Arrrr, Matie!

Avast, ye! It be International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Don't be caught with yer knickers down, or ye be thrown in the brig!

Another Weekend Getaway

This past weekend, I was treated to a weekend at a friend's cabin, which is located 15 miles north of Payson. The cabin is located in a secluded area surrounded by National Forest land. Early Saturday morning I ventured out to take a few pictures. The first thing that caught my attention wasn't anything I saw, but what I heard. While looking around I heard this really high pitched squeaky, screamy sound. It took me a moment to realize that what I was hearing was the rutting call of a bull Elk! I've only heard them while watching a documentary on TV and it was really something to hear one in real life. I didn't get to see him, but captured a nice dewey, misty image of the forest he was walking around in.
Shortly after arriving at the cabin, we realized that the phone there wasn't getting a dial tone. My friend was able to contact Qwest using her cell phone and they promised a technician would be out no later than 3:00 PM the next day. Well, true to their word, he showed up at about 1:30 and proceeded to diagnose the problem. It turned out to be a connector that had been blown out by lightning. At least that is what the tech surmised. I'm sure he's seen a lot of that in his day-to-day work. He completed his work and left, but returned in about 5 minutes. At first I thought he had left something behind, but it turned out that someone had locked the gate, so I followed him back and let him out. Just as I was closing it, something scurried by. It was a tiny, baby horned lizard or "horny toad" as I called them when I was a kid. I was able to pick him up and brought him back to the cabin. To provide the proper scale, I photographed him in a rubbermaid container next to a quarter. Cute isn't he? And yes, I did put him back in the wild.
Here's to bugling Elk, baby horny toads, dewey mornings, and friends with mountain cabins. I hope to be able to do it all again soon.

Silly Kitteh!

You gotta love my daughter's cat, Bones. He is such a character. Now that my daughter is 18, she is spending quite a bit of time away each weekend and her cat misses her horribly. So, he has no choice but to bond with me. Here he is joining in while I'm enjoying my Sunday morning routine -- me on my laptop -- and of course, Bones is right there in the middle of it. For some reason, he loves snuggling up behind my laptop while I'm working.
Here is is again snuggling up to the salt and pepper shakers, snoozing away. What a goof!

Marshmallow Clouds

Today was one of those "picture perfect" days. White puffy clouds and beautiful blue skies. Something I've always wanted to photograph are the silver grain silos near my house. The first picture shows off the gorgeous clouds and skies.

This next picture provides a more panoramic shot. As always, you can click any of the pictures to see them in greater detail. In the second one, you can even make out the Phoenix sign near Usary Pass.

This last shot is of Red Mountain, which is just to the left of the silos in the previous images. I took this picture out at Tyler Ranch, which is just north of the 202 (Red Mtn) at the end of Val Vista.

White Lightning!

Wow! Talk about lightning. The storm we had this evening had more lightning than I've ever seen. It was flash after flash after flash, just like a giant strobe light, with continuous thunder for at least four hours. I checked the Southwest Lightning page and my mouth fell open. The entire southern and eastern portions of the Valley of the Sun were being inundated with lightning. The red dots reflect lightning that has occurred in the last 10 minutes. I think you could say we got hammered!

This video shows a small portion of what we experienced. If you pause the video at just the right spot, you can see just how bright the lightning was. It lit up my front porch like it was the middle of the day.

Whoa!!! Hold the phone! I thought the storm was over when I sat down to add this post, but it just started up again in earnest. I think we're in for a wild night! Here's another lightning flash count. The storm has converged into a ball over the Phoenix metro area. Amazing!

Surprise Lunchtime Visitor

We've been experiencing quite a bit of rain over the past few days, which is always welcome during our hot Arizona summers. Due to the rain we got overnight and early this morning, the outside temperature at noon today was right around 90 degrees instead of the usual 104+. When I lived in California, anything over 82 degrees was downright hot to me. After 8 years of living in the desert Southwest, I've become pretty acclimated to the hot temps, so 90 feels absolutely great! Due to the lower temperature, I decided to go out for lunch and after getting inside my car, I rolled down all of the windows to let the warm breezes through. Just as the last window was down, a little brown damselfly floated in through the passenger window. It really took its time, hovering just above the dashboard, slowly moving from the passenger side to my side of the car. But, just before it exited my window, it stopped right in front of me and hesitated for a moment, almost as if to say "Nice day, isn't it. I hope you don't mind me taking a shortcut through your car." After a second or so, it gently made its way out my window and was on its way. Was a sweet little surprise.

Summer Escape

Ah, the White Mountains of Arizona. What a great place to escape the desert heat. Last weekend, I accompanied my RVing friends to the annual Bluegrass festival, which is held at the Hon-Dah Resort and Casino. You can count on the summer rains and the cooler temps. A perfect place for a summer escape!

I'm still learning how to use my new camera and took a few snaps of the wildflowers that were all around our campsite. You can click a picture to see it at a larger size.

These red flowers were everywhere.

Check out the little beetle on the upper right flower.

Pretty little wild daisies.

This one reminds me of the desert mallow that grows near my home in the Spring.

I don't know what type of flower this is, but there was this big, fuzzy, orange bee I was trying to photograph. He ended up on the wrong side of the flower, but after taking the picture and viewing it at full size, I was amazed to see there were lots of little black beetles crawling all over the flower.This one was interesting. Not exactly a flower, but I thought she was cute. Of course, this is my little "Chiquita" taking an afternoon nap.