Stocking up for Winter

 Fall was definitely upon us, with daytime temps in the mid-70s and nighttime temps in the 50s, which put us in mind to start preparing for winter. Gerald spent a day splitting oak from the tree we lost, then we loaded it into our little wagon and filled up our wood racks.

 We rearranged and consolidated things so we had our wood sorted by species and size.

 The guys we paid to cut up the oak last winter had cut some of the pieces too long, so Gerald cut them on the saw and stacked those pieces on the front porch.

By the end of the day, we had made visible progress.

Progress on the Homes Front

 Coming home, one day, we saw these giant tracks in the road. We knew it was a monster piece of equipment that could leave tracks like this on a dry road. We suspected it was Steve Hampton putting in a driveway for Brian and Nora Evans. Sure enough, that's just where the tracks led.

 It was a steep climb up the roughly cut driveway.

 At the top, we found Steve's employee, Squeak, with the machine.

 There was some beautiful views up there.

 Since we were there, we decided to check out the progress of the Evans' next-door neighbors, the Shopes. Their place was coming right along.

Art and Wine Tour

 Our friend Leah is a great one for organizing adventures. One of them included an art and wine tour. She planned it on a weekend when a number of Prescott artists had opened their studios to the public. We met at noon and headed for our first stop, Granite Creek Winery in Chino Valley. It was a lovely spot, with a large red barn and a collection of smaller buildings on this lovely shady lot. The live entertainment was an added plus.

 Leah had made advance arrangements, and they had reserved a table for us on the lawn. We had a wine tasting in the tasting room, then headed out to our table with a glass of wine and a pot luck picnic which included bread, prosciutto, three types of cheeses, crackers, and fresh watermelon and cantaloupe fresh-picked from the garden. We enjoyed it so much that we took a group consensus and decided to skip the two art stops in favor of staying longer.

 So our trip became a winery tour. Our next stop was Juniper Wells. Here's the juniper and well house that gave the winery its name.

 Here is a horse that was grazing nearby.

 The grounds at Juniper Wells were not as inviting, but they did have all these wonderful juniper trees. Dan Raugh became enraptured with this tree, which stood across from the tasting room and next to the vineyard. He just kept laughing and taking pictures.

 It was such a nice tree, we all posed in front of it for a group photo.

We ended our evening with pizza at the T-bird cafe in Peeples Valley. It was a beautiful night, so we ate outside under the canopy of a black walnut tree. We lit the tiki torches at our tables, which gave the whole scene a lovely glow. The owner, Chery, and her husband entertained us.

I got the biggest kick our of this guy who was had a walrus mustache and an orange T-shirt that was so bright it practically glowed. He was sitting at a table next to ours. I could hardly believe it when he got up on stage and started playing a washtub string bass. I have to admit, it sounded pretty darn good. It was the perfect end to a perfect day.

Garden Party

The community garden's biggest fundraiser of the year has always been the "Dinner in the Garden." Gerald and I were out of town for last year's dinner and didn't know about it the year before, so it was a new experience for us. Gerald volunteered to do the lighting, which involved installing some poles to hang lights from.

 A few days before the dinner, the garden gang met in the garden at dusk to preview the lighting over a glass of wine.

 Those of us who cooked for the dinner served what we had cooked. Don and Mary Ann cooked the roast beef and au jus. My assignment was acorn squash, which I honey roasted and served in wedges. There was also a wonderful chile relleno casserole, a medley of sauteed garden veggies, a tomato and mozzarella salad, a green salad and a variety of homemade and artisan breads. Kari Flippen prepared a table full of deserts: pumpkin pie, pumpkin tart, chocolate cake, two types of lemon cakes and about a dozen different type of cookies. It was all yummy.

 A number of area musicians volunteered to provide musical entertainment. Emad, the harmonica player, is our group secretary's husband.

Not long after the gates opened, every table was full. It was a wonderful event, and we made close to $650. Not as much as the farm stand, which earned us more than $800, but not bad.

Building a Better Mouse Trap

We had been plagued for months, maybe years, by mouse in our garage. It got into the air compressor and chewed the wires, and stuffed insulation in the van's air conditioner. We tried everything: different types of poison, manual traps in different sizes using different types of bait. Nothing worked. We asked the guys at Yarnell Hardware what they suggested and they told us to try the sticky paper. We caught a scorpion and a lizard that way. On one of the traps, once, there was a bunch of fur and a perfect little mouse footprint. Then Gerald read about this trap in Mother Earth News. He floated the top of a margarine container in a five gallon bucket, baited it with sunflower seeds and put a little gangway on top. A few days later, we had our mouse!

Yard Work

 All the rain meant that all sorts of things sprouted on our driveway. As Gerald is POA president, Steve Hampton graded our driveway along with the roads. But after he was finished, we got so much rain that our driveway was starting to look like our meadow. So Gerald got the idea to hook up a piece of chain link fence to the back of the truck to clear it. It worked, sort of.

 Just two years after we had the "amazing brush eating machine" clear away the scrub oak around our house, it had all grown back. So Gerald went out with his chipper to clear away the worst of it. He also got this log splitter (below) to process the wood from the big oak we lost last winter. It worked great.

Fall Migration

Our hummingbirds returned for the fall migration, though their numbers seemed light compared with last year. And they arrived later, peaking around mid-September.

But we enjoyed them all the same.

Flowers, flowers everywhere

This was the best summer for rain we could remember. We lost track of how many inches we got, but it had to be eight or nine at least. And with all the rain, there were flowers everywhere. On our trips to the Valley we saw wildflowers all the way down, even in the desert. I had never seen wildflowers in the desert in August in all the years I've lived in Arizona. Anyway, these were taken around the house and should give you an idea of their abundance.

Even the stock pond stayed full.

Wildflowers

Here are some of the wildflowers we saw around Ruger Ranch. These little purple and yellow flowers were everywhere.

The Indian paintbrush was down near where the oak fell last winter.

Goldeneye was growing along the roadsides in great abundance.

And globemallow bloomed in August. We usually only saw it in spring.

These Colorado four o'clocks (above) were all along Cattle Barron Bend. And this fleabane (below) lined the steep stretch leading from our house to Weaver Peak Pass.

Lavender!

 Gerald convinced the Community Garden that lavender would be a good addition. He ordered lavender for the garden and got some for us, too. We decided to create a bed along the south side of the house lining the drive. John Hussen came over with his tractor and they laid these logs in place to border the beds.

 Gerald drove stakes into the logs to hold them in place.

 Then he filled the beds with a mixture of compost from the garden and DG, because lavender like rocky soil. Then he installed a drip system and planted our 54 plants.

Community Garden

Everyone agreed that this was the best year ever for the community garden. Every Saturday from early August through mid-September, we set up our little farm stand, and every week we were amazed at the harvest. Here's Frances and Gerald. In six or so weeks, we made more than $800 at the farm stand, which was enough to pay the water bill for the whole summer.

This amazing vine volunteered itself along our rear fence line and produced these gigantic gourds, which were much prized both among our members and the owner of a local store, who bought six of them. Gerald took one, too, with the intention of making a birdhouse out of it.

The garden benefited from all the rain we got. Everything was lush and full.

Rainy Days and Sundays

With much of the work done on the house, there was time for other things, like the outdoor lighting. Gerald had wanted to expand it for some time, and this seemed a good time.

That is, it did, until it started to rain. But who's complaining? We needed it desperately and on this last trip home, it rained just over two inches over the course of four days. Since we had our gutters installed, the runoff was being channeled down the driveway. Gerald bought some pipes to divert some of it across the road. The plan is to attach the pipes to the drainspouts and bury them in trenches so the water can be channeled to the trees on the other side of the driveway.

The security gate at the entrance to Ruger Ranch that the property owners authorized at the last HOA meeting finally got installed. Gerald had given the gate makers these stars to spiffy it up a little. The rain gave them a nice rusted look.