January 15, 2013 Cactus and freezing temperatures do not mix

Skyline RV Park has a lot of big cactus plants at the front of their park.  I have been admiring them because they are Prickly Pear, which is one of my favorites, but they are also the thornless variety.  Pretty and painless!  But we have had freezing temperatures for 3 nights in a row and apparently that is too much.  The cacti have all broken apart.

They look so sad now.  

But all may not be lost!  Prickly Pears grow pretty fast for a cactus - they put out several new pads a year - so the main plant may recover.  And it turns out that the way to make a new Prickly Pear cactus is to plant one of the pads.  If these pads aren't too damaged by the cold, they could be used to start new plants.  If I was going to stay in this area I would ask for some of these pads, but they are just too big to live in an RV.

January 14, 2013 Bird Fight!

What happens when a Ruby Throated hummingbird finds another hummingbird at "his" feeder?

A teeny, tiny bird-fight, that's what happens!

Just because it's a tiny fight doesn't mean it's not serious - these birds go right at it.  They were wrestling in the air and even knocking each other to the ground.

But eventually the newcomer decided to check out feeders in other areas of the park.

And the winner stood tall and proud!  . . . Well, pretty tall for a hummingbird.

January 13, 2013 - Dog Sports

It is still really cold in Arizona - another night of freezing cold.  People are covering their young plants, but because freezing doesn’t happen a lot here, they don’t really seem prepared.  Some really nice houses have front lawns that look like a yard sale gone bad! 

In spite of the cold, today I got to watch some beautiful dogs practice Flyball.  Flyball is a sport for dog teams, and each team has 4 dogs.  One dog runs down a lane while jumping over hurdles, snatches a ball from spring-loaded box, then races back to the start, and the next dog takes off to do the same thing.  The first team to complete with the least errors wins.  One of the best things about Flyball is that all dogs can participate - the only real qualification is that the dog has to be able to hit the box hard enough to release the ball.  And each team usually has one small dog (called a "Height Dog" - really!) because the hurdles are the shoulder height of the smallest dog on the team.  So if you can get a little terrier on your team, you get some really low hurdles.  Heather, who is engaged to Clyde and Nancy’s son Jeff, has a couple of dogs that are on a local team and they are both good Flyball players.

After Fly-ball practice Heather let her dogs play with their favorite ball.  Ava the dalmatian likes this but Kya loves this!  Here she is getting a head-start to chase the ball as Nancy throws it, but looking over her shoulder to make sure Nancy doesn't fake-throw.  Because Nancy has been known to do that . . . 

Afterwards we had lunch at Chili's, then went to the Container Store.  When you live in an RV you are always interested in organization, and the Container Store is a good place to get ideas.  On the way home we stopped by to meet the rest of Heather’s dogs, and Nancy displayed a much-appreciated talent for dog massage. 

January 12, 2013 Cold in Arizona

Well, I owe the newscasters an apology because it really is pretty cold here today.  When the sun is shining on cactus and there isn't a cloud in the sky or a snowflake on the ground, it doesn't look cold.

But 27 degrees is cold, whether or not the sun is shining.  The water lines froze last night but Randy was prepared for it.  He had unhooked our lines so they wouldn't burst, and today we are using water from our fresh water tank.  And just a few days ago he replaced our portable oil heaters with little electric heaters.  The oil heaters worked good but they did take up space, which is always a consideration in an RV.  These new heaters are about the size of a Kleenex box and they put out more heat.

January 11, 2013 Let's talk about food

It's time to talk about food again . . .   One big difference between California and Arizona is the fruit.  We are just a couple hundred miles east, but at the local Super-Walmart the tomatoes are orange and the oranges are yellow.  Does this look appetizing?  It's just not the same. 

Clyde and Nancy have been taking us around to some of their favorite restaurants and today their son Jeff joined us for lunch at Chompie’s.  We had to wait to get a table but Chompie’s has a nice technique for making the wait acceptable - they pass out rugelach samples.  And if you get a chance to sample their chocolate rugelach, do it - it's great!  Their bakers also produce Jewish Rye bread, cookies, bagels and bialies, which is Yiddish for a chewy yeast roll.  Bialies look similar to bagels but they are baked instead of boiled and instead of a hole, their center is a depression filled with savory goodies like onions, seeds, etc.  We were really impressed with the food in the bakery.

For lunch we ordered the Lincoln Tunnel sandwich with sweet potato fries, and it was a great choice - lots of yummy pastromi and turkey dressed with slaw and onions, and so big that we split it.  This is the first pastrami sandwich we found that gives Carl's deli in St. Louis a run for the money.

Weather-wise, it's was in the 60s today but tonight there is a frost warning.  This is big news here.  The news reporters are warning people to stay inside, and if you have to go outside, bundle up in layers.  All reasonable advice, but the way they talk about it, it sounds like we should prepare for the next Ice Age instead of a frost warning.  

  

January 3, 2013 The more things change, the more they stay the same

When we started RVing I had 44 books of photographs.  I pared them down to 22 books and since then I have been transferring them onto I-Photo on our computer.  That frees up a lot of space, plus, because I use the photo file as my screen saver source, I get to see the pictures displayed randomly throughout the day.  Yesterday one particular pic caught my eye - from 1972, my Senior year at Washington Community High School.  17 years old and, as I realize now, I didn’t know anything!   But that’s not what caught my attention - it was the fact that now, at 58, I have basically the same hairstyle!  (Fortunately I ditched the dickey - even Howard Wolowitz can't bring those back in style)

January 2, 2013 Getting the year started right

It’s surprisingly cool here.  Actually, I would call it cold but Nancy tells me I am being a wimp.  We had a frost warning a couple of nights ago and although it has warmed up a bit, it’s just 45 degrees outside now, and that feels pretty cold to me!  I have totally acclimated to the no-snow regions and don’t know how I would survive a Midwest winter now.

I have also acclimated to retirement - I honestly don’t know how I ever found time to work!  Where does the day go?  Today, for example, I got up just a little after 9, took the dogs for a walk, did some laundry, took a shower at 1pm and then it was time to go sight-seeing.  Clyde and Nancy have been here for a few weeks so they are showing us some of the sights.  Is it a coincidence that most of these “sights” involve food?  Today we went to the Queen Creek Olive Mill, where they have a large variety of flavored olive oils, wines, cheeses, and a small restaurant called del Piero.  The sandwiches are good but I think the little savory bites were probably better.  These are picks with 3 or 4 morsels on them, such as stuffed olives (of course), salami, cheese, red pepper strips, pepperoni - things like that.  Each one is $1.00 so it’s easy to get a tasty assortment.

Next we went to Schnepf Farms, which is just down the road and around the corner.  It’s a working family-owned farm where they have figured a way to do a great business as a tourist destination.  They have about 300 acres, most of it in farmland that supports a lively “pick your own” business of fruits and vegetables.  The rest of it includes a petting zoo, pig races, hay rides, little buildings designed to look like old-fashioned businesses, and a small train that rides around the whole thing.  They have several festivals during the Snowbird season, when things get really busy.  Now the season is winding down so most of the events were closed, but we still got to sample some good fudge.  We also learned they have an outside ice skating rink!  How does one maintain an ice rink in Arizona?  Not with ice, that’s for sure.  The “ice” is hard white plastic that is covered with water and gelatin.  It seems to work just like ice.  

And we also went to what seems to be a great butcher shop, called the Pork Shop.  We had some samples and bought a few items to try.  You can never have too many sources for good food!