Camping with friends at Apache Lake

 Apache Lake, AZ

20 Oct, 2022

Camping with friends is the best

A fall trip to Apache Lake is becoming a tradition.  4 days of paddling, lazing about, and visiting with friends!  One year it was way too hot, sometimes the bugs are horrendous (this year was mostly just annoying), but it's always fun to hang out around a campfire with friends.  Last year I almost burned up my camp stove (leaky propane connection - no such issues this year.   

The road into the lake is not for the timid!  It is a very winding, single lane of very poorly maintained dirt running right along a cliff down to the river.  I dread it every year - but every year I see a few large motorhomes and trailers that manage the road - so I guess I'm just overly cautious.

Phoebe has decided she can trust other people's laps too.

Nothing like a real campfire!

Finally landscaping around the house!

 Vail, AZ

30 Sept, 2022

Finally chose plants and got them planted!

I had the old landscaping ripped out a couple of years ago - mostly river rock that I hate and a lot of native but dying yucca and prickly pear.  It took me a long time to visualize what I wanted to plant - while also being cautious not to plant too much at one time - I'll have to keep the new plants watered until they are fully established.  I'm loving seeing some new plants in the front yard, while realizing that I'll be long dead before they mature.  My gift to the future.

Golden Torch - imagining them a lot taller in the future, with more shrub like plants sround them.

I've grown these from single pads found in someone's trash pile - time to put them into the landscape!

3 Texas Ranger and 3 Emu Bushes planted along the side yard - very cute but currently tiny!

 

In the nursery this Ocotillo looked like a dead stick.  Again, very tiny - but I have visions of it soaring into the sky - someday.

A splurge - a 5' Saguaro which will someday be the centerpiece of the front yard.

Another splurge - a beautiful variegated agave.  Hopefully, protected against the javalina.

I've been replanting Agave Pups; I have a ton of them - probably another 4-6 will be moved next spring.

I love the sunsets in the Southwest!!

Best Friends at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, UT

Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, Kanab, UT 

24 Sept, 2022

Best Friends Visiting Kanab

Some friends from Portland were volunteering for a week at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, UT this summer - so, I drove up to visit with them and hang out in the evenings.  Phoebe and I enjoyed a good visit with friends that I see too little now that I live so far away.

The Sanctuary is home to many critters

Besides dogs, cats, bunnies, and birds, Best Friends cares for a wide variety of other animals.  They're all fun to visit.  I think my favorite was watching volunteers taking giant pigs for walks around the facility!!

I love the red rocks in the Southwest!

This is a great spot along 89a between Page and Kanab.

Camping along the way 

I like finding a cool spot up in the mountains to camp - this is public land North of Flagstaff, AZ.

Home Again!

A Watercolor Portrait Challenge, Monsoons and Sunsets in Southern Arizona!

Vail, AZ 

7 Sept, 2022

30 Days 30 Faces - in Watercolor.

30 days, 30 videos from accomplished artists showing their process and techniques for doing portraits in watercolor.  A LOT of work.  But, portraiture is really my favorite.  I'm trying to loosen up my painting, but, it's a real challenge for my relentlessly literal left brain!

Anyway, here a a few of my favorites from that month.

I like the looseness of this one!

I love doing older women (and men)

My favorite - a bit looser!

 

Monsoons bring even more spectacular sunsets

I love the drama of the monsoon thunderstorms - sudden billowing thunderclouds, massive thunder and lightening and then drenching, flooding downpours (for max 20 min) - so different than the day-after-day gray skies and gentle rains of Oregon.  While this year, I've had lots of gray days with on-and-off sprinkling as the big storms skirted my location, I did get a few big rains!

Around the house and across the driveway the water flows . . .

 

Normally dry wash across my street!

My side yard as the water continues over to the neighbors . . . 

Despite grates in the wall for drainage, the back yard often floods for a couple hours.

And then there are the sunsets!!

Simply stunning!!

WOW! This summer has just flown by!!

 Vail, AZ

5 Sept, 2022

So much time has passed!

One problem with on-line art challenges is that they are very time and energy consuming - I think I overdid it this spring by doing 3 and trying to video and IG about them all.  So - what followed was a long period of extreme laziness.  To be fair, I had to deal with a higher number of household challenges as well.

Anyway, here's a whirlwind  update on my summer!

Sketchbook Revival

I love this annual intense workshop as a way to energize my sketchbook practice.  30 videos from other artists demonstrating lots of techniques, ideas, and projects in a very compressed 2 week timeframe really forces me to let go and dive into new things. 

Here are just a couple of  my sketchbook pages from that workshop (I filled an entire sketchbook in that 2 weeks!).  I like these because I so rarely do collage.

Followed by a quick visit Sedona - a lovely place to visit!!

I met up with a friend from Portland OR who was in Sedona with other friends at a time-share vacation place.  So fun to visit with friends after so much pandemic isolation - it's been hard to meet people in my new home town!

Time to make progress on Home Projects!!

This spring my priority was to find a landscape service to handle the summer weeds!  When I got home from my month-long trip to the PNW last year, the weeds were thigh high - and, at 70 yrs old, getting rid of those weeds just about did me in!  This project took awhile as everyone is pretty booked up with all the construction happening in Tucson.

While I was at it, I hired an arborist to trim up my previously butchered mesquites and get rid of all the mistletoe (the HOA was complaining about the mistletoe).  The guys did a great job and only left one little patch of mistletoe because of an active bird nest (thanks for sparing the birds, guys!).

Plus, Phoebe got a rug to play on!  Phoebe is still young enough at 6 to get 'the zoomies'.  She has had to limit this activity to the outdoors because she gets no traction at all on my tile floors.  So, this year I got her a rug of her very own.  Perfect for running around and destroying her 'stuffies'.

Then the house AC went out!

I wasn't particularly surprised since I had the original unit and it was almost 25 years old!  Even though I knew it was going to be expensive to replace, I was astonished at the cost!!  But, I was very pleased with the company who did the work and I'm already seeing the benefits in my monthly electric bill.  I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly I got an emergency service/fix to keep me cool until a new unit could be installed (also VERY quickly - I had thought with all the news about 'supply chain issues' that replacement might be a problem).  In Southern Arizona, in the hottest month of the year, service providers take air conditioning problems very seriously - and I'm glad for that.

Then, I got Covid!

Fortunately, I am vaxxed and boosted - so, I didn't get very sick.  I did however, get some of the really weird, uncommon symptoms - like extremely itchy hives all over my body.  No pictures because, trust me, once you see those, you can't unsee them.

I did sneak in a weekend away in the mountains, and a couple day trips

When the heat gets really extreme, It's time to go camping in the mountains!  Show Low is higher and cooler and just lovely.

Fools Hollow Lake and Campground - a lovely place to cool off and relax

And, on a day hike in Madera Canyon, near my home, my first ever Coatamundi!!

Whewww!  Another post will have to finish off my summer . . .