Non-Animus Husbandry

Working from home has some perks. On a slow day, I can write a blog entry. (Separate computer – I never mix business with blog.) Breakfast and lunch are fast food – that I cook myself. I often prep dinner so it can go in the oven an hour-ish before I’m off work. When I’m done, so is dinner. I have a seat by the window. Silly, right? It still may be my most favorite aspect of where we now live.

G putters around the house, inside and out. Some days he’s on his own computer; others, he’s doing whatever project is allowed by a combination of weather and his body. He’s also disabled, though he’s more mobile than I am.

A few minutes ago, I didn’t see or hear him. Usually when he’s outdoors, I can hear power tools going. There was a lull in my work, so I stuck my head out of the back door: no G. I thought maybe he’d lain down. We’re old farts and he’s retired, so he has the luxury. But no – when I plopped myself back into my work chair, I saw him through aforementioned window, out doing battle against weeds.

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Whilst he was already meandering through the yard, finger on the weed-killing trigger, we had a visitor.

G is still divesting himself of excess tools. He sold a hefty chunk of them at our yard sale, but keeps finding odds and ends he doesn’t need – and puts them up for sale, usually on FB or Craigslist. The latest “casualty” was a set of wrenches. The visitor was the buyer. G came in whistling, so I knew he’d made a sale.

Incidentally, two Christmases ago I bought him a complete set of both metric and Imperial wrenches. He had several sets, but no single complete set, at least not with all the sizes he needed.  The sets I bought him have pretty much everything except giant industrial or tiny precision, and I purchased them complete with matching cases.

Oh – and after the visitor left, the power tools commenced. G’s been on a fixit bender the past couple of weeks. He finished most of the carport enclosure, replaced the rotted back-door threshold, helped me with planting some flowers. We tossed in seeds for jacaranda trees. Let’s see if they sprout. We’re also going to plant a handful of moringa trees, both in front and out back. Simply adding shade trees will make a huge difference in this little place. The flowers I planted already helped. Our lonely baby lemon tree is lost in the front yard right now – adding some shade should help shelter it, too.

Both jacaranda and moringa grow FAST. Both varieties can reach 10-15 feet the first year, and both offer substantial canopies. Jacaranda is also unusual in that it injects nutrients into the soil. I hope we get at least a couple of good ones from the plantings. We shall see.

Moringa is not only a fast grower, but it’s virtually 100% edible: seeds, roots, bark, leaves – all of it. One of my friends said she had the best luck by dropping some of those babies into the ground and forgetting them – no feeding, not even watering. That’s not typical for growing anything in Arizona, so I’m definitely going for it. The only downside is they don’t tolerate cold temperatures. One hard freeze and we could lose ’em all. But my buddy said if you don’t coddle them, they also seem more cold-tolerant, so here’s hoping.

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The featured photo, at the top of the page, is one I took last week. I took a vacation day last Tuesday. We wandered over to the older daughter’s house, stopping to snap photos here and there. I encountered the above diorama in a tiny side-street where we’d wandered only to find a spot to turn around. It was the perfect amount of quirk to trigger my squeal, “Gimme my camera, please!”

This is the same house, a few feet beyond.

Not quite as exciting as a life-size white harlequin, but still fun. I forgot to adjust my exposure on the camera – these were taken from inside the car, spur of the moment – so this one’s a bit over-exposed. Still fun.

These copper-hued lamp posts and the old pump were too good not to grab. This was adjacent to a park in Superior, Arizona.

This old truck, parked next to an abandoned gas station, was a bit further down the road in Hayden/Winkelman, Arizona. There are two tiny little mining towns abutting one another – not sure which one this was actually in.

We were hoping for wildflowers. A few were out, as you can see – but not as many as we’d hoped.

This overlook is the city of Globe, Arizona. It’s not quite a ghost town, though some parts of it resemble one. Population is around 5000 people, at last count.

One more picture, then calling it a day:

This faded caboose is in Winkelman, Arizona. Teeny-tiny former mining town. At last count in 2019, population there was under 300 people.

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Thanks to deteriorating performance on my current hosting service, the plan is to move this blog to a different hosting provider over the next few weeks. We did a test run on the new server and it seems to run things stupendously faster. The one downside is, whenever I move it seems to blow out all subscriptions. So if you want me to email/message you once it’s moved, please comment here and I’ll do so. The domain/url should be the same, and the page should be the same – just a different, faster, and hopefully more reliable, service.