trogon-male-full-frontBeauty is everywhere – yes, even in the desert – or maybe, especially in the desert. We can become immune to it, if we see it every day. I find that happens to me when I stay too focused on the work-a-day world. I try to remind myself to seek out the beauty and the humor. This time of year, after spring rains and before Monsoon, can definitely seem bleak; it becomes quite warm and dry, we’re at a dull brown/green right now, but if you go up into the Huachucas – the Sky Islands – you see a different world. This is a photo of an Elegant Trogon – they come up to southeast Arizona to nest in wooded canyons this time of year. They – and other birds – are beautiful additions to our bleak season.

FullSizeRender - 2019-06-08T124434.732We are trying to add our own flavor of beauty as well. We constantly try to add splashes of color here and there. It’s kind of a crap shoot, as we’re not sure what will come back. Sometimes we plant flowers, and they’ll bloom, but they won’t survive through the summer or winter to bloom/re-seed again. This year we had lots of bulbs come up again – thanks mom! Our iris always come up and put out green, but rarely do they bloom – with the wet winter, we had about half of them bloom. Right now, we have some glads blooming that we planted in the fall – we’ll see if they come back next year. We’ve been working on some holly hocks for three years, guess they finally decided to bloom. If they don’t get eaten by gophers before they go to seed – I think I’ll spread them down by the front gate and see what they do. Sue took the photo above right after sunrise, it’s our little patch of green. Gets eternally watered by the grey water system. We also use this as a nursery area for plants that we don’t want to put directly out in the world yet. Unfortunately some have rooted in place, so moving them will take a bit of digging. Anyway… we’ll just keep trying to add beautiful things to our little corner of the world. Until then, as always~
thanks for reading.

Today’s Weather: Our old friend, the wind, has come back. It’s not as bad as it was when San Diego was regularly getting rain, but the gusts today were in the mid 20’s. Early this morning it was nice enough to take care of some watering, weeding and making wells around the trees. Then it just got a bit too hot – the high today was around 92°, under an incredibly bright and cloudless sky. Luckily it’s a bit overcast at the moment. At 5:54 it is now 88°, with only 9% humidity. Today , sunrise was at 5:14 and sunset will be at 7:23. More of the same on deck for tomorrow.

Egg Report: Friday – 36 chicken, 3 duck.  Saturday – 46 chicken, 2 duck.