Desert Gardens

Today's adventure took us to the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix. It was a beautiful place to spend a couple of hours walking the trails and admiring the desert plants. We both loved it - the day wasn't too warm so the walking was pleasant.

The first thing we saw upon entering the grounds (admission was free today for some reason) were these magnificent glass sculptures of desert plants.



There were four or five different 'loops' to follow. There were lots of very large, very old Saguaro cacti there, where they've been growing for a hundred years or more. This one below has a curious deformity of one of its arms.


This next one Lloyd declared to be 'the perfect Saguaro' - two arms symmetrically placed on the trunk of the plant, standing upright like a true Taco Bell cactus, or is it Taco Time...I can never remember which is which.


These next ones aren't Saguaros but just look at how tall they are. They totally dwarf Lloyd.


And we rested along the route - Lloyd against the bridge rail...


...and me on a conveniently located bench.


This tall stick tree has red blossoms way up on top.



And here we are having fun together.


This mountain was in a lot of my pictures. Its one of the Papago Buttes and is very curious looking, riddled with large holes.


There were half a dozen welded metal sculptures in the gardens, all painted bright primary colors.


This was part of the boulder garden.


This next one is a close up of the Papago Butte shown before.



And the mountain in the background here is Camelback Mountain


This beautiful spot was an actual desert oasis.


We didn't notice until the pictures were downloaded that this rock looks like a buffalo or calf head reclining. Can you see it? There's a small cactus just above his eye, in front of his ear.


And that's just a few of my pictures from the Desert Botanical Garden. I'll definitely be going back there again, hopefully when the cacti are in bloom.

It was a lovely way to spend a day.

Rambling Around Arizona

Lloyd and I drove to Cave Creek today to see what we could see. We didn't go into the town where I've been told there's unique shops and restaurants. Instead we went to the hiking trails.

Those of you who know me well can stop laughing right now!

I actually enjoy climbing and walking - it's not my fault my weight and arthritic knees make this a less doable activity these days. I quite enjoyed the short hike we took - my face got flushed and my breathing was labored, but it felt good when I stopped.

The mountains around Phoenix are so different from the Rockies we're used to in Alberta...beautiful in their own way. Here are some pictures:

The intrepid hikers...


The trail we took...

Two saguaros chatting...

A saguaro family on the trail...

The vista from the trail...

The trail ahead...

One of the beautiful huge houses perched halfway up the mountain...

The picture in my header is of an eantrance to a subdivision in Vistancia, off the Happy Valley Road, not far from Carefree Highway. Love the names!

Winter Relief

I managed to escape winter in Alberta for a week or so, arriving at Sky Harbour Airport in Phoenix at 7:00 last night. Lloyd was here to meet me, having spent all week at a work-related retreat and the previous week at a golf tournament. It seemed like he was gone forever. Now we'll just rest and relax and enjoy some alone time.

My first item of business down here is always to do a walkabout in the yard, checking on how the fruit trees, cactus and palms are doing. Sara and Quincey had been here for a couple weeks in January and Quincey bought a few more items for the yard...items like this....

We love the saguaro cactus and now we have 3 of our own. This guy is the largest, and the only one old enough to have sprouted an arm. I'm not sure how long the braces have to remain in place. It'll sure look better when they're removed.

A looking-up view...

And a view from the street to put him in perspective.

This is our second new saguaro and the new joshua tree in the back yard.


This toothpick cactus was one of the first ones we planted two years ago. It has more than doubled its size in those two years.

It's 51F here today (15C) and feels lovely and cool - no wind, no rain, no snow. I didn't even need a jacket when we went out. A nice change from home.

Cool Kitty

These cold winter days are a real trial for poor Mickey. She loves being outside catching birds and mice and is so frustrated that she can't. She sits by the patio door crying to be let out, sometimes Percy joins her. I let her out today just to stop the meowing. Percy followed. They sniffed the air, tiptoed onto the patio on their delicate little kitty paws, tried to sit down but quickly got up again. Then this is the routine -



I missed taking a picture of the two of them together on the door. You can see their little paw prints on the window/door up by Mickey's face. I'm quick to let her in - after all, minus 32 is much too cold for man or beast.

Scrapbooking Made Easy

I've recently discovered a quick and easy way to make scrapbooks...on-line. While I love to work with paper, scissors, buttons, brads, ribbons, stickers, etc. to make "real" scrapbooks, for a quick and easy feeling of success, it's hard to beat the on-line version.

Another digital scrapbooking design by Smilebox

Create a photo album

I think I'll use these digital scrapbooks as a quick and easy way to share my pictures/pages with family and friends but will still sit and create unique pages using my considerable stash of papers and embellishments and mount them in "real" scrapbook binders as I've been doing for years now. It doesn't hurt to try something new and fun though.

Always learning.

A Beautiful Day In The Neighbourhood

Today was one of those glorious bright sunny days that makes us glad we live in a winter city. The snow stopped falling, the sky cleared and the sun shone. The temperature even went a couple degrees above zero. It was great.

So, I told my daughter Amy's kids I needed pictures of them skating on the rink their dad made for them in the back yard.

First on the ice was the strikingly cool looking 3-year old Aidan, protecting his eyes with 3D glasses. He didn't last long, preferring to sit on his pushing chair rather than pushing it in front of him to help him keep his balance while skating. Bernie, the trusty St. Bernard, was there as well making sure that no humans were injured in the creation of this picture blog.



Eight-year old Kenzie showed her style. She's doing very well for one who's just been skating for one season. She knows how to glide on her skates instead of making imitation walking steps.

Five-year old Sydney is learning quickly and seems to be a tireless skater.

Bernie, busy checking up on Kenzie

...who is still doing really well.

With those toenails of his, is it any wonder that Bernie can 'skate' too. A very sure-footed dog.

Curtis decided that the ice should be a bit more clear so he came out and scraped the small layer of loose snow off the ice. Look how deep the snow in the yard is.

And here am I, with feet planted solidly on the ice, watching, laughing and taking pictures. I used to skate but I'm afraid now that if I fell down I wouldn't be able to get up again. The old knees just don't have it anymore.

And the first fall of the day goes to Amy! She had no trouble at all getting up again.

Sydney without her coat. She said it was too hot skating with the coat on. I guess it must have been. After all, it was all of 3 degrees C!

After her fall, Kenzie decided it was too dangerous for her mom to be skating, so she pushed her around on the balance chair.

Beautiful Day - Part 2.

After lunch I had an errand to run in daughter Sara's neighbourhood, so I drove by her house and saw that her front yard was still covered in pristine, unbroken snow. So I went in and demanded to know why there was no snowman out there. Charlie and Elly got excited and bundled up and out we went.

The beautiful part of a warm (relatively) day in winter is that the sun turns our ultra-cold powder snow into sticky, packy, snowball/snowman snow. I wanted to take advantage of that.

But first, the girls had to make snow angels...kind of hard to do in deep sticky snow.

Charlie's angel.

Then we got down to the business of building a snowman. Unfortunately we quickly realized that only the top inch or so of snow was sticky enough to hold together in proper snowman form so we did the best we could with lots of powder and a little sticky snow.

Yes, that's a dark spot on Elly's nose. She had been playing 'kitty' earlier and painted on a nose and whiskers. The marks should be gone by Monday. She loved being out in the snow but it's been too cold this winter for her to enjoy it. She had a good day.

Charlie and the snowman

So that was my fine winter day. It'll keep me going through the storms and cold that are sure to bless our February, part of March, maybe even April. As long as we get these lovely breaks, it's all good. Happy Winter!

Surprise!

Since I was 16 and had a pen pal who lived in Mesa, AZ, I've had a fascination for this state. In my high school yearbook - Class of '66 - it quotes me as saying that I plan to do a lot of travelling, especially to Arizona. Well finally in 2008 I set foot in the Valley of the Sun...and it was everything I had imagined it would be, and more. We go down now as often as we can, three or four times a year if we can manage it. We have friends down there, and a place of our own in Surprise to stay in, and are looking forward to spending the winter months down there as soon as Lloyd retires.


Lloyd could spend all his spare time down there golfing, but I prefer sight seeing so we do a lot of that too. Thanks to some bloggy friends from Arizona I'm generating a list of places to see in the Phoenix area first, and further abroad later.

Today we found another source of information on what to do in Surprise, AZ. My sister called from Winnipeg (unofficially named Winter-peg for obvious reasons) to tell us of an article she saw in their local paper. Its about a new reality show from Surprise, AZ, not unlike the Bachelor, but the participants are Seniors! It debuts tonight and we've got it recording so we can watch it after the hockey game is over.

Here's the clip Wendy sent to us:

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/entertainment/TV/another-raunchy-reality-show-but-its-not-teens-its-uh-seniors-114079789.html

Another raunchy reality show, but it's not teens, it's uh... seniors? - Winnipeg Free Press





I'm not recommending the show because I haven't seen it yet and it may really be too "raunchy" for us, but I figure it's worth checking out anyway. The only reality shows I watch are Survivor and American Idol so this one may be a little out of my comfort zone, but I'm attracted simply by the face that it's focussed in my home-away-from-hometown, Surprise.







I'm really looking forward to going down there in a couple of weeks, reality show or not!