Construction Zone

The approved submittal sketch.

Well, it's been about ten weeks since they started digging up our backyard with the intention that it will look a little like the artist's conception image we submitted to the HOA police (the Architectural Review Committee of the Homeowner's Association) for approval.

So we've joined the Construction Zone.

There are scores and scores of new houses under construction to the north of us. By morning twilight, the warning bells of trucks in reverse gear can be heard together with the fire of nail guns and, occasionally, boomboxes playing Sonoran pop songs. Dove Mountain Blvd. becomes a regular stream of pick-up trucks and various construction company trucks, large and small, whether infrastructure businesses (licensed in Texas), concrete trucks, concrete pumps, cranes, plumbers, roofers, HVAC businesses, hardware delivery, landscape outfits, pest control firms — anything and everything you can imagine.

Then there are the swimming pools. Being a new development, every backyard comes with plain dirt, weeds, and construction debris. Many buyers decide to have a swimming pool constructed in their backyards, so there is a regular parade of worker bees and their trucks digging, laying rebar and concrete, etc., etc.

We've joined the club and we are having our own parade of workers: laborers digging holes and trenches, laborers using concrete blocks to fashion raised planting beds and an outdoor barbecue island, plumbers adding outdoor faucets and a natural gas connection for the barbecue, a crew setting up our backyard pagoda, electricians adding outdoor plugs and wiring for the adjustable louvers.

The plan involves a tall pergola over a concrete pad that extends out from the back patio, concrete paths from the side gate to the pergola, a barbecue area (of course), one raised garden for Shari, one raised garden for Tom (with trellis), a trellis outside our bedroom window, and a layer of crushed rock over all the dirt to keep the dust down.

The biggest spectacle was the concrete pour complete with concrete truck and concrete pump. In the morning, a team of workers showed up to finish laying the forms, digging out the cavities to be filled with concrete, and laying a crisscross of rebar, all just in time before the scheduled 8 a.m. arrival of the concrete truck. Also on site was a concrete pump with long sections of hose. Then, to the sound of a boombox dialed to Sonoran pop songs, the crew went at it. By noon, the concrete was all shaped and smoothed.

The building department inspector comes tomorrow to check electrical, plumbing and gas connections. Then, hopefully, we can complete the backfill.

For now, it's all still a bit of a mess ... a promising mess, but a mess. It will probably be several weeks before all the hired work is done, then more time for Shari and me to do clean-up and finish. When the workers are done hauling and spreading ten tons of crushed rock, we might have our backyard ready for our use — but I am trying to be upbeat. Rome was not built in a day.

So if anyone has been wondering what we've been up to this year, now you know.

Tortolita Preserve in March

One of the pleasures of living in the Dove Mountain development is easy walking distance to the Tortolita Preserve. I have no need to get into my car. An alley a few houses down gets me to the Dove Mountain West Park where I follow the wash down and cross the barbed wire fence that surrounds the Preserve. Nature has graciously washed down a section of the fencing so it takes only a couple of ginger steps to walk over the barbed wire. Then it's cross-country following game trails, crossing under another barbed wire fence (the City of Marana leases the Preserve for cattle grazing), to reach the dirt road where there is an access point over a cattle guard. The formal trail starts there.

Or I can walk a few blocks along the streets of the Blue Agave developments to reach that cattle guard then walk the trail.

Walking through the Preserve one encounters countless magical scenes of greenery and budding wildflowers. This early spring, March, the lush greenery is simply stunning after the generous rains we have had over this winter.

The Tortolitas (Spanish for "doves") are a mountain range that peaks at 4,696 feet (1,431 m.). Some three decades ago, the Anglos who set out to develop the slopes used the name "Red Hawk." It took then a few years to realize that the Spanish name, dove, was a wee bit more inviting for new home buyers than hawk (especially a red hawk), so the name "Dove Mountain" was born. The area is incorporated within the town of Marana, also originally a Spanish name, "maraña," which means "thicket." The story goes that laborers dubbed the area Maraña on account of the thick vegetation they had to clear to make way for the railroad.

Even today, there is plenty of uncleared land with dense thickets of cholla, prickly pear and sage brush. On the upper slopes of Marana, in the Tortolita Preserve, there is plenty of maraña plus saguaros, ironwood, and palo verde trees.

Wildlife on San Simeon

A video collection of wildlife taken on our little acre of the Sonoran Desert, including bobcats, javalina, mourning doves, Gila woodpecker, king snake, hummingbirds, chipmunks, rabbits, rattlesnake, Gamble's quail, Cooper's hawk, owls, bats, kangaroo mice, lizards, coyote, grackle, Colorado River toad, and even a raccoon.

Some are taken on my video camera; some on repurposed security cameras.