grateful for

a table that will soon be filled with delicious food and familiar faces.

Happy Thanksgiving to my family and friends.

~norma~

being thankful..

                                 for the recent trip to Santa Fe that we were able to take together.

quote monday

I thought I'd start the week...

Happy Monday.
~norma~

friday favorite

                                           Rain droplets on one of my favorite cactus.


Have a great weekend.

~norma~

monsoon 2014 second post

The first big storm arrived at about 3 a.m. A little thunder and then the rain began.  By morning, when I got up and looked outside, I was amazed at how much water was accumulating everywhere. It was raining hard. I put on the news and discovered just how bad things were getting and a small indication of how the day was going to be. There had already been so much flooding across the city with accidents and road closures everywhere. When it rains so much in the desert there is nowhere for the water to go. It doesn't have a chance to soak into the ground, so it just starts flowing. 

This is at the bottom of our front yard. Usually this is dry. 

The back yard was filling up too. Water was back flowing onto the patio, which it has never come that close to the house before. I was feeling a little concern. I will note here that Chuck was in Canada, at just the beginning of his 10 day fishing trip. I only say that because the news broadcasters were starting to throw out terms like..."100 year flood"... "Monsoon of the century"... "major flooding to the north" (right where we live)... and the most concerning of all...the small ticker message that runs across the bottom of the screen with warnings... listing police departments and fire departments that had sand bags available for protecting your home. Did I need to get sand bags to build a protective wall around our house?

And then images like this started showing up on the t.v. The water you see coming up to the highway is normally never there. It is a dry wash, of course intended for water to flow, but it had gone way above the wash area and eventually overflowed onto the highway. This is the Carefree Highway. Close to us.

And this. Embankments that failed and water started flowing.

An area called New River, which is just north of here, was flooding terribly.

Then helicopter recues were beginning. People were being washed away in their cars and even one house. There were two people inside.

By later afternoon, rainfall totals were being reported.  This is in our general area.

My neighbors were out of town and I was watching there house for them and watering the plants(that ended up being an easy job as I didn't need to water at all). However, they had recently had a leaky spot in their roof, so I went over to check that it was not coming in the house. What I found instead was their back patio area filling with water. By later afternoon it was well over my ankles. Somewhere, back in my memory, when I first started watering for them a couple of years ago, I remembered him telling me to start at one end with the hose and let in run. The down slope will carry the water all the way to the corner because there is a small drain there. That little phrase "there is a drain there" popped into my head, thankfully, as the water was coming very close to the bottom of the door. Once I dug away all the old leaves and debris it was like pulling the plug on a bathtub...the water started flowing out the other side of the wall. Goodness.

This photo was taken early in the afternoon. By the time the rain started to ease up for the day, the water in the pool had reached the edge tile. It had raised about 3 inches from where the water is at normally.  

The next morning I discovered this little guy in the pool. 

It was a lot of rain and a whole lot of mess. So many people in the New River area lost outbuildings, animals, cars and the list goes on. It is an ironic name for the town that is usually desert. Many homes were built close to the wash, which now it is apparent that the washes are there for a reason and even though it has never happened in most of our lives , perhaps it did way-back-when and that is how the town got its name. After a big rainstorm, a town that was always dry and very much a desert, now had a new river flowing through it.

I was happy to report that our pool didn't overflow and we did not have any damage with this storm.

But that was round one.

quote monday

  

                                " the earth has music for those who listen."
                                                                                       -Shakespeare

Take a little time to sit and listen.

Happy Monday!


photo taken at Ridgway Colorado

monsoon twenty fourteen: post one

This summer was a doozy.

Typically, monsoon season is July through August, with a sprinkling of rain here and there throughout the year. Monsoon usually means winds, clouds, thunder and lightening, haboobs(those crazy wind storms) and some occasional rain showers. This summer was a bit out of the ordinary. Terms like... record breaking, monsoon-of-the-century, never-before-reported, life threatening, "I've never seen anything like it"...were thrown around in a very believable way. It was crazy, I tell ya!

The first indication that it was going to be a summer of strange weather (although at the time we didn't know it was a signal and a sign of what was to follow) was the amazing lightening storm we had early in the summer. It started as just the sounds of far away low rolling thunder leading to the most impressive electrical sky show we have ever seen. It rolled consistently for an hour or two, with a light rain shower here and there. We were out on the back patio watching the sky performance until Chuck said, "the hair on my legs is standing up, we better go in." Literally, the electricity in the air was so strong, it was if a big switch was being flipped turning night into day, over and over again. It was tricky to get pictures, as the flashes weren't like regular lightening. Also, whether it was all the electricity in the air, the fact that the camera just couldn't focus fast enough or some other unexplained phenomenon going on that night, but the pictures were coming out with strips of light variations. It's hard to explain, you will notice in some of the many photos I have to show you.

I was literally keeping my finger on the shutter and allowing it to just repeatedly snap photos, trying to capture the unusual lightening. This is the dark sky. The bright light is the solar light in the yard. You will see it is most of the pictures.

 A little sky lit up.

These two show the strange effect that was happening. It was as if the camera was so confused as to how it should meter the sky going from night to day, in one quick flash of lightening.

Here is Chuck in the foreground. The sky is like a gray scale going from light to dark in an almost perfect gradation of color. This is just exactly how the camera was capturing the lightening show.

Now a series of photos just seconds between them. Keep in mind it was a pitch black night outside and the light you see is how bright it would get when the sky lit up.

You can see some of the lightening itself and the stormy sky.  Oh, and the solar yard light in the corner.

                 

 And then this happened. The sky lit up so brightly and I snapped just at the right moment. See what I mean about night to day? It was a little eerie actually.

We watched until about midnight and then went in. We could still hear the low rolling thunder and the sky was still lighting up. I just couldn't get over how bright and light the night was turning with just a flip of some far away switch.

Light on light off.

quote monday

                        “Wish it, believe it, and it will be so.” 

                                                                                                                        ― Deborah Smith


Happy Monday Everyone.

Go forth and have a lovely day! 

look who's back

Yes me. That's who.

I wasn't planning to take such a long break, but each day turned into a month, and then another month, and here we are...November.

When I decided to take a break from the computer it was partially because I was running out of things to post about. Wildlife sightings were down and I was keeping myself busy painting furniture and flipping old stuff into new treasures. But, I was still keeping a few things posted here until one day, I no longer could sit in front of my computer and type. It was a pain in the neck. Literally. And, actually, a pain in my arm. Visits to the doctor, physical therapy and an eventual MRI resulted in the discovery that I really did have a pain in my neck (but of course I knew that) and it was in the form of two bulging discs, compressing the nerve down my right arm and degenerative arthritis in several other discs in my cervical spine. Injections, ice packs, more physical therapy, home exercises, neck traction, pain medication, limited activity (although lots of pool exercises) and now a home traction device has gotten me to here... five months later. I'm much better than I was, but this will be something that I will be stuck with. If I can keep it at the level that it is today, then I'll call it manageable. There is a plan in place and I will follow it. There is a back-up plan if it worsens or the arm pain starts up again. Let's hope not. So for now...I'm back here. Like I said above...me..that's who...

Who else ? This little critter.

One day last week I was sweeping up the front patio. I noticed a pile of bird droppings in an unusual spot on the ground, on the vine trailing up the wall, on the pole that holds up the vine and as my eyes followed the path upwards...I spotted this little owl tucked up under the eaves of the house. The first day he was sitting on the cable wires for our internet and t.v. that lead into the house. Initially, we thought he was caught up there because a wing was tucked behind one of the wires. Reptile, spider, bird Wrangler reached up (with gloves) to help him get loose. He flew off on his own and we thought that would be the last time we saw him. But, the next day, another pile of droppings clued us to this spot up under a window awning on the front patio. Here he was, perched again.

Peeking.

We thought, at first, he was a young great horned owl because we have resident adult owls in the back yard palm trees. Our neighbor thought perhaps it is a Burrowing Owl, as did Chuck and I, after finding our big jade plant ransacked twice. A large hole was dug down with roots torn up and dirt scattered all around the pot. (we have since filled the top of the pot with large rock). But, I looked up Burrowing Owl and they don't have ears like this one does. It is hard to get an idea of size, but this little guy is only about 8 inches tall. Look back at the first photo to get an idea of his size. Did you see it the first time in that picture?

There is a reason the term 'night owl' came about. They do stay awake at night and sleep during the day. He could barely keep his eyes open for his photo shoot!

There's a little peek!

 Since the  Burrowing Owl was no longer an option for identification since this guy has ears, I looked at my Arizona Birds pocket guide and saw that a Western Screech Owl is also common in this area. A quick Wikipedia Search resulted in identifying this guy as such. The photo on the left is a stock photo from the internet and my photo is the one on the right.

  Do you agree with me?

Friday night...Halloween night...we were grilling some burgers in the back yard. As I stepped out the door I felt as if something was a bit different on the shelves where I keep the pool towels, plants and a collection of 'fake birds'. Something felt unusual. I jumped a bit when I noticed this. Staring right at me in the glow of the patio light. This time it gave me the creeps just a little.

Chuck was able to snap this quick photo with his phone camera. The flash went off, which scared it and it flew away. It looks pretty awesome in black and white though. We have not seen it since then. Before the sun came up this morning, I could hear the Great Horned owls up in the trees making their calls between the males and the females. It is an interesting banter they do to attract each other. I'll be keeping my eyes open for this little guy again. He is cute. He is a bit messy. I know he could potentially frighten me when he pops up in unexpected little places. Occasionally, I can hear a different bird sound outside, I'm wondering if it is this little owl. When we were taking his photo, he would do a little clicking sound at us. It kept me at a distance, for sure.

So, welcome back if you are reading this. Thanks for being patient and checking back on my blog.

Happy Monday!