The Building has Commenced

Our builder/contractor and our real estate agent are also a husband/wife team and our neighbors down the road a piece. They have sent pictures of the building of our pole barn - the first building to take place on our property.

The pole barn will eventually be my husband's work area. However, in the beginning it will have to be the storage area for all of our "stuff" while we build our house. The house will not be started until we get there. We will be living in a rather smallish travel type trailer - hopefully beginning this coming spring. I say hopefully because our house still has to sell. The timing needs to be right for all this (who ever heard of the timing being right to sell a house?).  We have to remain here until my husband can retire March 1, 2011. We would like to stay until about mid- March when the weather begins to warm slightly in northern MI. That travel trailer will have heat but it won't be winterized.  In fact, we don't even have this trailer yet so if anyone in northern MI happens to have a rather decent 31' - 32' Airstream for sale please let me know.

We are looking at our 5 acre piece behind this sign.  Sold: May 7, 2010.

Beginning to move the dirt in order to level the ground for the pole barn.

More earth moving.

Now things are getting exciting. Building materials on site. The pole barn has begun. :)

Today is Labor Day,  September 6, 2010. The roof is scheduled to be started today. More pictures to follow.

Life in the Sonoran Desert

Living out here in the desert far from any town or city provides us the wonderful opportunity to view a lot of wildlife, especially in summer.

A family of Kit fox moved in sometime in early spring, Mom, Dad, 2 youngsters. This is one of them.  I felt fortunate that after a few days of seeing me every day they let me get close enough to take this not-so-very-good picture.

Just look at those ears - the better to hear you with, my dear. :-D.

It was already 100 degrees in the shade by 8:30 this morning. I had gone out and refreshed all the outside water containers for the critters - both wild and domestic. I then came in the house to watch from my kitchen window as the drama unfolded. A family of Roadrunners arrived - Mom, Dad, and two youngsters.  Then came a large family of Gambel quail followed by the Cactus wrens and many smaller birds all seeking the fresh water and shade of our backyard oasis.

Young roadrunner - not quite as big as Mom and Dad.

This is our Beagle mix, Molly (above).  Molly is only about 6 feet from the Roadrunner (couldn't get them in the same pic. - yet).  They both knew the other one was there but neither of them knew quite what to do about this situation.

The roadrunner youngster hunched down - afraid - and not sure what to do next.

S/he finally remembered she had learned how to fly and up to the top of the fence she went.

You have to look closely at this pic. taken through my kitchen window. Right in the center of the picture is, what appears to be, an opening (tiny cave) in Big Mama Rosy. At the upper left of the opening you can just make out a black line. This is the tail of one of the adult Roadrunners. Just to the right of the tail you can just barely make out the bird's head (tiny black line with light line above). To the right of the tree trunk on the flagstone you can make out the corner of one of my watering "troughs". This roadrunner was after both shade and water both at the same time.

I counted no less than 18 adult quail and numerous youngsters - all moving almost too fast to get a good picture. I did get some slightly blurry images though which I will post tomorrow.

Never a dull moment :-D

Lindy

Desert Critters: July 12, 2010

Life here in the desert is not all about snakes although two of my recent posts may have suggested that.


In a previous post I mentioned our Dove Family raising no less than three new families each summer in a big Mesquite tree in our backyard oasis.  

Baby Doves in Mesquite Tree

Our cat, Ayla, spends much of every summer day sitting on the front window sill (indoors) playing with a collared lizard who lives on the other side of the glass (outdoors). I honestly believe he is well aware that she cannot get him and he spends his days on that windowsill looking in teasing and taunting her. I know this because I can see the gleam in his eyes and the smirk on his face. :-D

  

For the past three days I have been assailed by a horrible smell coming from my freshly cleaned and painted laundry room. What could this mysterious odor be? This room, although it shares a roof with the house and carport is its own separate space, not connected to the house other than by the roof.  When I am working out there or doing laundry I leave the door propped open, always being careful to close it when I am done.
Today I carefully searched for the source of this smell and found this fellow - a petrified toad - laying motionless and quite dead in a back corner of the room. I swept him up and rather unceremoniously dumped him in our desert front yard. I doubt that either the resident Turkey vultures or the crows will eat him but I am quite certain the army of big black ants will make very good use out of his lifeless form.

These toads, known around here as Colorado River toads,  spend their summers in the desert eating zillions of bugs. They release a toxin through their skin which protects them from would-be predators which means we have to hope our dogs never try to catch one as this toxin can be lethal. When the toads are deprived of water in which to spend part of each day soaking and drinking they shrivel up and die. This is what happened to this poor unfortunate granddaddy toad who inadvertently got caught in my laundry room and thus met his demise.


The Sonoran Desert in summer may be hotter than !@#$%^ but it is never boring.  


Lindy

July 10, 2010 and 110 Degrees - in the shade

This afternoon in the garden I found this lovely little king snake. You can see her eyes in this pic. S/he is about 3' long and was, at the time, taking refuge from the heat under the shade of Big Mama Rosy. Big Mama is my largest Rosemary bush and she is definitely spreading outward as she ages. She is about 5' tall and a good 10' across.

While photographing Ms. King Snake I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. When I turned I was delighted to see this visitor . . .

Mr. Roadrunner is perched on the fence under the shade of a very large Mesquite tree in our "backyard". This yard area is a fenced in portion of our 5 acres of Sonoran Desert. We provide plenty of fresh water, shade, shrubs and two large Mesquite trees for the wildlife. Our dogs use this area as well but do not seem to ever bother the wildlife. Every summer this oasis in the desert is home to snakes, roadrunners, many smaller birds, hummers, collared lizards, bees, and of course, the ubiquitous rabbits. We have a dove family that provides us with no less than three full sets of babies every summer. We are currently watching the first set learn to fly while Mama Dove is redecorating their tiny, flimsy, and most precarious nest for the arrival of set #2.  As it turned out, Mr. Roadrunner has a mate who showed up a few minutes after I took this picture. When I tried to get a pic. of the two of them together (I was inside the house but they saw movement) they became agitated and one of them took off.  If you look closely you can see the Mesquite pods hanging from the tree. 

Buzz Worm aka Rattlesnake

Today's post has nothing to do with herbs nor does it have anything to do with dreams. If anything, this is more the stuff of nightmares.

While I was out back hanging a load of laundry in the warm Sonoran Desert sun our dogs were out and about inspecting the yard as they often do. Suddenly I heard "The Noise", the one we desert dwellers become accustomed to listening for as it signals danger. I dropped the laundry and ran screaming toward the dogs. One of them had her nose almost touching the 2.5 foot rattler. The other one was moving ever closer. I was screaming at them to get away and finally managed to get both overly curious dogs into the house with no bites.  We have spent hundreds of dollars on our dogs sending them to rattlesnake school to teach them to stay away from this danger.  We take them to our vet. every spring for a "rattlesnake" shot to help ward off the most serious effects of a bite should the worst happen. Unfortunately the vaccine does no good against the bite of a Mohave. Also unfortunately, the schooling did no good either since both dogs had more curiosity than either fear or sense.

What to do? I couldn't just leave it in the yard. It might leave the fenced in portion of our 5 acres and crawl back into the open desert.  However, on the other hand, it might find a cool and shady niche somewhere inside the fence and none of us would have any idea where it was hiding. I had no choice, I had to kill it. Wielding a large square shovel, a heavy brick and more guts than I thought I had I managed to kill the snake. It took a long time to die; just like a chicken with its head cut off the thing wriggled and squirmed for what seemed like forever but probably didn't take more than 5 minutes. I shook far longer than that after it was over.

Judging from the tail I think this fellow might be a Mohave, considered to be the most toxic rattlesnake in the US there is no known anti-toxin for a bite from a Mohave. Unfortunately we happen to have quite a few here in the western part of the Sonoran Desert.

Needless to say, I can hardly wait to get back to northern Michigan. There are timber rattlers (eastern diamondbacks) in far southern Michigan but no poisonous snakes of any kind Up North, at least not yet.   Global warming might change all that but for now . . . 

Lindy

Another Big Day

 Friday, May 21, 2010

Today is my retirement day from teaching elementary education in a public school. My brother flew out from MI (to AZ) to celebrate. Saturday my husband, brother and I went to Prescott. The first thing we did was visit a wonderful jewelry store. Mike said he wanted to buy his wife a piece of jewelry and he wanted my opinion. We decided on a beautiful little pendant - a Zuni bear (about 3/8" diameter)with amethyst and turquoise stones inset into a solid silver base. The back of the pendant is finished with the arrow to the heart symbol. The pendant can be worn on either side. The little bear hangs from a slender sterling silver chain. I was confident my sister-in-law would love her new piece of jewelry.  My husband then took us to one of my favorite places for dinner - Prescott Brewery where we all stuffed ourselves on their terrific Spinach Enchiladas and microbrews.

After arriving home Mike called his wife, Dianna, and immediately after the phone call told me to sit down and wait for him. He went into the guest room and emerged with the lovely gift bag the pendant was packaged in. The Zuni bear was for me. I could not have been more surprised. What a wonderful retirement gift to be cherished always. 

Flowers from some of the staff and students:

Doe and Her New Fawn

Connie Kroll, realtor extraordinare, new friend:) and neighbor (about 4.5 miles down the road apiece), sent this picture. The Whitetail doe and her newborn fawn were in the Kroll's backyard. Connie was fortunate enough to be at home and able to get this great picture. We are fortunate to be one of the recipients of this wonderful photo.


Always curious about cameras people use I asked Connie:


Canon Rebel T2l 550 with a built in video camera, wide angle lens which Connie calls her "reach out and touch someone" lens, and many other goodies.