ARIZONIANS FOR A YEAR!

Can you believe we have been residents here for a year today (June 11)! It seems like only yesterday we were hurrying to get everything packed and loaded to move down here. I guess the old adage, "time flies when your having fun," really is true. We had heard from a number of locals that if you can stand June you can stand the summer! Well we made it through last June. It was warm -- well maybe HOT -- so we decided to stay inside and paint the house. When we bought the house it was mostly vanilla. As you can see from the following pictures it is no longer.

When we finished painting, we decided to redo the patio -- well, we decided to hire someone to redo the patio. The pictures below are how it looked before.

And after:

We have made some great friends down here. And had a "bunch" of fun along the way.

And we have been able to see our "old" friends too!

We are looking forward to another monsoon, lots more birding, October when all our friends come back, when friends and family visit, and to a second great year in Arizona.

After

OUR WEEK IN REVIEW!

It's warming up in the desert, but we have still been able to do some birding. Last Sunday we went up to Madera Canyon. We hiked up the Carrie Nation Trail and saw some great birds. We saw two pairs of Elegant Trogons. One pair was at the nest, and we saw them trade off baby (or is that birdy) sitting duties. I did get a fairly good picture of the male Trogon. You can see the nest hole to the left of the Trogon. We also saw some Red-faced Warblers. These little warblers are what we call "flitterers". In other words they move around quickly and it's hard to take their picture. The picture below is looking down at Green Valley from up Carrie Nation Trail. On Memorial Day, we went with our friends Linda and Jim to Tubac to bird along the Anza Trail. We had a good day and saw 34 different birds.

This morning (Sunday, May 31) we walked out to see if we could see any Burrowing Owls. We did see one.

Can you see the Hummingbird in the nest in the picture below? You have to look very carefully as he/she blends in with the background so well.

Below is a picture of a little Hummingbird I took in our yard. He kind of looks mad!

On our walk this morning, I took this picture of a Gila Woodpecker peeking out of his nest hole in a Saguaro Cactus.

This family of Quail have come to our backyard a couple of times in the past few days. There were 11 babies. I couldn't get a picture of all of them together -- they move fast!

Lately we have also had a Roadrunner that makes a swing across our patio daily. I am sure he is looking for baby Quail. I try to shoo him away if there are any baby Quail in the vicinity.

All in all we had a great week seeing more than 70 different birds. Some of the highlights were: The Elegant Trogons; the Red-faced Warblers; Peregrine Falcon; Blue Grosbeak; Varied Bunting; Summer Tanager; Black-headed Grosbeak; Hepatic Tanager; White-eared Hummingbird; Cardinal (always a favorite); and the Roadrunner.

MT. LEMON

Today we traveled to Mt. Lemon with Shirlie and Cliff. Shirlie thought it would be a good place to get out of the heat (it was 97 in Green Valley and 74 at Mt. Lemon), and Cliff had gotten a new digital camera he wanted to try out.

The four of us and Mac the Scottie dog at Windy Point on Mt. Lemon.

Bob and Cliff.

Bob and Mac

Me at the ski resort.

The chairlift was working taking people up to the top of the ski run. A lady who had just gotten off coming back down told Shirlie it was really cold at the top so we chose not to go.

The rock formations on Mt. Lemon have to be a geologist's dream. Mt. Lemon is about an hour and forty minutes from Green Valley. It is nice to bird there also, but today we just took pictures.

WHERE DOES THE TIME GO?

I can't believe it is already the middle of May! Here is an update of what we have been doing since the end of last month.

On the 30th of April, Scott and Yvonne had Cliff, Shirlie, Norm (Marg had already gone home) and Bob and I over for dinner.

Scott took this picture of Shirlie, Yvonne and me. Bob likes to call us the "Three Amigos." The food and the company were great.

The next day (May 1) we took Scott and Yvonne to Arivaca to bird.

That evening Doc and Jean from Twin Falls came. They rented a place in our subdivision for 5 days so we went to their rental for drinks. Then the next night we had dinner at our house with Scott and Yvonne and Doc and Jean. The next night the six of us had dinner at Doc and Jean's.

On Monday, Doc, Jean, Bob and I went up to Madera Canyon to have a picnic and to show them where we love to be the most.

That leads us into May 5th and Cinco de Mayo! The six of us went to Tubac to the Spice Store and then to Wisdom's for Margarita's and lunch. Then we gals went shopping while the men entertained the waitresses at the Tubac Bar and Grill. We just made it back to Green Valley in time to go to a Cinco de Mayo party at Marilee's and Allen's. As you can see by the pictures, a good time was had by all!!!!!

Today Bob and I went to Rio Rico where Bob has been wanting to go to see the Black-bellied Whistling Ducks. Then on the way back we stopped in Tubac to bird along the Anza Trail. Since the 1st of May we have seen four birds to add to our life list. In Madera Canyon we saw a White-eared Hummingbird , and a Flame-colored Tanager. (these are pictures from a book, I couldn't get close enough with my little camera)

Then today in Rio Rico we saw the Black-bellied Whistling Duck:

And along the Anza Trail we saw the Swainson's Thrush.

Today we saw 45 different birds, and along with the weather that is why we live here!

SPRINGTIME!

Springtime means two things in Green Valley. First flowers, flowers, and more flowers (also see the proceeding blog entry). The following pictures are from our own tiny little cactus. It may be small but it produces a beautiful flower.

Boomer enjoys the flowers too!

The second thing about spring is that all the birds, snowbirds that is, start heading back from whence they came. A few of our friends have gone already; most will be gone by the middle of May; and all by the end of May. One of our friends had to leave early so she was cleaning out her fridge and freezer and she gave me a whole bag of frozen pork ribs. Soooo what could we do with all those ribs but have a party! We invited 14 people, and believe me when I say nobody went home hungry!

Busy Bob at the grill!

Some of the food!

The friends!We are going to miss everyone when they go home, but we'll probably loose a bunch of weight as the dinners and cocktail parties will stop. But luckily they'll be back next October and it will start all over again.