The name of that Mother's Day gift plant

I don't think I ever told you the name of the desert plant I received for Mother's Day.  You can see it close to the camera on the right side.  It's an ocatillo.  This is actually the second one because the first one didn't grow.  I don't have high hopes for this one either, unfortunately.  I'll probably pull it out of the ground this winter, take it back to the nursery, and just get my money back.

Here is some information about ocatillos (my favorite desert plant): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fouquieria_splendens
The article above does not hold out much hope for my plant.  However, I see them in people's yards all over the place, so I know they can be transplanted.

Yesterday's cloud

Yesterday morning I was up before sunrise, as usual, and looked out my front window toward the north, as usual.  There in the sky was a really tall, pink, unusual-looking cloud, interesting enough that I took a picture of it.

It turns out I wasn't the only one who noticed it!  See this article on a missle test:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49026286/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/us-army-missile-test-sparks-ufo-reports-southwest/

Dear niece's job-while-she-waits

My niece is going to be working in a family business soon, but in the meantime, the bills are still coming in and she still needs cash in her purse.  Being the go-getter that she is, she found out about . . .

. . . phone books!  It's time for new ones here in the city and she is going to deliver her share of the 500,000 or 600,000 that will go out in the next few weeks.  It is paid on a piece rate and she has about 1,200 to deliver in the next three days.  If she likes it, she'll deliver more.

Being that Hubs and the girls are gone camping tonight, I told her I'd go along with her as her unpaid worker.  It was lots of work, but we saw some interesting things in the neighborhood and had a good time.

Oh, that stack in the picture is about a quarter of her phone books.

What kind of cricket is this?

Bill and I were driving along and thought we were seeing tarantulas crossing the road, and maybe we were.  By the time we stopped to see what they actually were, the color had changed to brown vs. the black we had seen earlier and this is what we found:

What do you think?  Is it a cricket?

I wish I could say . . .

. . . this picture was taken in Mexico, but it wasn't.  It was taken from our elevated picnic area in Bisbee, Arizona last weekend!

Doesn't that look like the back window of a 240Z?

September 11

Today I talked to my students about the events of September 11, 2001.

I was teaching in public school in Idaho and when I walked in the door that morning, the school secretary told me a plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center buildings.  I remembered several years earlier when a small one or two passenger plane had crashed into a New York or Washington D.C. building and didn't give it much thought as I walked to my classroom. 

Nevertheless, I turned on my computer and went to a news site and was pretty shocked to realize it was a big jet that had crashed.  And then another.  And then one into the Pentagon.  And then one tower after the other crashed to the ground, crushing the survivors who were hurrying out of the buildings.  And then we found out a plane had crashed into a field in Pennsylvania and was probably part of the whole plot.

Unbelievable.

That night dh and I went to the mall because we didn't know what else to do.  Half the stores were open, half were closed.  The operators of the stores didn't know what to do either, and the mall was almost empty.

All American airplanes were grounded.  Ds was on his way from one military posting to another when the planes crashed and his plane was forced to land in Denver, Colorado, where he had to stay for several days while alternate transportation was arranged.

It was a strange, sad, scary time.

Today there is a new World Trade Center going up.  Osama Bin Laden, who planned the attacks, is dead.  However, no American who was past elementary school age in 2001 will forget that day.

source

Dick Cheney, who was vice-president of the United States on September 11, 2001, visiting the memorial to those killed that day.

 

I love farm stands!

On our drive through the country on Saturday we drove through some small towns and saw some farmer's fruit stands.  Well, they were mostly fresh corn, pecans, and pistachios.

We decided to turn in at a farm with a driveway so long we couldn't see the house.  When we got to the house we saw a sign that said:

HONK FOR PECANS

However, we parked right next to this little trailer and didn't need to honk.  If you click on it you can see we were instructed to take what we wanted and leave the money under the wooden nut bowl. 

It's hard to describe how much I like this kind of sale.  On the left there were 4 bags of pecans that were still in the shell, but heavily cracked so they were easy to remove from the shell.  On the right was 1 bag of whole pecans in the shell for a lower price.  We bought a 2 pound bag and a 3 pound bag of the cracked nuts and left $22 under the bowl.  We never did see the farmers, although a big dog wandered through the driveway area and showed about a 3% interest in us.

A mile or two farther down the road Bill stopped at another stand that was right on the road because he wanted to pick up one more thing.  He came right back out and said no way was he going to pay those boutique prices!  The pecans we bought for about $4.40/lb were $9/lb there.  So glad we bought directly from the farmer!

Meal Plan Sunday

Monday:  Quick chicken parmesan and spaghetti (Costco chicken tenders, sauce, mozzarella, parmesan all on a bed of spaghetti), green beans

Tuesday:  Smoked sausage, peppers, potatoes

Wednesday:  Sliced turkey, mashed potatoes, and gravy (from the freezer)

Thursday:  Bulgogi, rice, fresh vegetables

Friday:  Pizza

My happy family :-)

Yesterday we had a lot of fun together.  Here are some pictures of us at an outdoor display of mining equipment that was used in Bisbee, Arizona a hundred years ago.

(I'm posting this horrible picture of me only because Conor looks so good in it.)

 

Sophia at the rear of the coal mine train.

 Caroline and Carolyn

 This is my favorite picture.  Doesn't Elizabeth look delighted with the adventure?

 Cool Cat Conor with his little sisters

We had a great day together yesterday.

Bisbee, Arizona

Before we even got up this morning I asked Bill what he had in mind for the day.  He said, "I was thinking of taking everyone to Bisbee today."  Good idea!  He had been there once, but I never had, and of course neither Conor or Carolyn had been there either.

Copper mining began in Bisbee around the turn of the 20th century and was always done mechanically.  No pick axes and mules.  The mine closed in the mid-70s and the town started to turn into a ghost town before it was discovered by artists and Bohemian free thinkers.  Today it is mostly a tourist town with lots of antique and junk shops next to art galleries and jewelry shops.  Quite a number of raucous bars as well, even on a Saturday afternoon.

 

Two of its famous features are the narrow, steep streets and houses clinging to the rocky mountain sides.  Some were shacks and others were nicely renovated little Victorian homes, with everything in between.

 

There is an annual festival to celebrate all the stairs around town and we decided to take part even though the festival is a month and a half away.  This is what we came across:

181 stairs.  I'm not in great shape, but decided to go up because there was art on the walls and I could see some interesting houses on each side and there was a bit of mystery about it all.

On my way!

I thought there was an interesting house at the top, but that was NOT the top!  The path went around the side of it and kept going up and up!  I stopped several times to catch my breath enjoy the view on the way up, and celebrated with the girls when we got to the top.

We all counted the steps coming back down.  Carolyn and I came up with 181 if we counted both the top and bottom surfaces.  The three girls came up with different numbers, but I'm pretty sure 181 was correct.

 

Gonna be sore tomorrow!