A couple years ago, a red morning glory came up as a volunteer in one of my garden beds. I saved the seeds, but perhaps needn’t have, as it has come up every year since in the same place, as well in surrounding areas (but not annoyingly so).
This year, I replanted several volunteers of this in places it could climb. I have been enjoying gently encouraging it to vine up the hedgerow fence, on some dry yucca branches, and over the walls of my little screened garden house. It’s been a bit what I imagine raising bonsai is like.
This summer we have had three haboobs here. In the previous 15+ years, we have never had one here. (They are more common between Tucson and Phoenix.)
A haboob is an intense dust storm that occurs on the edge of a severe storm and can result in blackout conditions.
The drought here over the last year has been bad, and presumably that’s part of the reason this is happening now. Fortunately, we’ve had some rain this monsoon, 1.05″ in June, 3.22″ in July, and 1.35″ so far in August.
Below are some videos of the haboob approaching. It was pretty scary. After it arrived, it was near dark and eerie with strong winds. Afterward, everything was covered in dirt. It felt like the Dust Bowl.
Recently, while traveling, I tried a beverage called a “shrub” (also known as drinking vinegar). It’s basically a concentration of various fruits, sugar, herbs, and vinegars, that can then be mixed with soda water for a refreshing non-alcoholic beverage.
After looking for shrub concentrates for sale and not finding much*, I decided to make my own. So far the results have been very satisfactory. My fav so far has been a mandarin orange, cardamom, lemongrass mix.
* We are making more and more of what we need here. Not only does this allow us to use local or sometimes homegrown ingredients and avoid preservatives, but it helps to avoid overpackaging.
Here’s this year’s reading list for me, with my favorites in bold.
1. Wonder Valley by Ivy Pochoda
2. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
3. The Martians by Kim Stanley Robinson
4. Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community by Wendell Berry
5. Dawn to Dusk by Will Troyer
6. Lost in the Valley of Death by Harley Rustad
7. Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
8. Into Brown Bear Country by Will Troyer
9. Cloistered by Catherine Coldstream
10. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
11. Out of the Woods by Lynn Darling
12. Almost Anywhere by Krista Schlyer
13. Walking the Americas by Levison Wood
14. Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson
15. The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
16. Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder
17. Pescadero by Hollis Brady
18. Skeletons on the Zahara by Dean King
19. Kindred by Octavia Butler
20. Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
21. All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung
22. River Woman, River Demon by Jennifer Givhan
23. Fledgling by Octavia Butler
24. A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park
25. The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez
26. Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler
27. All Systems Red by Martha Wells
28. Artificial Condition by Martha Wells
29. The Singer’s Gun by Emily St. John Mandel
30. Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells
31. The Truth About Immigration by Zeke Hernandez
32. The Leavers by Lisa Ko
33. Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
34. The Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl
35. Red Team Blues by Cory Doctorow
36. The Bezzle by Cory Doctorow
37. Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout by Philip Connors
38. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
39. Generosity: An Enhancement by Richard Powers
40. Good Night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea
41. News of a Kidnapping by Gabriel García Márquez
42. The Deluge by Stephen Markley
43. Long Distance by Bill McKibben
44. Reamde by Neal Stephenson
45. The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
46. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
47. The Dark Hours by Michael Connelly
48. The Witch Elm by Tana French
49. Trespassing Across America by Ken Ilgunas
50. Outlandish by Morgan Sjogren
51. Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
52. Table for Two by Amor Towles
53. Playground by Richard Powers
54. Memoirs of a Military Wife by Zola Stoltz
This is an experiment of densely planted mixed circles, including greens (chard, kale), cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and more. So far it’s all doing well.
Cucumbers, shishito peppers, and green beans
Cukes are coming along
Watermelons — lettuce beds are under there somewhere and getting hard to harvest
I am fascinated by large-scale animal migrations. I’ve seen the wildebeest in east Africa and the the elephant seals on the central coast of California. And now the ladybugs!
I spent the last couple days camping on Mount Graham, the tallest of our corner of Arizona’s sky Islands. (This is about 2 hours from our house, plus another hour or so up the mountain on a very windy road.) I spent most of my time on the bottom half of the mountain, since the top half is gravel roads and I didn’t bring the truck. There was lots of great camping and hiking here, and the temperature was a good 20° cooler than at the bottom.
I extended by trip by a half day to stop at an amazing 100-year-old u-pick fruit orchard that is right in the middle of the forest. I picked a peck of the best peaches I’ve had in a long while. Yum!
Last weekend, we went on a hike in Price Canyon (which is south of Horseshoe and north of Rucker, about 20 minutes from here) and were delighted to find Price spring running. It was beautiful and a hike we’ll do again. It’s amazing that there are such different kinds of ecosystems so close to us.
With good early spring rains, the poppies are blooming here, and we’re looking forward to warmer temperatures. We had enough rain that my garden greens are thriving even though I’ve neglected them. I’m hoping to have more time in the garden soon!
Kind of a lackluster year in books for me, but here it is. The highlight of the year may have been that I finished (and even enjoyed) my first audio book ever.
1. Blue Desert by Charles Bowden
2. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuin
3. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
4. Chorus by Rebecca Kauffman
5. The House on Fripp Island by Rebecca Kauffman
6. The Gunners by Rebecca Kauffman 7. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
8. Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli 9. Headed into the Wind by Jack Loeffler
10. The Crossing by Michael Connelly
11. The Wrong Side of Goodbye by Michael Connelly
12. The Late Show by Michael Connelly 13. Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel 14. Grizzly Years by Doug Peacock
15. Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly
16. Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett
17. Our Towns by James and Deborah Fallows 18. Dinners with Ruth by Nina Totenberg
19. The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
20. The Poorhouse Fair by John Updike
21. Man Swarm by Dave Foreman
22. The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
23. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
24. A Burning by Megha Majumdar
25. In the Land of Invisible Women by Qanta Ahmed
26. Comfort Me with Apples by Ruth Reichl
27. Theft by Finding by David Sedaris
28. Oh William by Elizabeth Strout
29. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
30. Solito by Javier Zamora
31. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
32. Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
33. The Boys from Biloxi by John Grisham
34. The Wind Knows My Name by Isabel Allende
35. The Boy from the Woods by Harlan Coben
36. Stalin’s Ghost by Martin Cruz Smith
37. Dark Sacred Night by Michael Connelly
38. The Night Fire by Michael Connelly
Every once in a while, we’ve had cows get on our property even though it’s fenced. Sometimes a delivery driver leaves the gate open or something else random lets the cows enter.
Last week I looked up from my bed to see a large black momma cow and her baby grazing on our otherwise unmunched grass and felt dread at having to chase them off. (Cows here are very skittish, and chasing them without benefit or horses or dogs is challenging.)
But last year, Brad came up with a new solution to the challenge that works great — a drone!
This solved the problem in minutes, rather than the hours it used to take. Much safer too.
We are now finally free of all of our landline phones. When we moved to Arizona, we had three. And for a variety of reasons, both business and personal related, it took a while to get rid of all these, but now it is done.
When I drop email, you’ll know my metamorphosis is complete! :)
