I have tomatoes! And lots of Saguaro seeds

They are very small....very small. Not even as big as one of the little flowers. But they are there! I am so proud. These are my very first tomatoes. Mom and Dad's don't count - they are the tomato King and Queen. This one was grown from one of those $1 Target kits that included a little pot, a little bit of dirt, and the seeds. There are more exciting and important things in the world but maybe not right at this moment!

Now for the Saguaro seeds - I have lots of them. Lots and lots. We could have our own Saguaro National Forest with this many seeds. I have made up little packets for the folks at work, and the GA and CA friends, who want to try to raise them. The rest are going back to Bob. It was a lot of work to get them clean and dry and I don't want to waste them!

They are tiny. It is hard to believe that those huge Saguaro grow from these tiny little seeds. I have been reading that they need to be sheltered under a 'nurse cactus' in order to get enough moisture to grow. I guess we will be those nurse cacti for them. Good luck to us!

Saguaro Seed Saga

A new picture for the start of this blog. I like pictures of houses and doors for some reason and this one is perfect for our attempt at cactus growing. The Gila Woodpeckers will make a hole in the Saguaro cactus and use the nest for one year only. After that the Cactus Wrens move in. This looks like a cozy little condo - shaded by a Mesquite. I think it's a Mesquite - might be a Greasewood aka Creosote Bush. I thought Creosote came from Terre Haute, IN, but apparently not. Terre Haute just used to smell like Creosote came from there years ago.

Had to get those Saguaro seeds clean and dried out so that we have some hope of planting them next week. It wasn't easy - the darned things are the size of poppy seeds and pretty much gooped into the pod. I tried to put them in the blender and then push the goop through a strainer. But my strainer let the seeds go through as well as the goop. I had red goop all over my counter! I finally used a slotted spoon to siphon the seeds from the bottom of the watered down goop and then spread them on paper towels to dry. It was a bit messy and I lost a lot of seeds but I think we still have enough to start our own Saguaro National Forest! I put them on the hood of the truck to start drying in hopes of fooling the fruit flies that were very interested in what was there. Then I cleaned up the mess. These darned things had better grow!

Happy Independence Day!

Can't let the 4th go by without posting something. This summer my favorite topic has been my landscaping - so I will post the pictures I took of my back yard yesterday.

Rocky is ahead of me and 'inspecting' things. I have put in every plant and flower (and the fence) over the last 4 years. It had nothing when I bought the house. It is starting to look nice - it should look very nice when it matures.
The back of the house has been difficult - the a/c sits out in the hot sun. I have been planting some screening for it - Black-Eyed Susans, Day Lillies, and a Clematis this year. I lost a Black-Eyed Susan over the winter and am thinking about what I should plant in it's place. For now I just have an upside down pot to mark it's place. I think I will get a trellis so the Clematis can climb up between the two windows. If it lives through the winter I will do that next Spring.
And the dreaded Box o' Wood fence! The grasses are growing very well and the Korean Spice Bushes are doing well - the fence should be fairly well disguised in a year or two. The hostas I planted along the tree line have all survived the deer and are growing well.
Have a safe 4th of July!

The Beady-Eyed Bunch!

It has been a long time since I had updated pictures of the Beady-Eyed Bunch. We have a web page: http://home.comcast.net/~llgraves1/site/?/page/The_Beady-Eyed_Bunch/
but I am going to start putting our updates on this blog. Updating two websites is just a bit much so I will see how this works out for them. If it won't work then we will go back to the other website.

Vicki and Peggy have joined us on Thursdays! It is very good to have them there and Vicki is very very quick to pick up on this new craft. Of course, she has expert help with Peggy sitting right beside her. I think that June 4th was the last time I took pictures - it's been that long. I am looking forward to seeing everyone next week and what they have been working on.

This was Vicki's first effort at the spiral rope stitch. Pretty darned good!
Of course, Madeleine picked it up quickly as well - almost inhaled that stitch and it came out of her fingers! In this picture she is concentrating on learning the tubular peyote stitch with various sized beads. If you look closely you can see the black-and-what spiral rope necklace, earrings, and bracelet she made.
Laura started learning the tubular peyote with a bead mix - she might make a needle case at some point. I haven't gotten to see how this one came out, either. It seems like I have missed a lot for some reason!
Meanwhile, Bonani came back from London with a necklace and bracelet that a friend from Zimbabwe made for her. We had to get pictures so we can make it, too, some day. There are lots of possibilities here - this design is an opportunity to really display some colors. That's not my strong point but it certainly is for others in our group. This one is loomed but could easily be made in peyote stitch - either odd-count or even-count. And a beautiful bracelet to go with it. Lucky Bonani!

Back home again, in Indiana

Arrived home at 1:00 a.m. Tuesday morning. Every plane out and back was absolutely full. No empty seats - we are all jammed in like sardines in a tin can. Fortunately, my iPod drowned out the crying of the children who also seemed to be in abunance. Good times.

So happy to be home, though!

With some caution I unboxed the cacti and spread them out to dry and enjoy the sun. They seemed to have survived the trip through the USPS just fine. Bob sent a recipe for a mixture of cactus dirt from Cactus John and I will make that up in a garbage bag this weekend and drag it into work next week to be ready for our cactus planting party. Below are the Saguaro pods on my deck railing.

How beautiful they are inside - in researching how we prepare the seeds to grow I found out that the SW Indian tribes make jelly out of the pulp of these pods. And a kind of wine as well. Maybe next time Bob, Debbie, and I can be putting up Saguaro jelly and wine! How delicious that would be with our Klondike bars.

The paper cactus and pine cone cactus (not dog turd cactus - that is politically incorrect so we won't use that name for it) along with some mesquite tree seeds are enjoying the sun as well. I imagine they are mourning the loss of their hot AZ sun and wondering just what the heck happened to them!

And more excitement this morning - I looked out the front window to see two deer strolling down the street. One was antlered and one was not. They weren't in much of a hurry even with Mini barking at them. They usually are in the back of the houses in the woods - munching on my hostas! This is the first time I've seen them wander up the street. This is a bad picture - they were standing still with a puzzled look to them but I think they heard me come out on the porch and thought they had better head back to the trees.

Scottsdale

It certainly isn't as nice as the Gecko's Grotto, or even the Gecko's Ghetto - but it is a very nice hotel and a nice view from my room. The rooms have a very little balcony with a couple of chairs and a small table. Not used much in the summer I imagine! I took a couple of pictures from my balcony this morning - the light was very pretty.
I visited the Heard Museum in Phoenix yesterday afternoon. It is a Native American museum that I have always meant to visit when I came through here. It is small and very nice and maintains a wonderful focus on children with lots of things for them to put hands on and do while they move through the museum. My favorite exhibit was 'every picture has meaning'. This is a long winding hall with displays of images on woven baskets, textiles, beading, carving, etc. The images are explained in a very simple and clear manner with pictures of the actual animal or plant that is represented. Berries are seen a lot and that makes sense - they are good to eat! A lot of the images in the object are actually parts of an animal or plant! Wings, beaks, fl, owers, leaves, etc. I didn't know that and learned a lot. A fair number of the images I had always wondered about are either representations of bird wings or beaks. Now I see it when I look at the object where I didn't before.
It is not a big museum and doesn't take long to move through but well worth the visit and had a fair amount of modern art as well. http://www.heard.org/
Naturally the focus was mostly on the tribes of the Southwest! There was actually an Inuit exhibit but the art and objects were mostly from Nunavut in Canada. Alaska wasn't represented to my disappointment! Well worth a visit, though. The pictures I posted here are from the Heard's website - I didn't take them!

112

The temperature in Scottsdale this afternoon!


Back to harvesting the cactus starts --- I am working on the paper cactus


Ever ready with the camera, Bob got a shot of Debbie and I actually working!

Bob's very fine Country Cadillac. Very nice car. Debbie's not real thrilled to have it up on a jack on her back car port but it is a very nice car.

Bob's original car - a Super Bee (I'm not sure that's correct but he will see this and correct me I am sure!).
A '55 Chevy (Ford?) - the back has a very nice paint job and I learned very quickly that one is NOT supposed to wipe the dust off of a restored car's paint. One should just stand back and admire it through the dust. That is something everyone should know.

And one last look before I leave. Thank you, Bob and Debbie! I enjoyed my time with you very much and hope it is not 6 more years before we get to take pictures, cook (Bob's the best darned cook!), eat (I'm pretty good at that), talk, play with the dogs, wander around the desert, think of things we need to do, take afternoon naps, and generally enjoy each other's company and talk of all the important things on our minds. I already miss you!

The answer is: 14

Question: what is the number of vehicles on Bob's property? Pictures later.
I think it is around 107 now, tomorrow it should be 110. That's warm.

With Bob and Debbie's help I decided to take cactus starts/seeds back to my staff as souvenirs. For those who are interested we will try to grow cactus gardens in the windows at work. Meanwhile - who knew that the great big Saguaros (the big cactus with arms that live to be so old) put out seeds and that is how little Saguaros are made! I didn't know that. Luckily I am here at the time that the Saguaros are putting out their seed pods. We were busy trying to get to them before the birds did! Debbie and I are in front of one of the big ones in their yard below. We scrambled around the base of the cactus to pick up the seed pods.

Below is a picture of the seed pods when they are way up there on the top of the Saguaro! I missed the blooming, though. They bloomed first then put out a seed pod apparently. I imagine it was very pretty.
Those great big cactus come out of these itty bitty seeds - they are about like a poppy seed!

The next cactus's (cacti? cactus?) we decided to harvest are below - the one in front is called a 'paper' cactus - don't know it's real name. The one in back is colloquially called a 'dog turd' cactus (don't know it's real name, either!). We picked these because they don't grow from seed - they grow by putting out new limbs or buds and you just put these in soil and they put down roots. My theory is that this will be more successful but we will see!
Paper cactus bud below

And guess which one this is!

A picture of Debbie's house - The Gecko's Grotto!

Debbie's view from her front porch - where we are not sitting in the 107 degree heat!
A desert 'lawn'. No mowing needed!
A home for another kind of family! A comfy and cozy home in the Saguaro for a woodpecker couple and their young family. A birdie condo! Nicely shaded in the mesquite tree. Now I'm home sick!
That is all for today! Stay cool!

Life on the desert

Welcome to the Sonora Desert! Where my friends, Bob and Debbie, live. Neither know why they are here but they've been here for a long time.....since at least 1981 so they are certified desert-rats and some of my dearest friends. I am showing Debbie how to write blog post and she said I was one of their dearest friends, too, so I thought I would document that here. They can't go back on it now! It's on the Internet so it must be true - right?

It actually rained a little this morning - the first rain they have had in months...it was fast, a few drops, then over, but we enjoyed it. Deb and I are out on the back porch this morning admiring the clouds - we had just gotten up so weren't our usual gorgeous selves, yet.

Back inside for breakfast! I contributed my recipe for the breakfast eggs...Bob has been raising his garden (you can see the pictures of him standing in his garden in a previous post) and he has 2 tomatos to contribute. Only 2? Well, apparently there are tiny little birds here that can get through the holes in the net that he spreads over his plants to keep them out and they poke little holes in the tomatos and suck out the juice! He has saved these two for today. He is very proud of his tomato as you can see below:

We very carefully split that tomato 3 ways!!! It was delish! Bob is quite the farmer, in a small way, perhaps, but still quite the farmer. Now he needs to brush up on his bird shooting skills!

Bob has incredible talents --- one of which is a mechanical and technical aptitude as well as an innate ability to puzzle through problems to a solution. I always say that it must be inherited - his ability to 'fix' things is definitely far above the average bear!

He is a collector of antique cars --- I don't think that's really a good description because I remember those cars when they were new! But apparently that is what they are called now - perhaps 'classic' is a better word! That describes Bob, Debbie, and I, a little better.

Anyway, below is my favorite car in the whole world - a '65 mustang!! Bob has lots of cars, can't tell you how many populate this strip of desert but perhaps I will log them all here. He has 'plans' to restore them all. But what a car this is! By the way - most of you have seen pictures of the Eskimo village I used to live in ---- this is it's opposite but still the same - --- you never throw anything away you might be able to use. Living in the desert means there is not ready access to parts to repair and restore things! Bob has a signficiant talent in keeping things he might need some day!

We have more pictures but will end this here for right now --- Deb, Bob, and I have been out on the desert collecting cactus seeds to start a desert garden in the window at work.

Picture of my suitcase

Just in case they lose the darned thing - I decorated it this time. Even have a horrid gaudy purple metallic butterfly luggage tag. I am printing pictures to take with me in my carry on. Travel is so much fun anymore!