountains.

The west side.

Then there is the west side which slopes down into another little wash. Only a few weeks ago my neighbor showed me the actual location of our northern most boundary marker. Of course, I had to clear that area of our Sonoran acre and a path down to get to it.  The last few days I have been working on a new cinderblock wall that will help define the path down the slope to that north boundary marker.

Four Asian solar lanterns
("Made in China") by five steps.

I am also stuccoing and painting other cinderblock retaining walls on the west side that I had constructed from material salvaged from the former backyard garden. (See 500 Bricks & 600 lbs of Sand.) Stuccoed and painted with the neutral house color, the grey concrete blocks disappear.

Tiny cactus flowers remind us of spring.
Eucalyptus leaves offer a sense of scale.

Which is what I did with the four grey plastic solar light lanterns I found at Home Depot: make them blend in with earth tones. I spend a delightful couple of hours at the garage work bench, garage door open and sunlight pouring in, wearing my bib-overalls and carefully painting the grey lanterns with the beige-colored house paint. The little LED's help define the steps when they light up in the dark like small stars.

Yep, it's the time of year when I can wear bib-overalls and work outside all day. It's a great season for outdoor work.