Nature and Our Anniversary

It's been the Year of the Snake.  At least for Dave.  He has seen two rattlers, then this fellow.  We thought it was a rattlesnake until we approached it and saw no rattle.  Turns out it's an Arizona Gopher Snake and harmless.

I took a short ride around the neighborhood to enjoy the 80 degree day and to look for wildlife.  And I found a very nice deer family.  All three were resting in the shade next to a home.  Notice the little one in the middle.

Last night we went to El Charro, a very old and celebrated restaurant in Tucson.  We ate at the restaurant that is not the original, but one closer to our house.  Finally, we have now found our favorite Mexican restaurant in Tucson!!  This marks 13 years of marriage.

More Flowers and a Bike Ride

Our neighbors across the street have this beauty, a Torch Cactus, near their front door.  One of the earliest I've seen with these sensational blooms.

Today we packed the bikes and did another section of the Tucson Loop.  It was a beautiful morning and we covered 20 miles.  Lots of wildflowers and other bikers.

Our view of the Catalina Mountains from the bike trail.

You can barely see a dusting of wildflowers in this shot.

The Rillito Park Bridge is known for its bats.  There are over 7000 who roost here.  We saw a few bats flying in and out.  We could also hear the babies peeping, but couldn't see them.

More "bat" art right next to the bat bridge.

Starting to See Some Color

These plants around my neighborhood are all early bloomers.  The sensational cactus flowers will be blooming soon.

Texas Mountain Laurel.

Hedgehog Cactus.

Some kind of Aloe.

Lady Banks' Rose

Orange blossoms from our orange tree!

Cactus Wren

Dave discovered a nice nest in a Cholla tree at the end of our street.  Because he is a lot taller he could see into the next better and was able to see two eggs.  When I got around to peeking in I saw one egg and one baby bird.

I tried to get a photo of the baby but if I stretch too much I will get stuck full of cactus.  But the baby is still doing well.  Maybe I'll get a photo of him one day.

I like how the nest has an inner, softer lining of grass.

Now that we are down to four weeks (less two days), we are really trying to squeeze a lot of activities into the calendar.  We can rest when we get home.

Event at the Zoo

The Reid Park Zoo is very nice for a small, quaint zoo.  It's much smaller than the zoo in Portland.  We went to the zoo in the evening to see the Chinese Lantern Event where over 400 "lanterns" would be lit.  There was also some Chinese acrobatic entertainment.  The entrance was stunning.

Me in front of a peacock lantern.

Real peacocks, of which there were many.

The lanterns were more stunning as the evening darkened.

Being Tourists

Dave and I took the afternoon and evening to do a lot of exploring.  Tucson has many, many neighborhoods that have historic designations.  We explored a few of them by just driving down, parking, and walking around.  A lot of homes were built in the 1920s and there is a huge mix of architectural styles.

Wildflowers are a big deal here.

This hacienda style was in the Encanto neighborhood.  Most homes were at least $800,000, had large yards, and a distinctly southwest flair.  Very desirable. 

Lots of care with keeping native landscaping, too.

Snake!

Dave was as excited as I've ever seen him when he came back from a recent hike to tell me about the snake.  This fat Rattlesnake was off the trail when one of the hikers heard the rattle.  Luckily it was just a warning and didn't spring at anyone.  The hike leader took this great photo.

We thought the snakes weren't out until April but apparently not.

Finally, A Hikeable Day

I think now, the storms are done.  Today we actually saw blue skies and the sun.  It ended up being a perfect day (61 degrees) for hiking.  We drove about an hour out towards the Desert Museum.  From there we picked up the Brown Mountain Hiking trail.

This hike was with eight others from the hiking club.  None looked too young.

Plenty of Saguaros as we were pretty close to the Saguaro National Park.

The hiking leader was going at a snail's pace to Dave and I opted to hike ahead.  We ended up back at the parking lot 45 minutes before the rest of them.  So with our extra time we just watched birds and looked for jackrabbits (and saw none).

Poppies in bloom.

Dave in a forest of Saguaros.

Men with Sticks

We went to a hockey game in downtown Tucson on Friday night with friends.  My first!  Here we have the Tucson Roadrunners and they played against the Ontario Reign.  All the players looked very young.  Lots of kids in the audience.  People kept shouting for fights to break out but we never saw any blood.

Last night we had our "old" neighbors over to play Sequence.  All was going along just fine until Tim tried to get out of his chair.  His chair broke in two places.  We were not upset because we "inherited" this dining room set with the old house and I never have liked it.  The wood is very light weight and obviously not durable.  For now the chair is healing, but no over over five years old will be able to use it.

Keeping Warm

I thought that winter was over and we'd be settling into 70 degree days for the rest of our time here.  Not so.  Another storm(s) is coming through and with that comes pretty hefty winds.  Our Pickleball session today was quite chilly and difficult with the wind.  Luckily one of the players makes (and shares) a lot of Limoncello liqueur with her lemons and we all warmed up with that.

My address numbers are done and I am very happy with them.  Now I have to figure out the best way to "glue" these onto some kind of flagstone.  That will be a project for next week.

Tucson Festival of Books

Once again, we volunteered at this festival as Author Escorts.  That means we mean the authors then walk them over to the building where they will give their talk.  Most of them are not from AZ so they have no idea how to get around the U of A campus.  I think it's the best volunteer job at the Festival.  We ended up spending eight hours there, but it was just a really beautiful, sunny day - and no sunburns.

One of the settings for some of "my" authors.

A taste of the crowds.

Dave had been reminding me that I am to make a sign for our house with the address numbers.  I finally got around to making some that will work.  This is a shot of the tiles before the final glaze firing.  If they survive I will post the finished product.

Birds and Berries

I'm curious about the strawberry patch we "inherited" with this house.  I'd say there are at least 100 plants, but I am only seeing about a dozen flowers.  The big question is will the berries be ripe by the time we go home?

The new animal camera has been working great.  But I think the only animals passing through are birds.  So we have lots of photos of doves, house finches, quail, and cardinals.  The cardinals are our favorite and here are two photos of the male in action.  Notice a quail is on the wall behind.