ten thankful moments

1. Two sisters and a brother took a Thanksgiving morning hike to the top of Black Mountain with their Uncle.

2. The turkey was moist and very tasty.

3. We had family around the table with us.

4. Nana gave a dumpling tutorial and we all enjoyed eating them.

5. A jam session with a variety of musical instruments.

6. A few cat naps while watching football.

7. Three delicious pies and a few other yummy desserts.

8. Stuffing that was seasoned just right.

9. Helpful menfolk during kitchen duty.

10. Many blessings that come my way on this day and every other day throughout the year.

Happy Thanksgiving

The pumpkin pie went in the oven and came out smelling delicious. So did the pecan and the apple pie too. My pie apprentice helped me assemble and bake them to what we hope is a tasteful treat.

My table is set. And the real bird is in the oven beginning to make the house smell Thanksgiving-like. What a memory filled smell it is.
I love these little turkey plates. I bought them at Pottery Barn many years ago. I've never regretted the purchase.
I have just a small bit of decoration. My mom made this pine cone wreath many, many years ago. I used to put it out only for the holidays, but because I really like it, I keep it out all the time now.
I am thankful to have my family here today for Thanksgiving. I will miss those that shared our table with us all of the years we lived in Colorado.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

evidence

Autumn colors do exist in Arizona. Although I've had to look a little more closely than what I'm normally used to to, I do see a little hint of fall, albeit a bit late.

We had an abundance of cottonwood trees in our yard in Colorado and millions of leaves would cover our yard waiting to be jumped in each year. It was something that we looked forward to and also dreaded. It was ever beautiful to watch the leaves turn many shades of yellow before giving up their hold and relenting to the force of gravity. I loved to watch them fall on a windy day. It would literally be a deluge of leaves falling just as a rainstorm or a fresh snow would fall to the ground. I loved it and I miss it. I do not miss the big job of raking them up and bagging them to be hauled away. We could bag upwards of 60 bags of leaves each year. We discovered though, by putting the bags at the end of our driveway with a sign that said "free garden mulch", the bags would disappear within the day. Sometimes, we even had people come to our door asking for them. It is nice to know that our leaves were satisfying the soil and encouraging gardens to grow plentifully.

So imagine my thrill and excitement when I spotted these cottonwood trees high above the other trees and cactus in this yard. I wanted to go up to this persons door and ask if I could wallow in their leaves. Really I did. I'll let you know if I do.

And I spotted this little burst of color along the side of the road. Just a little happy bit of orange and gold.
The ocotillo are changing from the bright green to different shades of gold and brown. Who knew a cactus would show signs of autumn?
And our grapes in the backyard. They didn't produce much in the way of edible grapes, but they are giving me a little parade of color.
And this cactus-thingy in front of the house. Nice orange tips.
And look! A bush that isn't staying green! Lets all clap our hands and say...yay!
This plant blooms off and on all the time in a variety of shades ranging from bright pink to orange. I felt it was worthy of being in my autumn color line-up since it is showing its orange right now.
We have leaves that are "falling" from the ocotillo cactus. I don't think I will need to rake and bag anytime soon, but there are leaves on the ground at least.
And I know I won't have to worry about getting them raked up before the snow falls.

Autumn color is good for a girl to see.

have's on the list

We moved to Arizona and I started a blog. This one. My intentions for this blog were never to highlight wildlife as often as I do. But, that seems to be the highlight (I say that rather kiddingly)of our time here so far. It goes without saying that we were warned...we MIGHT see a few of the wild, creepy, creatures that inhabit this great desert. Javelina, Gila Monsters, Rattle Snakes, Bull Snakes, King Snakes, Scorpions, Coyote and Bob Cats were on the list of "might sees". But very rarely are most of them ever seen and as I have quoted here before, "I have lived here for 20 years and have never seen a gila monster"(pronounced hee-la) or "I've never seen a rattle snake and I've lived here all my life." or "I've heard of people seeing javelina before." (pronounced have-a-lina) Well, we have-a-lina alright. And a few other haves too. Today, I am updating you on the check-off list, because I think we have officially, checked them all off. All of these have been either in or around our backyard. Really.

Rattle Snake. The one I almost stepped on and found out how quickly I could jump. Check.

King Snake. The one's that I found out were eating all of the Quail eggs. Check.
The Javelina. They are ugly creatures, with or without my glasses. Check.
The Bob Cats. The cats that I believe are no longer visitors but residents. Check.
Lizards. Lots of them. Check.
Gila Monsters. We have seen two. This one and the one in our garage. Check.
Rhino. Oh just kidding. We saw him at the zoo.
Scorpions. Yep, I can now check it off our list. The last thing on the list that I have been warned about. Thankfully, I did not find it in my shoe like my dear brother-in-law has warned (scared) me about. This one was in the bathroom sink the other night. Oh yay. Check.

We hear the Coyote every night and see them around the neighborhood while driving. I have yet to get a picture of one. And then there are all the birds and bugs too.

I have checked my list and I am done checking!

smile... it's saturday

Here is one more photo of the javelina that I wanted to share.

See his little fang tooth?

Smile!

i'm baaack

And so are they.

The javelina's. They were still around during the hot day's of summer, but we didn't see them quite as often. Mostly, when we did see them, they were running across the road while we were driving. We have not seen any in our yard, thankfully, since last winter.

The neighbor dogs were barking like crazy one morning. Still in my p.j.'s, I went out to see what the commotion was about. I spotted this group on the upper part of our yard behind the fencing. That area is fairly elevated, making it a little hard to see how many there were. But, as they were milling about, snorting and scuffing at the ground, I was just happy that they were on the other side of the fencing.
I was using my zoom lens but wasn't happy with the pictures I was snapping. Because I didn't have my "reading" glasses on, I put the camera on auto focus. Which was giving me fits because it wanted to focus on the fence, the bushes and the ground... everything except the javelina.
So, I bravely got up close and stuck the lens through the fence bars. The problem with that was that the ground was so far above my head I was still having trouble with the whole focusing thing. And remember, when I'm putting myself in grave danger to get these photographs, I'm constantly looking over my shoulder and around my feet for other wild creatures. In this case, my hands were actually shaking from the adrenalin and worry that somehow one of these guys might try to charge me through this strong fence. I had to hold the camera above my head and just randomly snap away, hoping I was getting something of interest. And, because of that minor detail of the "reading" glasses, I couldn't even review my pic's to see what I was actually getting. It wasn't until I uploaded them that I found I had a lot of this:

And this:

But then, I saw that I had gotten lucky and had a few of these. This momma was keeping an eye on me because if you click on this photo to enlarge, you will see that she has a wee little one under her belly, nursing! Imagine my surprise! When I was further back I thought I could see a little one moving around, but with so many of them (I think there might have been about six big ones) it was really hard to tell what was what. I kept snapping away, camera held above my head, because at this point being up close to the wall and fence, I couldn't actually see them at all. Until one took a few steps closer.

And that is when we were looking eye to eye. Or snout to snout. Well, snout to camera lens. His nose was twitching back and forth and up and down. They are suppose to have really poor eyesight so I assume he was trying to catch my scent.
Ummm...hello.

Do I dare say that maybe these ugly creatures are a tiny bit cute?

words

I'm at a bit of a loss for them.

I'm going to take a blogging break...

until I can find more words.

~norma~