Ajo, Arizona

Cymande and I recently pursued adventure and relaxation with my parents in Ajo, Arizona. The start was a bit confusing and frustrating with a missed flight in Atlanta due to severe weather which then resulted in a 3AM taxi ride to Buckhead with a slightly deranged cabbie. We slept, watched cable and left 24 hours later, finally arriving late at night in Phoenix.



The following day my parents gave us the Ajo tour including the Curley School which has been repurposed into studios and housing for local artists. We also stopped by the deserted rodeo grounds. We finished the day with a bout of my unpracticed pool playing, plentiful food and Ajo friends.





My parents arranged a tour of the nearby desert with their friend John. He volunteered to put his vehicle through some serious desert trauma and for this we are sympathetic and thankful. The surrounding mountains are sinking into their own eroded material after centuries of wind, rain and powerful heat. From a distance the mountains seem barren, but will a little exploration an abundance of life can be observed. The trip took us east of town over the nearby low mountains and into a gorgeous valley full of saguaro cacti, chollas, creosote, bursage and ocotillo.



Which reminds me, my parents have a spectacular semi-famous ocotillo that seems to attract every bird in town. (behind Cymande and my father who appears to be mid-story)(as usual)!


Fouquieria splendens
Common Name: Ocotillo
Description: Stems 5cm diameter at base, up to 10 meters high, bright red flowers in spring, with rainfall small ovate leaves appear and last weeks to months. Only species of this family in North America.
Range: Southwest US and Northern Mexico.

The birds that visit the ocotillo appear to be eating the flowers and drinking nectar. Species include: phainopeplas, white-winged doves, a variety of sparrows, cardinals, cactus wrens, curved-billed thrashers and finally:


Auriparus flaviceps
Common Name: Verdin
Description: 9-11 cm songbird, gray body/yellow face, small sharp bill.
Range: Desert Southwest into Central Mexico.
Habitat: Desert Scrub, especially along washes.
Food: Insects and spider.
Other facts: Builds nests for breeding and roosting with the roosting nest being much smaller. The male builds the outer stick shell while the female builds the lining. The roosting nest in winter are heavily insulated and decrease energy needs by up to 50%.

Anyway, back to the tour...So, before we got started we all took some practice rounds out at the shooting range. Cymande blasted holes in a poor defenseless sheet metal deer and I shot the living hell out of a soda bottle.


Then John fearlessly drove us into the desert. The roads were composed of little rocks, moderately sized rocks and big rocks, but that didn't stop us. We had a picnic on the shore of a large dry wash.


Finally, Cymande rode, well, sat atop John's patient horse. We slept well.


The next day we travelled south to Organ Pipe National Monument and watched the vultures soar off of the Ajo Mountains. We learned about the flora, fauna and geography. Now I can casually discuss the bajada, alluvial fan and arroyo.



Ajo is a strange and beautiful place full of interesting people, plants and creatures. My parents were the perfect hosts and have surrounded themselves with fascinating and kind people. It makes it easy to visit and difficult to leave.

Ross Returns..."OOOZE!"

After many years away Ross, bearing wiffle balls and bats, made a much anticipated visit to OWR. He found himself involved in a variety of activities that are unique to the local environment. On day 1 Ross and I floated down the Santa Fe and paddled up it, in that order. I take full responsibility for the sequence. The float down was placid and lovely; the return, athletic and sunburnt. Turtles basked, hawks soared, night herons hid, fishermen cast, Ross and I paddled. We spent the remainder of the day pleasantly wandering the field, eating and imbibing.




We woke early the next day to get Charlie who has been several months in South Carolina. His train was late and we had hearty breakfast at The Fox in Avondale. We travelled from the train station to St. Augustine. Food, drink and ice cream was consumed yet again. Ross spent a considerable time disputing the age of St. Augustine. He feels it is not the the oldest city in America and steadfastly denies its importance. It is still unclear why he feels this way.




We returned home to prepare for the night's activities, a night of burning rubber, motor oil, filth, noise, pollution and testosterone at the North Florida Speedway. Ross seemed impressed by the carefree attitude of children (and their parents) playing four feet away from speeding deathtraps. He seemed less impressed by the cheese fries. Charlie seemed impressed and took to banging his coke bottle on the bleachers while screaming the name of his favorite car, "OOOOZE..."




The next day was a sporting day of wiffleball, tim-e basketball, tim-e soccer and lawn bowling. There was a brief episode of a sport best described as wrestle ball, luckily everything ended peacefully. On the last day Ross and Charlie began with the axe and timber fell. It then progressed to a trip to the feed store and finally to the discovery of 12 new chicks in the coop. Sadly we dropped Ross off at the airport only a few hours ago...a brief visit. We all look forward to the next time. Cymande's in recovery from testosterone overexposure...as for Charlie he is still screaming "OOOOZE!".

Punk Items in the Country

Springing

It's Spring here on OWR which, as any bird or seed will tell you, means work, work, work.



The light is lightening. The earth is warming and cracking. The greens are greening. The stinkhorns are stinky.



The garlic! (Oh please, please be as good as you look)!



Future pears for future lazy-day cobbler.

The Morning Commute

Here, we see the Mini apparently speeding down our dirt driveway and through the open gate. In the background and out of view, the dogs are eating their breakfast and the chickens are starting their morning wander. This is how our ride to work begins. Rest assured: we are late and the theme music to the second round of Morning Edition is playing.


It is a Monday and the grader is scraping off the surface of Old Wire. After a weekend of heavy rain, the clay and sand can become quite the driving hazard. The grader can be found on our road about three days a week scraping away. I've never spoken to the grader pilot but he appears to be a jolly man and waves back every time. The road is lined on both sides with many ancient live oaks that form a canopy over the road. Sometimes I worry about those 300 year old branches that hang 30 feet above us. We have a few cows, goats, horses, sheep, bunnies, deer, wild turkeys and the occasional fox squirrel (an odd creature, and good eating we hear) as neighbors and we usually say hello.


At the northern exit of Old Wire we begin a unusually winding stint on the local county road. Here we drive past children at the bus stop, a kestrel, two dogs that might be related to Lula and a woman that we have been watching for months who obsessively text messages someone or plays a game on her phone whilst sitting in her minivan in her driveway. For some poorly defined reason this last item drives us nearly crazy. For Cymande, it is the fact that this woman is in the exact same position (head tilted, looking at phone) every single morning since at least August, 2007. Which brings us to the next step in the journey...


Dead Man's Curve. Yes, DMC is a much feared and perfectly flawed piece of road. Conceived by a band of civil engineer drop-outs, this curve somehow is tilted inversely and tends to launch drivers across the center line or off the road. You decide. Either way, DMC can be both exhilarating and disturbing. It is not uncommon for me to be muttering profanities and beeping the horn at this point during the trip. Cymande just screams, or if she's had too much coffee, yells wheeeeee!


After surviving DMC we find ourselves exiting on the unusually named Tustenugee Road. This road takes us through some quaint agriculture. There is a large donkey population along this stretch of road. What is the deal with donkeys? I mean, I love to look at them in the morning sun, but do they serve a purpose? Perhaps they are pets. I have never seen donkey as a key ingredient in dog or cat food, but I wonder. There are also tobacco fields and cattle along the way.



Here we cross Interstate 75. As we casually drive to work, carloads of excited midwestern children and an obscene number of Quebecois pass below us and are only 2 hours away from Disney World. Five minutes away from I-75 is a lobby full of ill children awaiting our arrival. I take another gulp of coffee and look at the clock that displays...


(8:12) and I feel a twinge of guilt. Then I remember that I will be at work for the next 10 hours and I don't feel so bad.


Approaching the clinic, now we pass Club Rodeo, a burned down trailer and the Flamingo Motel-now-apartments that still boasts about 'cable TV.' We pass by the High School and its garish purple/yellow tiger mascot, pass by Dollar General #23987, pass by the car wash and pass into a small piece of what is left of Florida's oak hammock where we will spend our day, indoors.

Technical Difficulties

Hello everyone. The month of January brought technical difficulties to us at OWR. Our mac crashed and we were told it was a 'node b error' which translates to approximately $400, a new hard drive and two trips to Jacksonville. This explains, somewhat, why we haven't updated the blog and we have few photos to share.

After the 'node b' incident we experienced a mystery. I was on a post-call-day-off and I did rounds at the hospital with the dogs in the Big Blue Van [BBV]. After rounds I drove to the feed store. I paid for the feed and drove home. This would be the start of a two week absence of my wallet. We searched high and low including the coop and freezer. We finally blamed Buckley... turns out, our blame was correctly directed. Cymande's cell phone was, in the search for the wallet, discovered in a state of partial digestion...well, at least chewed up, in a pile of hay with, lo and behold, the wallet. The new cell phones with new telephone numbers on a new carrier and assorted accessories, of course, about $300.

We also had a human 'node b error'. That is 'b' as in 'back pain'. About a week ago I woke in a sorry state after moving a washer and hot water heater. I tried to ready myself for work, but ten minutes before I was supposed to be at work I was found contorted on the couch, sweating and repeating 'I'm not going, I'm not going', Cymande snickering creully (a result of what she called 'stress and concern'). Luckily, I'm better now, and Cymande doesn't have to do everything for me, although that was fun. 'Do this' and 'Do that', said I.

We also 10 new chicks in the flock. They love blueberry muffins and apples.

The Year 2008

Buckley's wish for the new year was granted at about 10 AM this morning.