WORKING AWAY AT OUR CACTUS GARDENS & THINKING OF OUR BAYFIELD HOME

SUNRISE FROM OUR FRONT PORCH THIS MORNING

Our mornings are really heating up fast & we sometimes are not long getting back into our nice cool house at the end of our early morning desert walks.  Had ourselves a nice welcome breeze pick up later today.  Nice:))

 

KELLY HAS HER COFFEE ON THE PORCH WITH PHEEBS & A BIG SUNRISE

Pheebe continues to do fine & is pretty much back to her old self except for the scab on her nose which continues to heal.  The Emergency Vet Clinic in Peoria phoned this afternoon to see how Pheebs was doing.  Thought that was very thoughtful & considerate of them.

HAPPY TO SEE THIS TRANSPLANTED BEAVER TAIL CACTUS WITH SOME BUDS

NICE TO SEE COLOR COMING BACK INTO THIS CACTUS I HAD THOUGHT WAS DEAD

 

Here’s a post from WHEELING IT that is going to interest all you diesel transmission folks out here.  And I know there are a lot of you right.  It’s all about oil & how the condition of that oil is holding up in your Allison transmission.  This post could easily save you some $$$$$$$$.  I changed the oil in one of my many VW Bugs one time many years ago & learned it was maybe best I not do that again.

FOUND THE LITTLE HUMMER LYING DEAD IN OUR FRONT CACTUS GARDEN THIS AFTERNOON…EVEN IN DEATH THIS TINY HUMMINGBIRD IS STILL BEAUTIFUL

When  Pheebs gets bored sometimes she will dig a hole in the ground.  Doesn’t happen as often as my habit of digging a hole in the ground when I get bored but it does happen.  I should have been working on our Cactus gardens earlier this winter when it was cooler out but the old brain just didn’t think to tell me to do that.  Now that the days are getting hot the brain decides to stir & gets me outside with my shovel in the hot sun working on the flower beds.  Awwwww tiss a fog shrouded mass of cobwebs it is I have between my ears here sometimes:((

SCRUFFLING UP THE CACTUS BEDS

 

Kelly headed off to the Wickenburg medical clinic to have her blood tests done in regards to her liver problem.  We have to be at University Hospital in London Ontario on May 2nd for her Specialist appointment.  She’s been doing really well for the past 6 months.  And where have we been for the past 6 months??  Well right here in the refreshingly clean & dry air of the good old South-West that’s where.  Both Kelly & I are very well aware of the added health benefits here in Arizona during the winter.  We notice the change both mentally & physically in both of us every year we come. 

 

I’LL TACKLE THAT CACTUS GARDEN ON THE RIGHT IN THE MORNING

I got a problem!!  Can’t keep my face out of Trader Joe’s Lemon Crisp Cookies.  There must have been 50 or more cookies in that plastic tub Kelly picked up a few days ago.  I’ve easily got that number down by 25 already.  And then to add insult to injury Kelly comes home today with 2 donuts (chocolate cream filled & glazed jelly filled) from Bashas, cuts em in half & makes me eat one half of each…..plus the other half she didn’t eat.  I am so totally doomed.  No problem staying away from Trader Joe’s Ginger Snaps though.  Must be Mexicans making those things.  They’re spicy.  I hate spicy!! What kind of twisted mind puts spicy stuff on cookies anyway!!!!

It is a noticeably different feeling heading for our Bayfield home in early Spring than it is heading for our Congress home in early Fall.  For me, the excitement level & that ‘feeling good’ mind set is much higher on our southward bound trip.  Always the adventurous unknown factor of roads & destinations not yet traveled.  Touching base with old familiar places & settling into our Congress digs.  Freedom to wander from there wherever, whenever we want.  Nice:))  But there comes a time in our southwest winter when it is time to head back to our Ontario home once again.  And surprisingly I rather look forward to that as well.  The winter is over & it is once again time to change hats & slip back into our Ontario lifestyle.  I think much of that has to do with the simple fact I am anxious once again for a change.  I look forward to that semi-annual scenery switch & I do enjoy being busy with the big Spring clean-up.  I look forward to the rolling farmlands, forests, & lakes.  And living only a mile from Lake Huron is akin to living next door to a big Ocean.  For sure it’s a big, big, change between Congress Arizona & Bayfield Ontario. 

Even now, less than a month before we head out I can feel the stirrings inside.  I can sense the hitch-itch growing as another long journey looms on the horizon.  Even before leaving Congress I am already looking forward to loading up the Pheebs when we get home & heading out into the countryside once again on the first of our many photo tours.  And it is those kinds of changes that I so much look forward to each year.  It is those changes that keep the hounds of boredom from the door & it is those very changes that give me inspiration & motivation to tough out all the coming slow hot & miserably humid Summer days in anticipation of the those once again faster exciting travel days ahead right back here in the great American South-West:))

 

GROANER’S CORNER:((  An exciting new development in marine biology promised to extend the lifespan of an endangered species of porpoise. In fact, the data suggested that if a specific kind of African seagull, freshly out of the egg, was fed to the porpoises every day without fail, they would actually live forever!
The big challenge was to gather this food supply, this equivalent of chicken dinners for oceanic mammals, on a regular basis. There were many problems, including the fact that it could be dangerous, as these seagulls were found near water holes where all sorts of large game animals congregated.
But this was an important ecological breakthrough, so teams were sent out right away. They worked diligently to supply the necessary small fowl.
One afternoon, an intrepid gull-gatherer on his way back to base from the water hole encountered a pride of lions taking their afternoon nap.
As they were blocking his way, and his day's catch of seagull hatchlings was needed right away, he carefully stepped over the lions that were directly in his path.
That spelled the end of the experiment. The porpoises, deprived of their special diet, not only did not live forever, but they also became extinct.
That was because an alert game control officer had spotted the team member, arrested him, confiscated his equipment and baggage, and charged him with ...
transporting young gulls across sedate lions for immortal porpoises.