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Trail cam pics from our front gate
Monday, October 31st, 2022Recap
Sunday, September 4th, 2022** 10/16/22 update – The rain has continued, and we got about .25 ” this weekend. (Other areas nearby had more, some over 2″.) This is by far the longest the monsoons have gone on in or time here. Recording this for future reference.
10/24/22 update – first freeze this week
Well, it’s been an odd year here for a variety of reasons. As I’m looking at the blog, I realize that several interesting things have happened that haven’t been written about so I’m doing a catch up post with some highlights.
- After years of waiting, in January, we finally got Starlink internet. It has surpassed our expectations and really changed life here increasing our up and download speeds by about 20-40 times. As a result, we have also cancelled one of our landlines. And we are now in a position to have both electrical power and phone service when the usual service here is down.
- Our rain water catchment system is up and operating. We have a 1550 gallon tank behind the house. It feeds a 550 gallon tank that is next to the garden. With the incredible monsoon this year, both tanks are now full.
- The monsoon has been one of the best since we’ve been here. They started early (June?) and are still going into September. We’ve had over eight inches of rain in that time.
Everything is green, green, green, and the canyon behind us has a healthy stream flowing.
- The intensive garden bed we planted did well. We are eating greens, beans, peppers, and tomatoes. There are a few big watermelon and pumpkins yet to be harvested. The zucchini never fruited but have many blooms which I am eating. In the beds we didn’t plant out, Brad put in a bunch of cowpeas which are thriving and will make the soil more fertile.
- We put in a motion cam at our front gate which has yielded some fun photos of wildlife.
This year we are thinking more than usual about how much we value the life we have built here. It is a beautiful life in an amazing place.
Family
Sunday, October 25th, 2020We’ve had a family of three bobcats around the property this month. A mom and two little ones. Older than kittens but still very playful. One of them is especially curious. Here she is checking out the house.
Kitty play
Friday, October 28th, 2011Last night, just before sunset, the bobcat came around. Apparently, she was quite interested in the adobe. At first, she was trying to get under the pallets, where there are undoubtedly rabbits and mice that would make a tasty treat. When she couldn’t fit, she decided to climb on top.
The sandbags holding down the tarp were like big cat toys.
After play, some time to rest.
And finally a big stretch before moseying on.
Some finishing details
Monday, May 17th, 2010One of the few sad parts of the construction process has been what it did to our (formerly) beautiful floors. This weekend, as we finished the back two rooms, Brad scrubbed the floors and put on another couple coats of sealer. Presto! Our beautiful floors are back!
I’m also really happy with how the cove came out. We fussed over it a lot. I’ll write more about how we ended up doing it in a couple weeks when I have time.
Tonight, we made a trip to Willcox to get some of our furniture out of storage. Very exciting!
And look who was back in our oak tree this week. All grown up now! (Baby pics here in case you missed them last year.)
More bobcat photos
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009A lot of animals this morning. There were cows all over the road this morning. It was a challenge getting past them. About ten minutes after I was on the property, they had a mini-stampede up the road and away. Curious, there were deer standing near the cows, but on our side of the fence. They ran way as soon as they saw me.
The bobcats were all on the property today. When I drove up, one was inside the wire protecting one of our trees. It quickly scampered up a small mesquite tree. The other kitten ran off into the brush looking just like a kid off to fetch mom… sure enough, mom and the kitten wandered back about five minutes later.
I noticed the kitten in the tree had a small animal in its mouth; a bunny I think. It was small enough that I believe it caught it itself. On thing that dawned on me is that the bunny escape holes probably keep mom out, but these not these kittens. -sigh- It’s a hard world.
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- A rare family photo
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- A bobkitten with breakfast
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- A bobkitten and breakfast (again)
bob kittens
Thursday, August 6th, 2009
We spotted a couple of things we haven’t seen before
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009Yesterday afternoon, Karen and I went to the property to measure for the site map and to work on the sheet-metal numbers for the address. As we were driving up, at least a dozen quail ran across the road in front of us. It makes you laugh out loud watching them scamper across the road in such a disorganized fashion with a lone straggler running twice as fast as the rest just to keep up.
Karen jump out at our gate to unlock it. Just then I saw something to the left of the gate (Karen being to the right). At first I thought it was a feral house cat. Which seemed odd because there’s nowhere for a cat to hide from the coyotes out here. Another look and I realized it was the local bobcat we’ve heard about from P.D.-Our nearest neighbor. I started calling for Karen to look, but the truck windows were all up and she couldn’t hear me. The bobcat walked lazily into the brush and stopped. Karen came over to see what I was fussing about and I could only show her where it had been. Karen climbed up high in the truck rack and we drove around a little hoping to see it again, no luck.
Later, when I was measuring the perimeter, I noticed the bobcat’s tracks on Sunrise road coming from P.D.’s direction. There was also some scat that looks like others I’ve seen lately. Maybe our rabbits are tastier than P.D.’s this time of year?
The other new thing we spotted was a wild fire off in the distance; not nearly as nice as a bobcat–not nice at all. Just before we decided it was time to go home we climbed up on top of the storage container with a couple of chairs to enjoy the view; I was also hoping to spot the bobcat again. It was lovely except for the fire in the distance. The fire is in Hog Canyon near Douglas, AZ, about forty miles away according to GoogleEarth. I don’t think it’s going to be bad as there’s no wind to speak of at the moment. They are setting backfires to fight it, so it probably looked worse than it was. After it got dark, the fire was easier and eerier to see.