Spring Cleaning

Over the past couple of weeks, G and I have torn through the house and removed stuff we 1) don’t need, 2) don’t want, and 3) don’t have the space to store. Some we sold, some we gave away, and a few items hit the circular file.

With few exceptions, we agreed on what to get rid of, even though we both said goodbye to things we liked. But there’s a difference in “liked” and “wanted”. We dumped the oversized chairs in the kitchen, which already made a difference, then kept going. The mid-detash is pictured below.

There’s still a lot of stuff on the countertop.The microwave and air fryer in the corner are staying where they are, as is the two-tier dish rack. I imagine we’ll leave the cutting boards where they are, leaning against the micro. But almost everything else on the counter and on the table still need either to be put in a cabinet somewhere or rehomed. (The bottles of distilled water beneath the table will be split between two locations. Same product, two different uses. But I digress.)

The current kitchen table is a Copenhagen and is up for sale. I can’t find this specific model anywhere — it may actually be a mid-century piece. The closest match I could find anywhere, used, now runs into the thousands of $$. Teak versions (ours isn’t teak, unfortunately) are going for over 8K. G put it up for $65 because people around here will literally pay more for plastic than for real wood. It’s insane.

This table is huge when opened – far too large for our space. I also don’t like it, despite its MCM style.

Maybe it would be better on something other than ugly saltillo tile. I swear one of these days I’m going to rent a jackhammer and rip this floor out. I hate our flooring with a passion. It’s ugly, it was badly installed so several tiles are lifting and rocking, it’s chipped in places, and… you get the idea. The carpet’s no better, and the foundation needs some minor repairs before they become major repairs. So really… we need to replace our flooring throughout the house.

I also want to replace the garage lights in the kitchen. Seriously – who in their right mind still has fluorescent lighting indoors??

End of rant. Mostly.

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All the above leads to another detail about the kitchen overhaul. The back door was in pretty sad shape from the day we bought the house. It was battered, had a horribly-installed doggy door, and the list goes on.

Finally, earlier this week, G fixed the last remaining issues and you can finally open it again. Which makes me happy, since I had to go the long way around the house to water our galvanized garden. Given my ambulatory limits, those extra few steps make a big difference.

Except… my first time using the door, my shoe caught on the block step just outside it and I took a tumble. It wasn’t down half a flight of steps, fortunately. I landed hard on gravel, which was… ouch. Nothing life-threatning, thankfully, just bruises and scrapes. I’m mostly healed over now except some deeper scrapes on my hands.

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We’ve been out with cameras in hand for the last two weekends, because we know wildflower season is nearly over. There are still plenty of areas with profuse blooms, like Picacho Peak (top of the page – taken from the back.) Other areas have already shifted from vibrant color to dead-brown, so we’re doing everything we can to capture the color while it’s still here.

The only editing I did to the above photo was to crop it and size down a little. We lucked out on timing the last couple of runs, getting out at the golden hour in the late afternoon.

I know I posted this one on FB, but I’m so jazzed to have GOTTEN this shot, it’s ridiculous. I had no idea red-wing blackbirds were anywhere in the state, and particularly not this far south. When we spotted a flock and I pulled up relatively close, G scoffed and told me there’s no way I’d get a shot with my 70-300 lens.

This pretty boy was partly obscured by the greenery but I got his photo, just the same.

I also captured this flock midair. I did my best to focus on the birds with a preset, since I knew I’d have to react fast. It instead focused on the power poles, darn it. Still happy overall. I don’t believe these are redwings, though I can’t swear to anything.

We didn’t have a spectacular crimson sunset, but I was still happy to capture this shot. It would most likely have been better if I’d captured it when the sun was lower – but we were traveling west and by the time the color was more vivid, we were too close to the mountains and it had gone too dark to take a shot.

The sunset photo was from last night.

We revisited the Dwarf Car Museum this afternoon (after a largely-fruitless yard-sale run this morning.) We were hoping for some spectacular desert-in-bloom snaps along the way. I can’t say we got none – but we were disappointed in how quickly the superbloom is fading.

Although in some areas, it’s only a step to the left, with a different type of wildflowers emerging. Instead of largish yellow poppies, some fields were insanely thick with these tiny yellow blooms:

When I say thick, I mean thick.

Where these little yellow boogers were growing, you couldn’t see dirt (or enything else) beneath them.

Incidentally, the multi-story building in the background is the Francisco Grande Hotel and Golf Resort. The town near us is a manufacturing town, so a swanky resort seems out of character… but here we are.

There were also some magenta blooms I tried to photograph but it never came out – and I wasn’t getting closer. It’s called scorpion weed and it’s the desert’s answer to poison ivy. You don’t want to brush against it. So… pretty plant, not worth a closeup.

After weeks of yellow poppies, fiery orange mallows, and blue-purple indigo flowers, we’re starting to see a while bloom. I think some of these are also poppies.

However, there are also these clusters. Which, if I’m not mistaken, are also poisonous.

I have hundreds more photos but I’m not dumping all of them out here (or anywhere else). Some of them are decent photos, but I’m sure people are already sick of seeing so many.