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.

Bobcat & Prey

Our neighborhood bobcat had a good catch yesterday. These videos were captured using re-purposed security cameras. Towards the end, the effortless jump on the wall is amazing.

One Good Wall Deserves Another

There are lots of nice things about cement blocks. They make great retaining walls that greatly slow down inevitable erosion. They are easier to collect than boulders. They have flat surfaces that can adhere to one another and take stucco. They also can replace inclines lined with rocks and free up those rocks and the occasional boulder for use elsewhere in one's landscape design. And, perhaps the greatest incentive, little critters can't tunnel through them and, if tall enough, javelina are reluctant to jump over them.

So after a few years of loose rocks slipping, critters tunneling, and javelina munching on the roots of ornamentals by my main traversing walkway, I counter-attacked. I made several trips with Agamemnon to Lowes and Home Depot to bring back cement blocks, concrete mix, stucco mix, liquid nails, pea gravel, and clay bricks. I removed my precious native Catalina rocks, dug a trench, and did a rough layout of the wall.

The work is exhilarating and satisfying, although when the lizards are scampering around mid-morning, it's time to get out of the heat. After about a week of early morning work, four or five hours at a time, the block wall was stuccoed, painted, and topped with clay bricks.

I would sit in our outdoor living room and admire not only the pleasing order which I had imposed upon the landscape, but the new areas where I had created terraces with the rocks and the occasional boulder I had freed up.

I noticed something missing.  I had constructed individual lengths of concrete block retaining walls interspersed with natural Catalina rock in our gully (Coat Hanger Valley). I had retaining walls along the slopes defining paths and three sets of stairs leading down to the bottom of the gully, but where you first cross the driveway to get to those paths was untidy. It needed some inviting refinement to entice a person to saunter inside. It needed an entrance.

That required a curve, three test roughed-in layouts, welcome advice from my better half, and a lot of additional trench modifications and cement blocks. The curve was made using three columns of landscape retaining wall wedges between columns of concrete blocks, then filled and smoothed with concrete and stucco.

In my opinion, the result is satisfying. I am almost tempted to have something written out on the curve — you know, in metal letters like universities have their names on masonry curves at the corners of their campuses. Instead of "University of Arizona," I could have "Coat Hanger Valley."

Nah.

 

Homage to Blue Elves

The funny thing about the blue elf aloe is that it is neither blue (or even a little bit depressed) nor an elf. However, it is an aloe.

The blue elf is a cultivar of the aloe genus which originated in the Old World, Africa and the Near East in particular. Aloes have been grown in the New World for centuries, long enough for one of the five hundred or so aloe species to be named "Mexican" and for the Mexicans to cook the leaves.

No one seems to know who developed the blue elf or how the cultivar got named. They are not blue. If happy (a little shade is always welcome) they are quite green. If over exposed to sunlight or cold, they turn dark, not blue.

They are early bloomers, starting to grow their long stalks and coral colored blooms in winter, even before the aloe vera (the "true aloe") take off. When the regular aloe bloom, it's all at once as if they all had a meeting and unanimously decided upon the opening day. The blue elves tend to be more independent, different plants blooming over weeks and months.

We inherited a couple of clumps of blue elves when we bought the house. I thinned the clumps and planted a few around the gully. I noticed hummingbirds feeding off of the trumpet shaped blue elf flowers. I thinned and planted more clumps.

This winter has been a bumper crop of flowers and the hummingbirds are happy. See for yourself.

Caesalpinia

 Or, The Effect of Monsoon Rain on Life. 

In this case, on Caesalpinia pulcherrima. In the Sonoran Desert, we call the legume plant with spectacular flowers, Mexican bird of paradise. Its common names include peacock flower and in Bermuda, where it is the national flower, the pride of Bermuda.

Anyway, our winter and spring rainfall having been almost non-existent, our Caesalpinia was sparse and struggling. Then came July, then August, and we are not done with September. Tucson's rainfall already this year has exceeded its annual average.

Nature responded. Our Caesalpinia is a flowering jungle, and the unusually plentiful butterflies and moths are feasting upon the flowers.

The Creek Flows

When we get rain in the Sonoran Desert, we get excited. When we get monsoon rain, I grab my video camera.

The first monsoon deluge is always a welcome relief after weeks and weeks of dry summer weather with daily three-digit high temperatures (38+C.).

This deluge was particularly welcome. Some months ago I uncovered and opened up four culverts under the driveway. They had been blocked for as long as we have lived here. When we had heavy rains, a large lake formed on the north side of the driveway. My plan was to restore the creek flowing from the roof of the house down into the gully on the south side of the driveway, into Coat Hanger Valley.

The plan worked.

Purple Finch

 Saguaros are handy places for nests, but the chicks have to keep really still.

A Closer Look at Our Little Acre

We got many compliments on the previous edit, and I am learning to slow down and focus in with my video camera. This edit reflects more detail.

The Sonoran Desert has shapes, colors, and textures large and small. On our own little acre where we have cleared and planted, each plant has become a familiar friend.

The soundtrack is Brahim Fribgane playing the oud. Born and raised in Morocco, Brahim Fribgane brings to his music the rich and varied musical styles he grew up with - North African, Gnawa, Berber, Arabic and Andulusian music. His oud style ranges from the clear, "singable" melodies of folkloric Berber songs to beautifully complex and soulful Arabic music.

November at San Simeon

The heat of summer is forgotten as we wear long pants and a sweater in the mornings, then shed layers as the sun in a cloudless blue sky heats up the days. We had some rain a week ago. One hardy creosote bush responded with flowers. The devil's tongue barrel cactus is budding with deep red flowers.

We have spotted the owl in the eucalyptus tree several times. Judging by the offal on the park bench directly below its perch, and the scattered feathers on the driveway, the owl has been a successful hunter.

Much thanks for the many kind comments.

"Thanks Shari for sending the video and well done Tom-you certainly capture the desert garden, loved the music and was that an owl because it was great capture!" 

 " OMG. ... This is amazing, beautiful, sculptural, spiritual, melodic, under the watchful eye of the owl, and the moons glow. Wow. The hardscape, the stately cactus the protector of the many pots, and steps of continuous beauty. You have created, recreated the essence of Turkey, Australia, India etc, all them warmer exotic places that I have unfortunately not gotten to yet,. Congrats on so much hard work, and grace and beauty that you have shared with us and all that come by your place." 

 "What a beautiful garden that we would like to discover for real !" 

"Very beautiful yard, vegetation and even an owl! I love the editing with such lovely music as always." 

"WONDERFUL!!!! I really plan to see all that/YOU next… May? I hope I hope!!!!" 

 "One word: Fabulous!! makes us wish we were there." 

"🙏🏼 What a masterpiece you’ve created! The video is an amazing meditation in the midst of chaos." 

"Lovely lovely lovely! Thank you!!!" 

"So very nice! Great job, Tom. Such a perfect sanctuary! Thanks for sending, Shari! Always love seeing your place, in real life or in pictures!" 

 "Thank you for sharing views of your magical desert gardens. It's raining cats and dogs here--has been for days and no end in sight. ... It's such an interesting mix of plants, pots, whimsical items, paths, walls, furniture and level upon level of beauty. You two are sensational stewards of the land." "A lot of work but looks beautiful and well done!" 

 "Your garden arts are amazing, so to know you think Tom’s display being wonderful is quite the compliment!" 

"What a wonderful tour of your Oasis. Wish I could teleport down there for a few days and suck up the sounds and smells you capture so well." 

"Love the movie….the ending is WOW. Your place is so wonderful….I love it and miss my time there." 

"Thanks, that’s wonderful., and so much warmer and sunnier than say, Whidbey Island November-June. You’re lucky to have all those wonderful rocks to play with. " 

 "WOW.........put me into another place inside and out. Especially like the owl and crescent moon at the end of day. Thx a million for sharing your WONDER FULL garden."

Chipmunks, Dirt Piles & Rocks

The front of our San Simeon house is the pretty much the first domestic place you see driving in. It has a rock slope below the house, an area I call the Cirque. The rock is Catalina granite boulders and rocks — pale somewhat soft, with quartz veins and sparkling mica.

Granite isn't granite without mica and quartz.

I like Catalina rock. It's local. It's where we are situated, and what naturally exists in our washes and Foothills. It's subtle and pretty. At least it was until the pack rat, tiny white mice, and cute, abrubt-speedy chipmunks moved in.

First was the pack rat hoarded debris. Swept some up then spooned dry concrete into the cavities. Hosed it down. Looks solid. Mostly islands of Catalina rock poking out from grey cement treacle.

We have had lots of rodent activity this summer. We hired a pest control service ...
but that's another story.

Concreting that slope made sense. The scupper that drained about a quarter of the roof splashed and poured down that same part of the slope. The flow of erosion had already washed some dirt away and made the rocks collapse inwards some. That area needed the concrete.

Then I noticed increased chipmunk activity. Fresh green gouges had been chewed out of my prized hanging cactus and torch cactus.

The other clue was big dirt piles on my Catalina rock slope, like ugly mining tailings of which there are already way too many in the Copper State.

The clincher was seeing chipmunks hanging around on that rock slope, then disappearing in small holes above the dirt tailings.

Casus belli. It meant war.

It was war.

My weapons were cement blocks, stucco, gravel, 60 lb. bags of pre-mix concrete, chicken coop wire, wheelbarrows full of dirt, and my hard earned experience with the various burrowing reptiles and mammals we have here in the Sonoran Desert.

And stripping the heavy rocks off, then strategically stacking them back up.

The slope is beginning to take the shape of two terraces, which means two solid surfaces on which the traverse the slope and attend to pruning.

I still have a couple of days work left. Hopefully, what I am doing will hold them there varmints.

Outdoor TV

Evenings are warm, the garden is pleasant, and we can pick up our Wi-Fi signal in the garden. For years I have been wondering about watching video outdoors -- like the drive-in movies of long ago.

We finally did it. In these times of social distancing, we can invite a couple over and entertain outdoors and watch the telly, all the while keeping a discrete distance.

Wild Weed Flowers

Spring is grass and weed season in the Sonoran Desert. Many are bristly and sticky, and some are not particularly pleasant to look at (e.g., popcorn flowers, if I have identified these all too common plants of which there are over forty varieties). There is one plant that shoots its seeds when touched. These are not friendly or pretty plants and I dislike grass. So each spring, I pull grass and weeds from all over our little acre.

Last year I made friends with two weeds and learned their names: bristly nama has gorgeous purple flowers and flat-top buckwheat (a/k/a skeletonweed) has a beautiful lacy, coral-colored, umbrella-like superstructure when it dies back. I learned to recognize the shoots and let them grow. I also collected seeds from desert marigolds, brittlebush, and some tiny golden flowered plant clusters whose name I have not been able to identify. These all grow by the side of our very own San Simeon Drive. I scattered the seeds about our little acre.

Good winter rains, another two packets of California poppy seeds, and another two packets of mixed desert wildflower seeds, but mostly not pulling up everything that sprouts, have resulted in a spectacular and surprising bloom this March. Particularly surprising are occasional single plants bearing white, yellow or blue flowers. I have no idea where they came from.

It is still too early for flat-top buckwheat flowers, the creosote bushes are just beginning to flower, and cacti buds are appearing, so there will be more. But what I already have collected with my video camera fills about twelve minutes.

Here is the resulting edit, but if you can watch YouTube on a big screen telly, it looks much, much nicer than on a laptop.

Springtime Poppies

I probably sowed too many seeds, but after last spring's bounty, I couldn't resist.

Palo Verde Bloom

This spring, thanks to monsoon and winter rains, pretty much all the palo verde in our area decided to bloom at the same time. Normally, some bloom early, others follow, and a few bloom late. This year, it's as if someone set off fifteen minutes worth of fireworks in a single minute. It follows the spectacular wildflower bloom we had -- and the acacia and mesquite are also going bloomey.

Follow the drive down our driveway, then shots in the gully (coat hanger valley) on the south side, shots in back on the north side, and, only two days later, the beginning of the yellow carpet of golden blossoms under the trees.

Sarod and harp music by Madhu Murthy,

Wildflowers

I am so proud I could spit. A year or two ago I bought a packet of Southwest wildflower seeds. After weeks of indecision, I sprinkled them in various bare places along the gully hillside. Over months, I forgot exactly where I had planted the seeds. Then a season or two passed and I figured the seeds were duds.

It's winter and with all the winter rains we have been having, the grass and weed season is in full swing. There are thick patches of invasive grasses in many places, and the sticky and seed-spitting varieties of weeds are coming up all over. What makes a weed a weed? Grasses in this part of the world because they don't belong here. Plants that stick and hitch a ride on socks and dogs. Plants that when you touch them, they spit seeds a foot or more. (Watch out for your eyes.) Plants that I do not like so I am constantly pulling them up in the hope they will not go to seed in any unmanageable number.

There are some plants that in my first Sonoran years I considered weeds, but no more. I need to find the name of the one plant that has small fleshy leaves and, as the plant dries out with our dry spring seasons, its delicate, small bushy, lacey, umbrella frame turns reddish, sharing its hue with the bare tan and pink ground. I now classify it as a wildflower, along with brittle bush, seaside petunia, and desert senna. I recognize these plants as they sprout and never pull them.

So I am pulling weeds from various bare places along the gully hillside. I notice there are some oddly configured sprouts coming up. They seem different. There are plenty of identifiable weeds, so I ignore the unfamiliar ones. Thank goodness. As their brilliant green foliage matures, pretty yellow and orange flowers bloom. I realize that at least two species of wildflowers have sprouted from my packet. One of them I recognize. They are the orange flowers: Mexican or California poppies. I have seen entire hillsides and roadsides draped with their beautiful apricot color.

I hope my few flowers go to seed and multipy, but I think I should buy several more packets of Southwest wildflower seeds.

Taking Care of Things

Plowing the east forty, Ballard,
in anticipation of growing edibles.

The lord of a manor ought to take care of the estate. It's an idea that has evolved in me since the first house I bought, and even earlier. I would like to think it is not a possessive or a selfish thing, but a matter of stewardship.

Gardening, the most popular hobby in Merca, can teach the value of stewardship. Yes, the property is mine in fee simple. Yes, I can do with it whatever I want, land use regulations permitting. But working with living nature teaches humility. I am only a small part of the whole. As Shari often reminds me, the land talks to you over time and tells you what it wants.

Parking out the front acreage, Terra Bella.

Living at 5224 in the U-District, we got the idea of digging up the small, unkempt, weed-infested, sad excuse of a backyard lawn and planting a vegetable garden. Mind you, in those heady days of juvenile adolescence, the idea of taking care of anything took a distant back seat to being cool and having fun. Four boys fresh out of high school quickly ran that poor house into increasing states of dilapidation. But we did have our moments of clean-up and show-off. The vegetable garden was one such example. That first year we had a bumper crop of tomatoes the likes of which I have never since equaled.  Then, after that first summer of planting, distracted by the need to to be cool and having fun (a need exhausted only by growing up), we largely abandoned farming and the backyard restored itself to increasing states of dilapidation.

The front acreage, Terra Bella.

The Ballard house was my first possession in fee simple. It, like the U-District house, had a postage stamp sized lot with a backyard that had a strip suitable for growing edibles. Memories of that one successful tomato harvest propelled me to rent a cultivator and plant vegetables. I forget what we planted. Zucchini, tomato, green beans and the like, I suppose. Previous owners had graced the 1912 craftsman house with pretty ornamentals that bloomed over spring and summer: huge lilac bushes, honeysuckle, penstemon, and an apple tree. We planted annuals in hanging baskets on the front porch and in the half whiskey barrel on the back deck.

My move to Whidbey Island was cataclysmic. I had been a city boy. Shari was the Island Girl from the dense greenery of Puget Sound countryside, living on sheep farms, wooded acreage, and in island villages. She was already in tune with creating, maintaining, and savoring gardens: vegetable, fruit and floral.

Shari's garden, Terra Bella.

I became the lord of a much larger manor. My palette was five acres, later increased to ten. Most of it was forested with large, but not ancient, cedars with occasional Doug firs and hemlock. The land had been logged and clear-cut several times previously, but we inherited some pretty large trees together with lots of alder, blackberries and nettles. Stuff grows quickly in Lower Alaska. Some two acres around the house had been cleared and served as a lawn.

We enjoyed eight years on the aptly named Terra Bella Lane. Working the land became a full time pastime in addition to reworking the entire 4,200 square foot, eighteen room, three level house. We purchased Scotty the tractor mower to cut fields of grass, weeds and nettle fields. Over time, some three acres were parked out. We took out a shabby truck garden and rabbit cages that framed the grand driveway entrance. With the help of Randy, his son, their bulldozer, backhoe and lowboy, the hillside was terraced, the back acres partially cleared, and its swamp dug out to create a pond. On the terraced land, we deer-fenced about a tenth of an acre, used landscaping blocks and railroad ties to build raised gardens where Shari planted, grew and maintained everything from strawberries to espaliered apple trees and even grape vines. On the second five acres, I spent many an active summer day clearing paths to access, define, and enjoy our domain.

The pond in back, Terra Bella.

The second owner later, we had a chance to visit our old domain. Shari's and my purchaser was a trust fund baby with motorcycles, a civilian AK47, and houses in California and Mexico. He had neglected the garden and the park setting.  Everything reverted to an overgrown state, then he sold the property at a substantial loss. There was some hope. The young families that were living there when we visited were beginning to reclaim and rework the garden.

We moved to San Simeon where our little acre of the Sonoran Desert has become our domain. Thanks to the desert climate, we get plenty of opportunity to sit outside and contemplate nature. In my time as a lord of a manor, I have noticed how infinitely enjoyable it is to sit outside and watch things grow, listen to bird calls, and watch bugs fly and lizards do push-ups. Sitting inside for the same amount of time, even inside an attractively appointed space, is just staring at walls.

Ever wonder why we long to look out windows, and rarely in?
Looking out front, Terra Bella.

The illustrative story that comes to mind is from Terra Bella. Not long after we bought and fixed up our five acres on Whidbey, we invited my family for a day visit. It turned out to be one of those precious sunny days for which Puget Sound is justly famous. Inside the house, the conversation awkwardly turned to tape recordings. That is, the "same old, same old" subjects of conversation that dominated family dialogue for decades. It occurred to me to move the party outside onto the lawn. So we laid out picnic blankets on the parked-out acreage in front. People sat and relaxed. The need diminished to have to say something to keep a conversation going. Silence was not awkward. It was natural. And if someone did say something, it was relevant.

Gardening is working to evoke nature's beauty and abundance. For good reason, it is the most popular hobby. Gardening is a metaphor for everything in life. I wonder why we as a society have not learned good stewardship from gardening.

My idea of a nice living room.

Drone over San Simeon

Thanks to Jay Robertson and his magnificent flying machine.

The South Point

The avalanche slope on the way to the South Point.

It's about one hundred and sixty steps from the front door of our house to the south point of our little acre of the Sonoran Desert. From that point one can see further south: the properties beneath us, a narrow but impressive view of Tucson and, about fifty miles distant, the Santa Rita Mountains, then seventy-five miles distant, I can see, at least in my mind's eye, Mexico.

It took years to get to that south point. First we had to cross the driveway, which, for the first couple of years, we never did without wearing boots. Then gradually, I began clearing the local varieties and equivalents of mulga (it's an Australian term; look it up) and digging benches into the hillsides to make trails and sitting areas.

The last stop for my improvements was next to a mature palo verde tree on the south edge of the inner portion of our gully. That is about twenty-two steps south of the driveway. There I ended the water and low voltage electricity lines and planted a faucet, garden hose and landscape light.

The last sixty steps to the south point are mostly over two barren avalanches of loose dirt over rocks, scree and rubble. All I did there was plant a few surplus blue agave pups, plants that have grown rather large over the years and provide a little blue-green relief from the otherwise barren brown slopes.

On the other end of those sixty steps is the hillside survey pin that marks the southern point of our little acre. It took several years of slipping and sliding and peering under sagebrush and into rabbit and ground squirrel holes to find that pin.

I dug out a narrow bench so I could reach the point without falling down the slope. Over the years, that narrow bench has eroded because — well, because it traverses the steep slopes of two barren avalanches of loose dirt and rubble.

Did I mention that the slopes were unstable?

Until last weekend, my final possessory act regarding that South Point had been to carve out a triangular platform in the loose slope (triangular to match the property lines), implant an iron rebar by the survey pin and tie some saguaro ribs to the rebar as a sort of visible marker. The rebar served as the human equivalent of what a dog does to a local fire hydrant.

As seen on Facebook: the island
and the east enclosure.

In addition to the view, that platform area is private. It is hidden from the house to the east by the berm of the hill above and that neighbor's own backyard wall. On the other side, a thicket of palo verde trees hides the space from the house to the west which is situated below, on the other side of the gully.

Like a coyote surveying and marking its territory, I would traverse the avalanche slopes to that platform area to sit and enjoy my private view. But the unstable slope eroded the bench, and there was nothing to sit upon. I began imagining concrete blocks.

In the meantime, I worked on the backyard kitchen island and the east wall cum enclosure which were the subjects of my Facebook posts earlier this year.

The saguaro ribs tethered to the rebar is visible towards the right.
It marks the South Point survey pin.

Friday a week ago, the first in October, the weather changed. With cooler weather come inspiration, energy and motivation.

I bought concrete, gravel and concrete blocks, and carried them a few at a time over the eighty traverse steps to the South Point. I dug trenches and sifted dirt to collect rocks large enough to serve as a natural retaining wall. I bought mortar and bricks and carried them a few at a time to the South Point. The ol' back ain't what it used to be.

The blocks got stuccoed and painted this Friday and I topped my oddly shaped (on account of the property line) low walls of concrete blocks with red clay bricks.

All I have to do is re-work the bench that serves as the path that leads to the South Point. For that, I need to scrounge up some one-man boulders to anchor the slopes.

I have my motivation: access to a pleasant sitting area and a great private view.

The view from South Point

It's Happened Before

It's happened before, something you don't expect.

For weeks and weeks of three digit highs (Fahrenheit), we have lived in our underwear like trailer trash. By eight or nine in the morning it's time to take shelter inside the shuttered house. It's time for lizards, ground squirrels and chipmunks to do their thing, and much of that is digging holes in the ground for refuge. It's the time of year when folks dream about going to Hawaii to escape the heat.

The odd thing is shade. It's the direct sunshine that is fierce. Even in three-digit temperature, I can sit in the shade and marvel at all the life in the Sonoran Desert, life that thrives in a bit of shade. I sit in the shade of the house and think to myself, "Gotta make more shade in the yard." We are fortunate to have plenty of trees in the gully whose shelter encourages all sorts of plants to thrive, even in the heat. I could erect pandals, trellises, follies, gazebos and other open covered areas. Meanwhile, I am grateful I work for a living inside the house and we have cooling.

Did anyone catch sight of the full moon, now two weeks ago?

By evening, when the sun loses its power and the bugs and bats come out, it's pool time. We carefully manage the solar blanket to maintain a water temperature in the low nineties. These last few weeks have provided an amazing evening planetary show. I have been floating with my rubber noodle and gazing at the horizon-to-horizon moving arc of Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and the Moon as they reveal themselves in the twilight, followed by innumerable stars.

Now it's the first week of October and the first week highs are in the eighties. Lows are about sixty. Shucks. Instead of just flopping on top of the bed in my underwear, I have to cover myself with a sheet. It's actually almost cold in the mornings. The swimming pool is loosing heat.

It's a subtle but very definite change of season. It has been only a week since the end of the summer doldrums.

It's happened before. I already miss summer.

San Simeon Spring

Flowers begin with aloes and yuccas, then hanging cactus, torch cactus and prickly pear. Palo verde trees are coated yellow from flowers, and mesquite trees and catsclaw acacia trees sprout golden catkins. Sweet acacias have fuzzy round balls for flowers, and the long canes of ocotillo sprout red flames on their tips. Then the tops of the giant saguaros sprout huge buds that open into white and yellow flowers that attract a particular species of bat from Mexico.

The desert can be subtle, but when it flowers, the colors are more outrageous than anything Frida Kahlo stuck in her hair.