Welcome to my day

First, let me introduce our sole zinnia bloom. In the dry heat of June, we bought a packet of "wildflower seeds," knowing we couldn't use them right away. As monsoons began, we picked out an open spot, turned up the soil and scattered several dozen microscopic seeds. On dry days, Sam set up an oscillating sprinkler. And we waited. And waited.

Finally Sam pronounced that one 3 inch plant was a Zinnia! And so it is. Over a foot tall now, it will eventually have 3 or 4 blossoms.

Native plants are doing great, but only that one seed came up! So on my walk, my first stop is our zinnia. Can you see it?!

Walking isn't only for the legs. I also use this grippy thing to strengthen my hands.

Sam is good at spotting wildlife tracks. We think this might be deer.

Back at the casa, Sam goes off to work. My first chore is washing dishes. It doesn't take many to fill up available counter space.

This little corner makes me happy, with all its bright colors. Especially when it's clean! That's a knife rack under the cabinet; very handy.

It's a rough life for some members of the family.

And we end with a nice sunset reflected in the front window as we barbeque pork chops for dinner!

Busy weekend

Sam is wondering if he'll have to do this selfie. My hand is almost too small to hold the phone and shoot! We bought a couple seed packets for our fall garden, yet to be started.

Last weekend we spent a lot of time in Ace Hardware and Lowe's. Sam had several projects helping friends with home repairs. He's so good at fixing things, from electrical to toilets to drywall.

Meanwhile, I tried to find things of interest to pass the time.

Such as crazy colors and patterns on duck tape (which used to be called duct tape). Amazing!

The days seemed to fly by so fast. We love the drive to and from the ranch, but it does add almost two hours to each day.

Back at the PPR, I'm loving all the green growth from the rains.

In a month, I'm going to take photos from these exact locations and show you the difference!

Have a great week, everyone!

Great and small

Well, mostly small today.

The large creature was the tarantula Sam spotted in the road last night! I know they're harmless, but I still don't want them crawling up my arm.

This morning, I took my phone on my walk and was amazed at how many different kinds of flowers are among the grasses and desert plants, and I hadn't even noticed lately.

We have yellow, pink, white.

These purple blooms are about an inch across.

Even the mesquite trees have new fuzzy blooms.

And new growth.

The more I saw, the more I thought about how God is telling me to slow down and enjoy the beauty he put there for me. Instead of worrying about a job or money or whatever else is going on. 

Right down to the tiniest detail. 

As he said in my reading the other day,  "My grace is all you need." Good reminder!

Visitors

We haven't seen our local roadrunner on the ranch in several weeks, but he showed up on the porch this afternoon!

The cats are always enthralled and a little spooked, glad there's a glass door between them and this bold creature who's almost as big as they are.

This morning on his way out to work, Sam found a 4 foot gopher snake across the end of our driveway. What a beauty!

Lastly, this afternoon, we were visited by another storm, horizontal rain and loud cracks of lightning. Fortunately, no damage!

Overall, a nice day, ending with a pretty nice sunset.

Out of the city

My mom came to church with me this morning, and Sam was on a motorcycle ride up the mountain with our friend Dean. So Ma and I went out to lunch, then took a drive to the outskirts of town.

The desert was beautiful after all the rain we've been getting. These are barrel cactus in bloom, with a big old cholla behind them.

Spectacular, eh? I'd forgotten that they bloom this late in summer. We were on a circle drive through Saguaro National Park, just a few miles away on the eastern edge of Tucson.

My mom and I both love the "country" so much more than city. She commented numerous times on the clouds, healthy cactus and mountains.

One of the biggest cholla we've ever seen, loaded with hanging fruit. It was around 100 degrees out there, so we didn't get out of the car much.

I'll finish with Sam's favorite flower, the bird of paradise, which has been blooming in front of my Mom's apartment building.

Have a great week, ya'll. And special thanks to my sister-in-law, Faye, for encouraging me to keep posting!

Work project

Saturday morning with nothing scheduled but work projects around the ranch!

Sam has been wanting to finish up the fuel tank on the tractor Uncle Henry gave us. It had a slight leak, which he fixed a few weeks ago .

I was roped in to make a new gasket for the fuel line. The patio table makes a great work area.

A few rough edges on the gasket, but it fit well and Sam assures me it will work fine.

Meanwhile, Sam cleaned the 50-year-old fuel sediment bowl (we had to Google the name) and it's beautiful!

Sam sanded the epoxy repair and sprayed it with primer.

I sprayed the finish paint, and Sam installed the glass bowl on the bottom. Installation of the tank begins tomorrow.

A good morning's work! Hope you're having a great weekend!

Road Trip - Continued

A couple days ago, I posted the first half of our road trip last weekend (see it here). We were retracing the Arizona portion of Sam's truck route to pick up giant copper ingots (here's what they look like). He hauled them from Hayden Mine on his flatbed to a refinery in Amarillo, Texas.

In Kearny, a nearby mining town, we found this historic marker and mine engine. There was a ton of beautiful rock walls in this town, perhaps the legacy of a local rock mason or two. We could use him at our ranch!

From the Kearny, Hayden and Winkleman area, we headed north towards Globe.

I've always loved the way the rock plates dive into the earth at an angle along here. There must have been some major shifting and shaking of geology many years past!

The long descent into Globe and the valley.

It's fairly mountainous around here!

Near Globe, we turned east and were soon enjoying an early lunch at another favorite haunt of Sam's, Apache Burger in Peridot. A green chili burger with lots of flavor!

Sam found another historic marker telling about nearby Coolidge Dam, which we visited a number of years ago on a fun Memorial Day group camping trip to San Carlos Lake, on the San Carlos Apache reservation. A couple of helpful local residents directed us to a pow wow dance, but it was over by the time we got there.

On down the road, I attempted to use my knowledge of local geography by guessing this was Mount Graham, the location of one of our early motorcycle date trips. I was premature; it's Mt. Turnbull. I love learning new geographical facts about my beautiful Arizona! (I know, I'm weird and a mental dinosaur.)

We finally began to see the roadside signs Sam remembered for Taylor Freeze.

Peach ice cream, here we come!

But wait, why no mention of their homemade ice cream?

When we got there, Sam asked the young waitress, who set us straight. "It's much too hot to grow peaches here!" Oh, well, sometimes our brain cells cross and memory fails! We still enjoyed the ice cream and hometown atmosphere.

We stopped in Safford and had fun shopping at a thrift store, then continued down the road. THIS is Mount Graham! I believe it's the tallest mountain in southern Arizona at over 10,700 feet. (Don't you love looking up information on Google?!)

We completed our road trip by taking the freeway west through Willcox and Benson, arriving home over 12 hours after we left. It was a good day! Thanks for coming along with us!