Early Spring Blooms

On our little acre of the Sonoran Desert, my first suggestion of spring flowers is the aloe. Like agaves, they send up a tall stalk on which they parade their bright flowers.

Maybe the stalk serves to allow pollinating critters the opportunity to imbibe the nectar without risk of being impaled on the spines that line each fleshy leaf — but unlikely. The only critter harmed by those spines is people.

Chances are, the stalks are a form of advertising.

Aloe flower stalks have been forming for over a month and are now in full bloom all over the garden. That's because over the last couple of years, I've pulled up all the aloes in back of the pond and replanted them all over the place. They are remarkably hardy and establish quickly. Almost as quickly they send out shoots and propagate new plants.

The other early suggestion of spring is our lone but mature yucca in the front yard. Ordinarily two or three dense growths begin forming at their tops, slowly growing slender in height, then exploding into hundreds of nectar-filled flowers. Insects love them.

This winter we received good rainfall. (I don't know whose rain we got, but thanks to whoever is missing their usual winter precipitation.) This year the yucca has fired up seven flower stalks. Count 'em.

I want to plant some more yuccas. I did spread some joshua tree seeds in the yard. Maybe they will sprout.

It should be a great spring for flowers. As I walk Nazar in the wash, I spot some weeds that display gorgeous little flowers. If only I could remember which weed is which, I would keep from digging up the ones with nice flowers that don't turn sticky or explosive as they turn to seed.

On Rocks and Dirt

We recently returned from a two-week trip to Thailand, of which one week was at a resort on Phuket Island.

Travel is a very wonderful pain in the buttocks.  If the destination is well chosen, which Thailand and Phuket certainly are, the wonderful outweighs the pain in large measure. The wonderful of Thailand should be obvious. Regarding the pain, most of it is the grueling travel there and back.

Thailand, at least what we saw in the Bangkok and Phuket areas, means water, vegetation and flowers everywhere. It's a big change from the Sonoran Desert. We have stunning flowers in the desert, but in the tropics of Thailand, the shapes, colors, varieties, and density of flowers are amazing. Plants seem to bloom year-around. Flowers freely burst out even from untended plantings by freeways.

Looking towards Kamala Beach, Phuket Island

It took me a few days of return home to recognize something that had nagged me in Thailand. You can't see the rocks and dirt.

We've had decent rain in Tucson this winter, as evidenced by the weeds that are now sprouting everywhere. I've learned to dislike most of them, and not just because most of the grasses are non-native. Many are the sticky variety; obnoxiously sticky. Then there is the exploding seed pod variety. 

Since our return, I've been spending loose time weeding.  It's hopeless to get them all, but I can't resist pulling them. It's a little like the seven labors of Hercules, except that he got them done. It's more like poor Sisyphus — there's no end to it. There is only the hope that by getting the weeds while small, maybe they won't spread seeds so much.

I was in my fifth day of engaging in my outdoor hobby of pulling weeds. I was thinking of improving and extending a footpath in the desert island area between the driveway and the house. I wondered which agaves needed to be moved, and which flat rocks could serve as stepping stones. That's when it hit me. I love rocks and dirt.

I love the local Catalina rock, a pale, almost whitish pink granite. There are lots of translucent or white quartz rocks that have broken up from veins in the granite. We have a quartz vein on top of the east side of the gully that has helped preserve that hill from being washed down. Some local rocks have tinges of copper, so they have green in them. The caliche has reds. When I walk in the Finger Rock wash, I often take a canvas bag or just stuff my pockets with attractive rocks.

Previous owners had imported water-worn, smoothly round cobbles and strategically placed them in swathes throughout the lot and inside the backyard. I can't stand these foreign rocks. They are not indiginous. They don't belong here.  I have been gathering them by the bucket full and relocating them to obvious artificial and confined areas by the driveway oleander.

Phuket Island, a huge tree completely covered in vines.

Fine gravel imported for the driveway has encroached outside of its intended confines and —to me —the little bastards look hideously out of place. I can spend hours happily picking them out and dumping them in the driveway. When I'm done, the area looks like the desert again.

The Bangkok area is flat, the delta of the Chao Phraya River and covered with city, water, rice paddies, and other vegetation. There is not much in the way of rocks there.

Phuket Island is surprisingly rugged, but its dark granite boulders are mostly completely obscured by dense vegetation. The only clues that they existed are the rugged geography itself, the island's history of tin mining, and the occasional boulder, probably disturbed by construction and artfully arranged and kept clear at resorts.

Lazy Cactus

 It just reached over to the agave stalk and leaned on it.

I thought the windstorm would knock it over, but like hung-over Lee Marvin and his horse in Cat Ballou, this cactus is desperately resting, or perhaps happily leaning, upon something stiffer than itself.

There are plenty of days like this: leaning on a buddy, or marching to the beat of a different drummer, or simply being lazy.

The Amaryllis Series

Amaryllis, saguaro and agave.
Mixed media: pixels on liquid crystal.
Three of series of seven.

Amaryllis, plough and cholla.
Mixed media: pixels on liquid crystal.
Four of series of seven.

Buddha, amaryllis and Zen.
Mixed media: pixels on liquid crystal.
Seven of series of seven.

Snow & Fog

Pope Greg's Eve passed without a blog comment, but not because it was dull. It snowed that night which, by itself, is a noteworthy occurrence in the Old Pueblo.

You do know Pope Greg's Eve, don't you? Even before the Eve was overcome by champagne vintners, big band parties, and the Times Square ball drop, and the day by college bowl games, January 1 was the feast day of Pope Greg who slew the pagan Julian calendar.

The snow settled only where the warmer ground didn't melt the ice, but folks in the city were talking about it for days.

This morning, the sky was getting lighter as I sipped my coffee and checked the weather on my tablet. Odd, isn't it, that we check the weather on the computer instead of going outside and experiencing it? It's like looking at your watch to decide whether you are hungry. Anyway, there was a weather advisory posted for Tucson.

Too curious to pass up, I touched the link and up popped up the warning: fog advisory.

About twenty minutes earlier, when it was still dark, I had looked out the bedroom window at the neighbor's driveway floodlight. It was clear.

I read the advisory with some disbelief, but went to the dining room window and opened the shutters. The entire Tucson basin was socked in. Cool.

Thinking it was only in the lower elevations, I checked the north side, towards the neighbor with the floodlight. It was socked in. Couldn't see past the first neighbor, much less the Catalina foothills or mountains. Very cool.

Walking Nazar down our street, I felt like I was in Lower Alaska where cold, damp, fog is a regular occurrence and a normal feeling. Here in the Sonoran Desert, it's maybe once a year.

One Story's End; Another's Beginning

If the 2014 Pre-Halloween to New Year Tiling Project is a story, it should have a better ending than "Pretty Much Done."

It is done.

The bedrooms are as fully functional as they were before we ripped out the carpeting. We also replaced a queen bed with a king so we both can toss and turn in our own private worlds. We have been using the master shower and toilet for over a week without incident. It is becoming routine. Even the bathroom door has been fixed so it doesn't squeak against the door jam anymore.

The full width of the front area
can now be traversed.

But life, unlike fairy tales, novels and movies, has no ending, happy or otherwise. Life goes on, as do projects. (Let's not even mention maintenance.) Funky bathroom cabinetry is due for a refinish, scheduled for after our winter vacation. Guest bedroom and my office need to be tiled. Maybe in summer.

Meanwhile, I've invested a Saturday and Sunday immersed in my comfort and revivifying zone: the garden. Mild sunny days are invitations to the great outdoors.

A small clump of green agave suckers.
Assuming you don't mind hidden critters,
just try to reach into the middle
with even a gloved hand.

The immediate area in front of the house and north of the driveway had suffered from neglect. During more than a year spent sitting south of the driveway imagining hillside paths in the gully and keeping up with and realizing Shari's vision for the vegetable garden, I'd walk by this front area on my way to collect or replace tools or hauling yard waste, and thinking to myself that I had no idea of what the front area should be.

Side-shoots from huge blue agaves had become large and were throttling a barrel cactus and a young saguaro. The smaller, green agaves in the bottom of the depression, which I had thinned out a few years back, had again become impenetrable with their multiple side shoots growing to maturity. I could see more and more chewed leaves and tiny turds.

It is necessary to mercilessly pull the botanical suckers while they are small and before they grow into a tangled equivalent of a briar patch mess cum rodent, squirrel, chipmunk and reptile refuge.

But all that grows green deserves respect. I planted twenty or more of the suckers, pulled at the price of careful digging, unnatural pulling motions, exhaustion, and tiny spikes that pierce leather gloves.

The smaller, green agaves are worse than the mighty blue ones. The green pull more easily, but they clump together more tenaciously and the spiny edges of their leaves are like the serrated blade of a sharp steak knife — except that steak knives usually aren't coated with a toxic irritant.

Either variety survives the trauma of replanting remarkably well. The beautiful, symmetrically exploding green and blue-green shapes of the transplants now grace driveway edges, begin to frame a garden entrance, complete some bare spaces between palo verdes and acacias in the northern gully hillsides, and are beginning to dot the open, somewhat barren hillsides of the south gully.

As if to declare a weekend well done, it's raining today.

New Year & It's Pretty Much Done

Shari finished grouting, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, then sealing/hardening the grout, then cleaning the excess. Her skinned, bloody fingertips are slowly healing.

The square drain in the round hole is operational. Shower head and faucet were screwed in yesterday, Pope Greg Feast Day, and we ran some water through the shower. It works. At least apparently.

The new toilet we bought seven years ago was set, the water line was connected, and we flushed it several times. Trouble is, the water line is leaking at the toilet tank end. I'm hoping a new line plus teflon tape will cure the problem. I need another trip to the mega-hardware store.

Cautiously optimistic after taking documentary photos, I screwed on the new toilet seat this morning. Shari had already put fresh towels on the re-installed racks last night, proof her optimism blossomed before mine. I'm reserving final judgment until that water line to the toilet tank is trustworthy.

It's been more than ten weeks and it will be at least ten full weeks before everything is back in its accustomed place. But it's beginning to feel like it's done.