roses

In black and white.

In color.

Our yard is in full color right now.

The roses are having a perty!

A pretty party.

                                                    And I am so glad I was invited.

                                 You are invited too.

   

 
                           

The best thing about this party is that it came with its own gift.

a cat, a snake, and a white bird

Everyone keeps asking about the bobcats and other creatures in the yard and I have had nothing to report.
Until today. Lucky me.

I was out by the studio watering some plants and almost stepped on a rattlesnake. I've never seen one on that particular rock area and now that I have, I'm going to be even more aware. I can't believe how well it blended in and how I had stepped by that particular spot several times within a few short minutes before seeing it. I backed up slowly/quickly and then the snake and I had a stand off. It was blocking the only direction I could easily take to get back to the house. I didn't have my phone, a wrangling tool or the keys to open the studio and lock myself inside. So, as it kept its head pointing in my direction... staring me down, I looked around to decide what to do. We have a gate back behind the studio that leads out to the deserty natural terrain along side our property. That wouldn't work...I didn't have the right shoes for cactus dodging. There is another set of gates that the previous owner installed to bring his car near the studio to load his photography equipment. I've never even opened those before. But I knew it was my only way out since the snake was frozen, looking at me and I was frozen (sweating), looking at it. After staring each other down, I decided it was time to get the heck-out-of-there! I carefully looked all around in case it had a friend and then made my dash to the gate. I figured out how to open it and slipped right out. Now, I quickly remembered the doors in the front of the house were all locked. I had to re-enter the back yard through a different gate, hoping the snake was still on the other end of the path. I must insert here... it was the biggest one in our yard yet!! Just as I flipped the latch on the gate, a white bird flew out of the tree, narrowly missing my head and flew out over the driveway. Are you kidding me? I didn't have a camera but I think it was one of these:

A white dove. This is exactly how it looked flying over me. ( this is a stock photo from the internet) Now where did that white dove come from and what does that mean?

By now, I just looked all around to be sure the coast was clear and made my way to the house. I glanced in the direction where the snake had been and it was gone. Boom... guess who sprinted to the house!! And here I have been, happily safe and sound inside.

A little while ago as I was in the kitchen starting dinner, I looked out the window thinking... "what else is in this crazy yard?"  and there was a bobcat, casually sitting by my geraniums looking right towards me. I was able to get my camera and snap a few photos through the windows as he began to meander around. I caught the photo above as he was heading out of site. The cat was heading in the direction of the snake. I wonder if a standoff happened between those two?

And yes, you guessed it...Reptile Wrangler is working today.  And yesterday, my friend from Colorado and her daughter were here laying around by the pool. Everyone that comes to visit hopes to see the cats and they never do.

Friends, family... come and stay a wee bit longer next time!

Emily, this post is for you. This is my blog and this is what I write about. Running away from wild animals in my yard. 

iris love

When it was officially decided that we would be moving to Arizona from our Colorado home and before it really sunk in that there would be so many things we would leave behind, all of my favorite irises had long since bloomed for the season. I knew I didn't want to leave them all behind, but we left in the middle of winter. That is not a time conducive to digging up iris bulbs.

When we first moved to our house in Colorado, I saw an ad in the local newspaper for free iris bulbs. "You dig 'em, you take 'em." Free. We had a huge yard that didn't have a whole lot of flowers at the time, so I thought that was a perfect way to get some flowers. I took Austin with me, he was 2 at the time, and found my way to this home in the country. She had thousands of iris plants that needed to be thinned. So, with shovel and little boy in hand, I made my way through her garden, digging a bag full of bulbs. She said most of them were light lavender, a few dark purple and some a very pretty yellow. She only wanted us to take the lavender ones. My boy's favorite color at the time was yellow, so he was hoping we were getting the yellow ones. She didn't know which were which, as they all looked the same at that point, weeks after their last bloom for the season. I took them home and we planted them. She explained to me that they usually don't bloom until the second year after being transplanted. She was right. Two springs later, we had a beautiful row of irises blooming ever so nicely. She directed us correctly, they were mostly all light lavender. I think there was one yellow and one or two dark purple out of the 30 or so bulbs that I had planted. We felt lucky that we had, by accident, gotten a few other colors. They were very pretty and each year we had more and more plants multiplying, giving me the opportunity to share with other people as well.

Over the years, we had quite a collection of irises blossoming each and every spring. My mother-in-law had a few beautiful bulbs in her yard in New Mexico too and one year she gave me a few of her bulbs. We planted them outside our kitchen window, along with some of the light lavender(needing thinned ) that we already had. I even traded with a friend, some of mine for some of hers. We had a nice collection of flowers in the spring. Iris, columbine, tulips and daffodils to name a few.

So, back to moving. There is really only so much that one can take with them when they move away from a big old house in the country. And my flowers wouldn't be one of them. Or would it? As 'luck' might have it, our home did not sell before we left. So, on one of my visits back, before the house sold, with one more look around my yard, I decided to dig a few bulbs. It wasn't exactly the right time to do it, but I decided I would give it a try. Now, I had a bit of the same dilemma as the lady who gave me the first iris bulbs all those years before. Which were which? I was pretty confident that I knew where some of the favorites were at.

I stuck a couple of the bulbs that I was pretty certain were from my mother-in-law in a pot and planted a few columbine in with them. If it all grew, it would be a nod to our Colorado home. The iris made it and the columbine flourished. And now, two years after transplanting the iris, just as the lady who first gave me the iris bulbs said, they have bloomed! And guess what, they are the bulbs from my mother-in-law! I got the right ones!!

I'm still waiting on a few more. They might take awhile longer to flower, as I was lazy and left them in a bucket with a little dirt around them. They managed to survive and we have just planted them in the ground. So, in a couple of years, or sooner if we are lucky, they will bloom too and we will be able to see what color they are. They are a pretty hardy plant and pretty forgiving when it comes to being dug up,  stuffed in a bag, tossed in a bucket with some dirt, a little sunshine and some water. And then finally, a decent planting like they deserve. It goes to show, no matter where you are planted, good things can happen.

Like the old saying goes... Bloom where you are planted!

owl pellets

Grossness alert:
Do not read this post while eating breakfast. (Pregnant niece... this warning is for you!)

I've shared pictures before about the Great Horned Owls that hang out in our palm trees in the back yard. They really are quite amazing. We hear them hoot back and forth with each other and often times have them startle us when they take flight. Their wing span is huge and as their wings flap against the palm fronds, it makes quite a sound. Usually, they just sit up there during the day and snooze, waiting for dark when they start their who-who chattering.

This is an owl that we saw a couple of weeks ago. My sister Janet and her family were spending their spring break with us here in Arizona. They were escaping the cold and (still) snowy Colorado for some good warm sunshine.

And as it turned out, the grass under the palm trees was sprinkled with a few owl pellets. What are those you ask? Well, an owl eats their prey whole. (You can click on the words "owl pellets" above to read more) In most cases they dine on small rodents. Everything they can't digest and eliminate through their tale end is regurgitated. These disgusting interesting "pellets" are barfed up.

I asked my nephew, Braden, if he would like to dissect the pellets to see if we could tell what the owl had eaten. He was super excited to join me in this activity. I equipped him with all the necessary tools. Gloves and a steak knife. Halfway through the project, his mom handed him some safety goggles (her sunglasses) to protect his eyes from some of the dust particles that were blowing towards his eyes.

Gloved thumbs up!

He started by cutting the medium sized pellet open. And then he proceeded to pick away the fur bits to expose the bones.

It didn't take long before some interesting bones began to appear. It was about now that we were feeling really scientific and all paleontologist like. I know it isn't a dinosaur, but it sounded good.

 And then he started to uncover this little beauty. Can you see the long hairs sticking out?

Here he is, safety glasses and all, getting pretty serious about picking away all the loose pieces of fur and such. It's the such I really wonder about.

And this is what started to appear. The skull! Wowza!!

Separating the bones from the "other stuff" was a little tedious. But, he kept at it.

We were all pretty intrigued by the fact that the teeth were all still connected to the skull.

After using the first thing I grabbed, a steak knife, for his dissecting...I remembered that the Reptile Wrangler had a few leftover medical tools in the garage. I wished I had remembered these little things sooner, it would have made Braden's job a little easier. And, might have helped the rest of us get over the fact that I had given him a steak knife, out of the kitchen drawer, to cut up a regurgitated rodent.

And if using a steak knife wasn't bad enough, I then put all the boney parts in one of my pans, so that we could boil away all the... germs? This was done on the advise of my retired teacher/sister ,whom I had been texting play by play pictures of the whole procedure.  She said, "boil them.... you know like you would chicken bones."  Well, I don't often boil chicken bones, but it made sense.

Until the kitchen started to smell. And it didn't smell like chicken! Yuck.

So, I dumped the water out and put all the bones on a paper towel and set it out in the sun to dry. I left it there for a couple of days thinking the sun would bleach them out.

And it did. And now I have a collection of rodent bones. I'm not sure what kind of rodent it is, but they are interesting bones. 

Ya, I know. I'm pretty surprised that I even suggested we do this myself. And, that I touched the bones. And, that they now are sitting in a jar on our table on the back patio. I'm also collecting all the pellets I find. I was told I could probably sell them on the internet to teacher's who use them in their classrooms. I don't think I'm ready to become an owl pellet seller on the internet, so I think I will save them for one particular daughter of mine, who is aspiring to be a middle school science teacher. I will have a pretty nice collection for her if these owls keep up their feasting.

Now, the only unfortunate thing that we learned when looking up owl pellet information, is that the owls don't roost during the day in the same spot that they hunt. Where they roost is where they urp the pellets. So, I guess our population of rodents will continue. Unless of course the little rats decide to go for a swim in the middle of the night and become drowned rats. Which is a common thing around here.

I did use bleach to scrub my sink, pan and steak knife before running them through the dishwasher twice. You're right, I didn't put my sink in the dishwasher but, I did a thorough cleaning for sure.

It was a pretty interesting activity for all of us. And I'm sure it will be on the top of Braden's spring break best memories list. Well, maybe after the Tom car (dune-buggy-jeep-like) ride through the dessert hills, or the two Rockie's spring training games,(including getting a pretty awesome player autograph) or the swim days, or the massive amounts of BBQ he enjoyed, or the trip to the ASU campus and a shopping spree at the college bookstore. That's not a list that just anyone can say they did while on spring break. Especially the dissecting owl pellet part. Oh, and watching his Auntie nearly fall into the pool while trying to scare off a menacing hawk with her landscape pebble throwing skills, nearly hitting her nephew in the eye with the pebble. And also enjoying the fact that said Auntie then felt very proud of herself when the hawk flew off, thinking she had successfully scared it, only to learn the master pebble throwing nephew had better aim then she did and was actually the one to hit the palm branch and scare the hawk off. (I scare these hawks off because they raid the nests of the pretty song birds.)

This desert home is always an adventure.

a succulent Easter

After spending a very quiet Easter morning alone, for the first time ever, I drove down and picked up Rachel and headed to Chuck's aunt's house. We enjoyed a very nice brunch / lunch with the Arizona relatives. It was a beautiful day, no cold wind, no rain or snow, just lovely warm sunshine. She and my mother-in-law made a whole lot of delicious food. Good cooks are they!

For my contribution, I brought these little succulent egg carton gardens.  I saw the idea on a mid-day news show and thought..."hey, that's pretty cute...I should try that." So, since we still had my sister and family here for their spring break, I knew I would have some takers on scrambled eggs. I emptied all the eggs and scrambled them up for our saturday morning breakfast before their evening flight home. I found all the little succulents at the grocery store and thought a cardboard egg carton would make a perfect holder.

Each succulent fit into the empty shell perfectly. I had to be gentle so I didn't break the shell. Some of the plants had a large root ball that I had to trim down a bit in order for it to fit.

I think they look pretty darn cute and I love all the different varieties.

The little chicks are pretty cute too.

 I think they will survive in the egg shell planters for a while. With a bit of water now and then and a little light, they should survive and then be ready to be planted in a larger container. And, just a little cracking of the remaining shell will add some organic product to the planting.

I cut the carton in half before adding the succulent eggs so that there were two little gardens. One for my mother-in-law and one for our aunt.

An eggsucculent spring garden for the window sill!

what?

I looked out the window and saw this!

Ummm...April Fool's!

Thank goodness it is April first. Because if I really saw this in our back yard....I'm afraid you would be seeing me at your front door with a packed suitcase!

Easter

                                                               Have a beautiful Easter day.

    I hope the abundance of spring love is as full as the branches of wisteria that are in bloom on our front patio.