cloudy day

It's cloudy and rainy today. Kinda nice to appreciate damp and chilly days. It snowed in Flagstaff yesterday at the higher elevations(7500'+). Snow on Memorial Day weekend....almost sounds like Chicago weather!

Temp this morning at about 6:30. Quite a change from the 100 the other day. I guess the weather can get a little extreme here too.

This is our hummingbird feeder outside our front window. This Hummingbird has her nest inside our 'stable', and has for a few years. They migrate down to Mexico for the winter, then come back to the same nest every year.

I make a sugar-water mixture for the food. This picture is just a tiny bit smaller than actual size. She flies around in the barn while I'm working sometimes. Sounds like a giant bumble bee.

It's been awhile since I posted a sunset. Clear skies don't make for great pics. We had some cool looking clouds roll in yesterday evening, so it was a good sunset last night. Spent the whole day in or by the pool yesterday. It almost reached 100. Totally tolerable with H20!

This was our thermometer in the shade at about 4:45 this afternoon. Someone told me breaking the 100 mark came later than last year(May 1). I was actually chilly(for a little minute) getting out of the pool with the breeze blowing. Crazy! It's supposed to get back down to the 70's by Thursday, and maybe even rain!

This is Max's birthday/graduation present. Because of the Rock Band video game with drums, he's already pretty good. I was impressed. I'm sure the neighbors will be too :)

If I hadn't spent all that time texturing and painting the walls, we would put carpet on them. Some soundproofing is in order for sure!

snow in may

It's hard to see in this picture, but there is snow on the top of Mingus Mountain over near Jerome today. It rained here last night and a good part of today. Flagstaff got 4 inches of wet, heavy snow. Pretty wacky stuff. It was chilly here too. High in the 60's.

Played our first softball game of the season last night. Had a great game with a lead off double and three or four more base hits after that. Played in left field, which was fun. My legs are a little sore today, right above the quads. Got another game tomorrow, so the muscles should loosen up!

slumber party

We had a little slumber party the other night for Max's Birthday. Seven boys total. They kept busy swimming, playing video games, and riding Ryan's(holding the green thing) quad around the yard. Doug cooked pancakes for everyone in the morning. It all went surprisingly smooth :)

Weird Noise

I woke up at about 2:00am, hearing a strange noise outside. It sounded sort of like water running. Sometimes our neighbor keeps weird hours, so I looked out the window to see if they were watering or something. It was raining! Not too much, but enough to leave some puddles for this morning and calm all the dust down a bit. Smelled fab! I'm actually looking forward to the monsoons.

Pony Express

Doug had a friend over today. There was no school because of the Verde Valley Fair. Rodeo, carnival, music, etc. I'm digressing. Anyway, we were driving Doug's friend home, and as we turned onto the highway near our house, there was actually traffic backed up for awhile. I thought it was an accident, but then I noticed horse poop on the side of the road and around the curve, I thought I saw a bunch of people on horses. It was the PONY EXPRESS! They do an annual ride and this year for the first time ended it in CV. WHY didn't I have the D70!? We drove right by the posse of about 30 riders, just finishing a 125 mile ride, that began on Wednesday. I thought it was the coolest thing, the boys not so much. Oh well. I swear, I'm gonna bring my camera EVERYWHERE.

For more details, you can check out this article in one of our local papers(CV actually has two), the CV Bugel at: http://campverdebugleonline.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=19901. I'm hoping to see some more pics of the event in there soon.

Mulberries

What a thrill for us when Eric discovered one of our Mulberry trees had berries! We knew we had a few trees, but thought they were not bearers of fruit. After the evening swim, Doug and I picked a bowlful while Max threw a Chinese star at a wall. I guess mulberry picking wasn't his thing today. Doug enjoyed himself immensely, and is looking forward to putting a sheet down and shaking berries off the tree tomorrow. We might have to make a pie.

The berries are smaller than the IL variety, but still pretty tasty. This tree is way more prolific than our tree in EV.

Doug's on a little nakee binge :)

mmmmmmm - berries!

Jerome Artist's Coop

Today I installed my display and work at the Jerome Artist's Coop. There are 36 artists currently exhibiting work. Not the greatest photo, but you get the idea.

Here's the front. the woman in white through the left window seems to be looking at my work.

I got a call this afternoon to let me know my first pices had sold-a forged steel letter opener. I'm excited and looking forward to becoming involved.

I plan on adding another blog with just my work on it for those interested. Eventually people will be able to make online purchases. Bear(or bare?) with me though, it's on my pretty long to do list.