Sedona Arizona

We have some great friends! Mike and Sandy have a condo in Sedona and they invited us to stay for a week. We have a lot in common - we are all from Seattle, Mike did all the art fairs I did (he stopped about when I started), Mike and Jeff are both engineers and both he and Sandy are Master Gardeners (like me). Mike also is a photographer. We drove down on Tuesday passing what looked like a bunch of neat stuff. It took about 6 hours and when we arrived we went out to eat. It was really nice knowing where we were going to stay and Mike and Sandy knew all the places to see, hike, and eat.

The first day was kind of cloudy so we spent it walking around town going in and out of art galleries. The second day Jeff and I headed out for a hike ourselves. We all rounded up for a second hike to Devil's Bridge which was pretty neat. The entire landscape in Sedona is just gorgeous! There are many trails within a few miles of the condo. We headed out for dinner afterwords.

The next day we all went on a hike along a river. Jeff and I continued on for almost 10 miles. I had a slight mishap slipping on some rocks. My elbow immediately grew a large horn that was scary. Even now it is tender and all bruised more than a week later! I survived though and the camera wasn't damaged! At the end of this hike there were all kind of neat reflections in the river that I tried to photograph with limited success! We spent that night in the hot tub relaxing and later watched a movie. Very pleasant!

On Saturday we all headed out on the road trip home. The plan was to visit the big meteor crater, book into a room in Holbrook, continue at sunset to the Petrified Forest then back to the room for the night. I'll post Saturday's excursion separately. This trip was 6 days away from the kitties, the house and routines. It was a nice thing to do with great friends that are easy to be around. Arizona is a really neat place. We enjoyed Tucson last year and Sedona did not disappoint. Both places are a long drive away but totally different landscapes. There is a lot to do here in the South West!

Animals in the Yard

It is really nice to have a variety of birds and other wildlife around. From every window I can see the bird feeders and bird baths and for being a pretty barren landscape there is a surprising amount of life. Puerto Rico surprised us with its LACK of living things and NM surprisingly has a lot of life. I don't know what I expected from the desert but it wasn't this. But actually we are in "high" desert which is different. In 30 minutes we can be in mountains with huge trees and running water.

The courtyard was originally going to be enclosed with gates and wire mesh along the bottom of the sculpture so rabbits wouldn't eat everything. I had the wall builder turn one of the cinder blocks so the holes made a doorway into a "rabbit room" where rabbits could freely come and go and munch freely where we could see them. Every one uses the rabbit room doorway - birds, rabbits, chipmunks, snakes. They can freely get in any where but that doorway is grand central station! Different times of day and different times of year bring different things. This time of year the hummingbirds are starting to leave. We used to see 12 at any time at the feeders chirping and fighting and now maybe 2. I had no idea there were so many different kinds...different beak shapes and lengths and sounds. We are also hearing all the coyotes now at night and are finding poop and tracks so we know they are around. All the scaled quail have grown up and the other day I saw 3 separate "armies" of scaled quail marking across the property to the doorway. 35 of them! The horses are still around - at least one herd. It is magical when they come around.

These are the "bubbles" of scaled quail when they were little. Now they are all quite large and they all still come around walking on top of the wall single file!

We haven't seen many snakes despite everyone being freaked out about rattlesnakes around here. Pretty sure this was a bull snake. He has a den under one of the junipers and sometimes comes out and goes under the rock that is part of the wall.

Here the quail are bigger and escaping the 90 degree sun by hanging out in the rabbit room doorway!

How cute is this? a chipmunk eating a grape!

Winter and Smokey eyeing the chocolate mint. Sultana expecting treats and Ghost just giving me his smile.

How many people get to open their door and find baby horses zonked out in their yard? Winter was resting in the snakeweed and Smokey was just out of it. Watching and caring for the animals is my favorite past time. This year there are loads of juniper berries which will bring in more birds. The pond will be a good water source and we will continue to put out feed for every one...

After Work Hike

After my stint working for the BioPark I have been frantically trying to  get the courtyard situated before winter sets in. All of a sudden stuff has started to turn colors and the day to night temperature shift has been from upper 80s to 50s! I have made the realization that all the little seedlings I have been carting water out to are going to be eaten by jackrabbits and rabbits and mice once it is cold so....we haven't really done much out and about stuff! I have been encircling my seedlings with chicken and rabbit wire. Then the pond project started. Yard stuff is settling down and the weather is just about perfect now so I can join Jeff after work for 3 or 4 mile hikes while there is still light to do it! This hike is about 10 minutes from the house. There is one patch of really red soil with lots of trails. We just park and walk.

We started the hike about 5:30 which is what I call the "beautiful light time." The light here is amazing. The landscape turns all shades of pastel from lavender to pink to peach to deep red and orange. There is always light even in the winter which is perfect for someone like me who needs it. Anyway, here are some photos of what is basically our backyard...the base of the Sandia Mountains. We live at about 5,600 feet.

These blocks down below are really huge. We hiked down around them and then climbed up to leave a different way. Straight out is Albuquerque.

It got a little dark on our way out. As the sun set we trotted back to the cars, took off shoes and did the super long 8 minutes back to the house! Sooo nice to have nice hiking so close.

Progress In The Courtyard

When we  bought our wonderful house it was winter. The landscape here in winter is filled with beautiful light but kind of frozen beige dirt. Our house was kind of plopped down and the previous owner hadn't done anything outside at all (a small amount near the front door which is really the "back" ) - I call the front the view part we gaze at all the time!

We knew we wanted a courtyard but questions about size, location, height etc were things we couldn't answer since we hadn't lived here long enough to know sun patterns, wind direction etc etc. Anyway, here are a few shots of the house before we did anything.

I wanted some elevation changes, swales for water collection and it takes a lot of "rock" to make courtyard areas and pathways etc. We also thought it would be good to put in a low spot and buried pipe for the "epic" rains that mainly occur once a year or something.

After laying things out with hoses and  making lines for height etc etc the design was made, courtyard constructed and then the inside contouring started. I found uses for extra beams we had bought for the catio and came up with the design as things went along. Here are some shots of how it is evolving.

The fake rock river has a pipe under it so if collected water gets too high (doesn't absorb fast enough) it will flow away.

These steps lead up to the built in sunset watching bench.

We are out here at the table every night since the sun sets on the other side of the house and it is shaded. I also like coffee out here with the nifty morning light - my favorite!

Inside this little triangle there will be "birds of paradise" bushes that are about 10 feet. They aren't like the heliconia but are rainfall only, pretty leaf with red and yellow profusions of flowers and will stay low enough so we can still see the mountain from inside the catio. I'll be pretty. I want to get compost though to raise the area a little.

This is the bench area. When you sit here you can see the snake shape of the wall and also the cool sculpture.

The bunny/bird/chipmunk room is where all the action is. You can see it from the kitchen table, the built in bench, the master bedroom chair, the patio spot. Grand Central Station with multiple scaled quail, the chipmunk and lots of rabbits shooting in and out the opening I made for them!

This small tree (vitex/chaste) will get to be a smallish nicely shaped tree that gets covered with lilac like blooms all summer long. The shade will be welcome and it is deciduous. Last but not least there is the catio. Awesome view from sitting in the chairs. Cool shadows, very private, out of wind and I am spending a lot more time out there than I thought I would!

So I will be putting a compost mound alongside the dry river to be planted with native grasses, ice plants, agastache, salvia and some permanent barberry and cottoneaster. Right now I just have dill and pumpkins and zucchini while I work out the permanent stuff. For fall the mound will have carrots and winter veggies. I have planted chocolate flower, scabiosa, four o clocks, salvias, russian sage. Sunflowers have been deposited by birds and the chipmunk. Inside the dog run area I have straw bales with pink bumblebee tomatoes, raswayna tomatoes, black zebras, strawberries, squash. There is a black knights butterfly bush that will soon overhang the rabbit room and things are looking good! I have MANY small seedlings dispersed over the acre that are slowly growing and as long as they don't get eaten this winter and they don't freeze in epic weather it should start looking quite a bit different this time next year.