Kat Tracks

Desert Lavender

2012-01-01T09:05:00.000-08:00

You can almost always count on Desert Lavender (Hyptis emoryi) to be blooming at the dawn of the New Year in the Sonoran Desert. Sure enough, we found many of these woolly-leaved shrubs buzzing with nectar and pollen-gathering bees on our hike in the Deem Hills yesterday. In a reverse of the phenology typical of most plants further north and at higher altitudes, the flowering season for desert lavender is between October and May. In the hotter summer months, these and many other desert shrubs drop their leaves to conserve moisture, and come back to life following monsoon rains in the fall. Desert Lavender leaves also morph according to soil moisture, growing larger, thinner, and less furry when there is more water, and thus expanding the photosynthetic capabilities. When drought sets in, the thin leaves dry up and new leaves produced are small, thick, and felted, which helps to conserve water, while still allowing the plant to photosynthesize.

If you crush the furry leaves between your fingers, you can benefit from the relaxing and healing aromatherapy attributed to other types of lavender, also in the mint family. This is a good enough reason to include desert lavender in your desert garden. Hummingbirds and butterflies are also attracted to lavender, another perk that helps celebrate the winter season in the desert.

Crucifixion Thorn

2011-12-30T11:08:00.000-08:00

While wandering through the desert during the annual Christmas Bird Count south of the Gila River near Buckeye, Arizona the other day, we came across one of three species of crucifixion thorn. All three are mean spiky shrubs, with green stems and branches that take on the job of photosynthesis where leaves are mostly absent, except in very young plants. Out on the creosote flats of Robbin's Butte Wildlife Area, the lone specimen of Castela emoryi we found is the perfect place for resident loggerhead shrikes to impale their prey. This brand of crucifixion thorn is one of three Castela species native to the Sonoran Desert, but the only one found in Arizona wildlands; the others are found in Mexico. Over in southern California there is a Crucifixion Thorn Natural Area, dedicated to a healthy forest of this somewhat rare Castela. Like its better known cousin, Quassia, stems of Castela are sometimes used medicinally for their bitter tonic and intestinal parasite purging benefits.

The other two types of crucifixion thorn found in Arizona include Canotia holocantha, a very common tree-like shrub with long, flexible spine tipped branches, that grows mostly in the central uplands; and Koeberlinia spinosa, a well-armed shrub endemic to southwest deserts, ranging from California to Texas. None of these species, however, are native to the holy lands, where Jesus is said to have bore the corona de cristo for which these plants are named. The plant most likely to be referenced in biblical stories is Zizyphus spina-christi. We also have a thorny species of Zizyphus in Arizona, but we call it gray-thorn, among other things, in these parts. Whichever you encounter, it's best to handle carefully with leather gloves, lest you draw blood!

Alligator juniper

2011-12-22T21:58:00.000-08:00

For tonight's solstice fire, we burned a bundle of juniper wood that I picked up from a fuel wood market in downtown Phoenix. I could tell by the scaly bark that it was from an Alligator juniper (Juniperus deppeana). The man I bought it from told me that it was harvested from a clear cut up near Williams, AZ. Although I shudder to think that these amazing old trees are being clear cut, we could at least feel that these limbs were burned with reverence. The wood burns clean and smells so sweet.

A couple of months ago we visited an ancient alligator up near Flagstaff. This one has seen many centuries, and undoubtedly many young boys in its limbs over the years.

Happy Solstice!

Desert Snails

2011-12-21T21:39:00.001-08:00

These spiral beauties are the shells of talussnails (Sonorella spp.), a type of land snail that survives in between rocks in Arizona deserts and canyons, grazing on mosses, lichens, and leaf litter. I haven't figured out which species. If you want to be a land snail biologist, and want to identify the species, you need to get a good look at their penises. Unfortunately, I haven't come across a live one yet, in order to determine the shape and size of their gonads. This, plus the details of shell morphology, are the most important characters used to distinguish between them. All snails have a penis, since they are hermaphroditic, which is very handy for reproduction, since both individuals can become pregnant when they copulate. At least if I do find a live one, the sex won't matter!

Although there are over 200 species of snails native to Arizona, we know very little about most of them. Many are considered very rare, with populations limited to isolated mountain ranges. Threats from mining and recreation have raised enough concern from biologists to petition for protection under the Endangered Species Act, as with the Rosemont Talussnail and Sonoran Talussnail. Others, are considered pests, such as the New Zealand Land Snail, which has inspired annual conferences to discuss how to eliminate them.

Most snail reports are heavy with measurements and description, but I did find a few lines referring to snail intelligence and behavior buried inside a 69 page report, where two biologists came eyestalks to eyes with a snail:

"With its eyestalks still turned towards us, the snail appeared to increase its traveling speed across the boulder and attempted to go down the side of the boulder and out of our sight. We considered this to be evasive behavior." Schmalzel and Archer, 2010

They didn't say if that one escaped, or if it became one of the many sacrificed for taxonomic analysis. I hope it got away!

Tamarisk

2011-12-19T21:55:00.000-08:00

When you look closely at the flowers of tamarisk (Tamarisk ramosissima) it is easy to understand why folks brought them to North America for their ornamental value. Eight different species have been introduced from Asia for both aesthetics and erosion control. Today, they are reviled by many, because they do very well here. So well that they have become the dominant vegetation in many river corridors of the southwest deserts. After nearly 200 years, we should probably accept that they are now a permanent member of our regional flora. But millions of dollars and thousands of hours of human effort are spent every year in an attempt to eliminate them, using chemicals, fire, insects and other weapons of mass destruction. This particular specimen, however, is a well cared-for tree growing in one of my neighbors yard, planted intentionally for its shade and beauty.

Nebulous

2011-12-18T21:16:00.000-08:00

We've had a lot of clouds this week. I love clouds! Here are a few of my favs from the cloud files.

Plus, our families own Word Cloud for 2011.

Another nebulous year has drifted by......

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to All! Thanks for following Kat Tracks!

Turf Wars

2011-12-09T10:12:00.001-08:00

One of the grandest features of the neighborhood I live in is a ~3 acre park, a vast swath of bright green that brings visual relief to what is sometimes a stark desert landscape. On just about any day of the year it is warm enough to walk across the field barefoot, fly a kite, toss a football, or just lay down under a mesquite tree and take a nap. On a clear night, it's a great place to do a little stargazing.

The park is actually a retention basin, a required element of any development around here, meant to help with flood control during monsoon season. It works: when the rain pours, the park becomes a lake. Not all retention basins are lined with turf. Our Homeowners Association has elected to maintain the lawn here, at considerable expense. In Phoenix, keeping a decent looking lawn is a fine art that requires not only an elaborate irrigation system, weekly mowing, and a lot of fertilizer, but also a twice a year conversion from heat tolerant Bermuda grass to cool season rye grass. For this park alone, which is the largest of 6 parks in the hood, we run an annual water bill of about $100,000. Most people think it's worth it.

However, some residents believe that the good green grass should only be admired and not played on. No golf, lest there be divets; no loose dogs, lest there be lawn sausage; and, good Lord!, no games, lest there be skid marks! Our HOA meetings have oft been dragged down by turf wars: endless arguments about who should be able to enjoy the field, and how to regulate the enjoyment thereof. Some advocate that security services be hired to run off any cleat bearing soccer players. Others would like to promote neighborhood ultimate frisbee tournaments. A few curmudgeons would like to see the whole dang thing covered with gravel to eliminate all the expense of turf management and wasteful use of water.

Here is my vision: wouldn't it be cool if we all got together and made it into a cooperative farm?! We could probably produce enough fruits and vegetables to feed all ~5000 people that live in the neighborhood, AND provide fresh food to the elementary school across the street! We could even allow some chickens, add a fish pond or two, and we'd have the whole food pyramid! Probably a bit too forward thinking for this community, but, heck, it's a great back-up plan!

Pit Pond

2011-12-08T08:32:00.001-08:00

A few miles south of Lake Pleasant, on a patch of land where burros eek out a living in Peoria, Arizona, there is a huge rectangular pond. You won't see it on most maps, but it does show up on Google Earth. The lake is a recent addition to the landscape, a wetland created by filling in a giant gravel pit. In the evenings, thousands of water birds congregate there: coots, ducks, geese, herons, egrets and the occasional swan. We caught the sunset from the cattail-rimmed shore last week, and a flock of ducks on the wing.

Whenever I find these places in the otherwise ultra-arid Sonoran desert, I am reminded that life loves heat.

You just have to add water!

City Lights

2011-12-06T13:43:00.001-08:00

If you really want to gain an appreciation for just how vast the Phoenix metropolitan area is, you really need to get up in the air, preferably at night. Two nights ago, I had the window seat as we flew in at 11:00 pm to this dazzling display, which to a very minor degree, is probably enhanced by holiday lights. The city lights stretch out beyond the horizon as you descend into Sky Harbor airport, with patches of darkness marked by several mountain preserves, and long black ribbon winding through all of it that is the Central Arizona Project canal.

This constant illumination was my bane last spring while experiencing chronic insomnia. Convinced that the light beaming into my bedroom at 2:00 a.m. was to blame, I decided to drive around the neigborhood one night and find out what nefarious activities were at the source, or at the least, what mid-night highway project was being done so as not to inconvenience daytime commuting. Much to my dismay, there was nowhere not lit, save for the clear sky above, whose stars are nearly obliterated by the glare from below. The shopping centers, churches, parking lots and two schools within a mile of our home, the freeway, every street, every cul-de-sac, and most people's homes were literally burning midnight oil. There was no construction project. I went back home to bed and laid awake wondering: How much energy could be saved if we convinced the various folks who control all these lights to just shut them off for even one hour each night?

Pit Pond

2011-11-29T11:34:00.001-08:00

Whenever I find these places in the otherwise ultra-arid Sonoran desert,

I am reminded that life loves heat. You just have to add water!

Burro Crimes

2011-11-28T21:36:00.000-08:00

On a thin scrap of wild desert bounded on three sides by roads and one side by a 80-foot wide canal, this herd of about a dozen burros make a living eating the meager foliage that sprouts up among the saguaros and palo verde. I go out and visit this herd every few months, finding them by following fresh tracks and muffins they've left behind. They are curious, but cautious, always stopping to watch me, ears perked up, intent. But as soon as I move toward them, they trot away and then stop at a prescribed safe distance of about 500 feet to watch me again.

Since 1971, with the passage of the Wild Free-roaming Horses and Burros Act, burros have been managed according to AML's or "appropriate management levels" determined by wildlife biologists and resource management specialists. Whereas this used to mean rounding up animals and shooting them, today they are auctioned off as pets.

This small herd is part of the Lake Pleasant management unit, where a population of around 350-400 burros roam freely. Without management, burro populations grow rapidly, and burro crimes ensue. Impacts to springs and riparian areas, competition with native wildlife, altering archaeological and cultural resources, damage to vegetation and soil erosion from trampling are the most frequent citations given to wild burros.

As I gaze across the desert at the power lines spidering out from one of the regions largest electric plants just north of this burro refuge, and watch dust spiraling up from the dirt bike park on the other side of the canal, I often wonder: What would the AML of modern humans be, if our populations were assessed for our damages as burros' are? And who would adopt us?

Castor Bean

2011-11-22T21:32:00.000-08:00

Castor bean (Ricinus communis) is a spectacular plant native to tropical regions of the Eastern hemisphere. Growing up to fifteen feet high with leaves the size of large pizzas (16" diameter), walking through a patch of castor bean plants truly feels like being in a jungle. We found them thriving in South Phoenix at the Tres Rios Wetland Preserve, where effluent from a sewage treatment plant is being used to restore wildlife habitat near the confluence of the Salt, Agua Fria and Gila Rivers. Conversely, the wetlands serve as a natural purification treatment for wastewater before it returns to the river system.

Castor, which is not really a bean, but a member of the Spurge Family (Euphorbiaceae), is well-known for its use in folk medicine, primarily as a powerful laxative. However, the seeds, from which the oil is derived, are also highly toxic. The main toxic element, ricin, is reputed to have been used in espionage and torture. Ingestion of a handful of seeds can result in painful death. This does not seem to deter horticulturists who still cultivate many hybrids of the species for use as ornamentals. Wild castor bean in the Phoenix area are escapees from urban gardens, where the lush growth is welcome in our sometimes austere desert environment.

Orion in front of a field of castor bean plants at Tres Rios Wetlands

Screech!

2011-11-20T19:13:00.000-08:00

This Western Screech Owl (Otus kennecottii) was one of dozens of raptors on display at the Adobe Mountain Wildlife Center open house this weekend. Anyone venturing into Phoenix from the north on I-17 zooms past Adobe Mountain, which is west of the freeway just south of Happy Valley Road. Critters in the care of dozens of dedicated volunteers range from bats to bobcats, rattlesnakes and woodrats, tortoises and turkey vultures.

In this photo, the owl is posed in a cavity carved into a section of ponderosa pine, but down in these parts, they are more likely to be found in saguaros. Like many other owl species, the screech adapts well to suburban habitats, where irrigated lawns, golf course, gardens and ball fields provide excellent forage for their favorite prey: mice, rabbits, small birds and insects. Since they are primarily nocturnal, they are rarely noticed by humans. This was the first screech owl I have seen in my lifetime. Sadly, the second one I saw was later that day on my way home, when I found one dead in the middle of the road, where it had been hit by a car as it dove for prey. More fortunate animals may recover from non-lethal injuries if brought to Adobe Mountain. Some become part of the education team, or if lucky, are released back into the wild.

Cotton Pickin'

2011-11-19T19:44:00.000-08:00

On the perimeter of Phoenix, you can still find fields of cotton, one of the "5 C's" that were the foundation of Arizona's economy one hundred years ago. (Do you know the other four? See my post on November 3rd, 2009 for the answer!) Today we cruised by some acreage with both flowers and ripe bolls bursting with downy white fibers. Mexican cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) is the primary species being cultivated in the cotton industry today around the world, and is native to the Sonoran desert. Although many cotton farms have been converted to suburban housing over the past few decades, the industry still contributes over $250 million dollars to the state's economy, according to the National Cotton Council of America.

Jojoba

2011-11-18T08:38:00.000-08:00

The view out my bedroom window is dominated by a jojoba shrub (Simmondsia chinensis), which is just beginning to burst into bloom. Jojoba is dioecious, which means there are "male," or pollen producing plants and "female" or seed-producing plants. The flowers in the photo above are males. Fortunately, I've got one of each in my backyard, so in a good year, we get some jojoba nuts, which are edible, although not so tasty as to inspire use as an ingredient in snack bars.

However, chances are high that you have a bit of jojoba in your household, since the waxy oil in the nuts has been harvested from commercial plantations of jojoba since the 1970's as an ingredient for cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and industrial lubricants. The oil is famous for being a replacement for sperm whale oil, which was historically preferred for certain industrial applications because of its excellent heat tolerance and resistance to oxidation. The importation of sperm whale oil to the U.S. was banned in 1971.

Jojoba is an ultra drought tolerant native to the Sonoran desert, but is now cultivated all over the world in arid regions both as an ornamental landscaping plant as well as a commercial crop.

Tortoise Bones

2011-11-17T11:26:00.000-08:00

Last week we found this scute, a section of shell from a Sonoran desert tortoise (Gopherus morafkai), lying at the edge of a trail we were biking on. Recognizing that it had to have been attached to a rather large tortoise, we explored the area and within minutes found the still smelly, decaying remains of an ancient male. Measuring 12” long and 8” wide (30cm x 20cm), this guy must have been in the upper end of the 80-100 year life span. The crack in his shell tells another story, perhaps a fatal tumble down the rocky hillside where he once roamed. A dozen more scutes were scattered about, although many are missing after three separate visits to look for the old one’s burrow, which we also haven’t found.

This is the second tortoise shell I’ve found in the Deem Hills, a desert island that backs up to the neighborhood we live in. The home of this desert tortoise is just a few blocks from my own; both are visible in this photo. Next time I cross paths with a wild tortoise, I hope that it’s a live one!

Through analysis of DNA and other characteristics, tortoises that live east and south of the Colorado River were recently distinguished from the Mojave desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) as a new species. Read more in this June 2011 scientific publication on tortoise taxonomy.

Signs of Spring

2011-11-16T18:08:00.001-08:00

About half an inch of rain has drenched the central valley of Phoenix over the past month, which is plenty of moisture to excite seeds to germinate and dormant shrubs to leaf out. The well-armed branches of Ocotillo (Fouqueria splendens) are some of the first to respond to winter rains, transforming what appeared to be dead sticks into a splendid green wands.

On the desert floor, a carpet of seedlings is beginning to form. In the shade of shrubs and trees, around rocks and in swells of litter that were deposited by sheet flow of heavier rains, Burr Comb (Pectocarya recurvata) are some of the first to pop up. If we continue to be blessed with even an eighth of an inch every 10 days or so from now till March, this could be another banner year for desert wildflowers!

Wild Hive

2011-11-15T10:49:00.000-08:00

We recently visited a wild hive of honeybees (Apis mellifera scutellata) nestled in a crack in lava cliffs just a ten minute walk from our house in Phoenix. Although we are warned that these bees are most likely “Africanized” and thus aggressive, I have never been chased or stung in the nine years that I’ve been observing this hive. Then again, I have never tried to steal their honey or poke the hive with a stick. These same bees are most likely the ones that are at work daily in the neighborhood, gathering nectar and pollen from our landscaping plants. Maybe they just recognize me as one of the friendly neighbors whose garden they come down to forage in every day!

Orion prefers to keep his distance from the bees. The dark cleft in the cliff is where the hive is hidden.

The Glorious Golden Scarab

2011-11-11T23:32:00.000-08:00

We found this gilded beetle trundling in the duff along the Clear Creek Trail up near Verde Valley, Arizona a few weeks ago. The species was dubbed Chrysina gloriosa, or “glorious golden one,” one of 30,000 or so beetles in the scarab family. The Glorious Scarab is supposedly camouflaged by its gleaming exoskeleton as it feeds on the foliage of juniper trees. As grubs, they make a living chewing tunnels in decaying sycamore logs, most common in riparian habitats of southern Arizona.

My son, who aspires to be an entomologist, studies the elaborate appendages while drawing our specimen. This beetle was in its last hours, so is now preserved in Orion's insect collection.

I was surprised to find very little other information about these living jewels. Their much homelier distant cousins, the Egyptian dung beetle, Scarabaeus sacer, however, have earned the status of gods in Mediterranean mythology. As a symbol of the sun god, Ra, the scarab is plentiful in the hieroglyphics, jewelry and sculptures of ancient and modern Egypt.

If you are a Facebook user, search for Chrysina gloriosa, which has its very own fan page, and give it a thumbs up!

Ecogastronomics

2011-08-30T10:26:00.000-07:00

Dinner at Finca Bella Vista in Costa Rica

"Ecogastronomics." When my daughter told me yesterday that she just registered for a college course with this title, my first thought was, "What the heck is ecogastronomics?" My second thought was, "Why is this a credited course at a University?" My third thought was "When is that girl going to get serious about her college career and start working on a "real" major!?"

Thus, I found myself awake in the middle of the night, once again, Googling for information, where all of my questions seem to find an answer these days. Ecogastronomics, by simple linguistic analysis, is the study of the ecology and economics of food. Okay, I thought, that is definitely relevant. To answer my second question, it turns out that the University of New Hampshire made the news back in 2008 by pioneering Ecogastronomy as an official major area of study. Their aim is to integrate the study of agriculture, nutrition and food services management into a course that examines the effects of our food choices on local and global scales. Or something like that. Michael Pollan's books, "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "Food Rules" are obvious choices for primary texts; the "Slow Food Movement" is the philosophical foundation of this new trend of study.

My third question does not have an answer on the Internet, but I realized that one of the reasons my daughter chose to go to college is to explore the world beyond the heavily plodded pathways of "normal" careers and lifestyles. These first two years are a golden opportunity to learn about other cultures and topics that just aren't part of the standard middle class American public school system. Yoga, Argentine Tango, Vietnamese History, Western Philosophy, Photojournalism and now, Ecogastronomy, are somehow colluding into something unique and exciting for Brooke. I can't wait to see what she cooks up!

So now I turn to my pantry and refrigerator and ponder the idea of ecogastronomy in my own life. As I snack on almonds (from California) and sip my Yerba Mate (from Argentina), I'm intrigued at how most of our food has absolutely no ecological relationship to the local landscape. Phoenix is no longer well known for it's agriculture, although Cattle and Citrus were once the economic engines of the region. My veggie gardening skills are weak. However, I do have a bag of mesquite flour in my freezer, ground from seed pods that I gathered in my front yard. Might mesquite be a key ingredient in the restoration of ecological and economic sustainability here in the Sonoran Desert? And maybe a culinary ingredient that could be reintroduced to the local culture?

Mesquite bean pods

Some nutritionists of aboriginal cultures suggest that restoring indigenous food cultures could cure a lot of health problems, such as diabetes and obesity. In that case, I'd like to live wherever cacao is part of the native ecosystem!

Skulls & Feathers

2011-08-27T15:23:00.000-07:00

If you open my freezer looking for ice cream, don't be surprised if you find a dead bird in there. I have this odd habit of collecting roadkills and assorted gifts that my cat brings home. When time and inspiration collide I harvest the feathers and skulls from these creatures to add to my collections. Maybe a little odd, but I was inspired by museum collections like Chicago's Field Museum, the Smithsonian Institute of Natural History, a collection for academic study at Colorado College and displays at many national parks that I've visited over the years. Some of history's most noteworthy naturalists contributed to these kinds of collections in the days when harvesting creatures for scientific study was the norm: John James Audubon, Charles Darwin, Alfred Wallace and Olaus Murie all collected hundreds of birds as well as multitudes of other creatures, carefully preserving their skins and bones so that they could be observed by other curious naturalists. So I started my own little museum.

There's nothing very scientific about my collection. I keep them because I am an artist as much as a naturalist, and am enamoured with the delicate curves and details in the bones, the patterns and textures of the feathers, the way the wings spread. The process of curing a skull teaches me about anatomy. Plucking feathers teaches me about insulation and flight. I figure it's better than throwing the carcass into the bushes, or letting it get flattened by traffic into a totally unrecognizable smudge on the road. My kids are used to the fact that I'll stop in the middle of a highway to pick up a dead bird, and even back track if I've noticed something interesting while moving 65 miles per hour. It keeps the contents of our freezer interesting!

Lantana

2011-08-26T11:53:00.000-07:00

For year-round bloom power, Lantana (Lantana camera) tops the charts here in central Arizona. No matter how blistering hot or desperately parched the summer weather becomes, Lantana keeps on flowering. When I first ventured into the Phoenix suburbs in 2002, this plant was unknown to me, since I'd always lived in cooler climates. One thing Lantana can't survive is a hard frost. Since then, I've realized that these flamboyant flowering shrubs can be a nuisance in some regions; in Australia and southeastern North America, they bear the loathsome label of "invasive species." And to a serious landscape designer, Lantana is on par with petunias: colorful, yes; but sort of like linoleum or popcorn ceilings. Unsophisticated unless you have a retro-modern or unique creative streak going.

But, I don't get tired of their colors and heartiness. Or the way their name feels on the tongue. Lantana, lantana, lantana!

Big-rooted Spring Beauty

2011-08-25T11:16:00.000-07:00

I roamed from the Phoenix suburbs to the high peaks of the Rocky Mountains this summer, where one of my favorite plants thrives. Succulent. Delicate. Long-lived. Claytonia megarhiza is a common alpine plant growing on talus and scree in North American mountain ranges, forming perfect rosettes of leathery leaves surrounded by porcelain white flowers. The magnificent roots can grow to six feet long and up to three inches in diameter! Eighteenth century Virginia botanist John Clayton should be proud to have such a fine species named after him!

So Tall Sotol

2011-06-13T09:06:00.000-07:00

The desert is lusty with heat and flowers. After a couple months of daily measurable growth, the sotol (Dasylirion wheeleri) in our neighbor's yard is finally blooming. The fifteen foot tall stalk rises from a rosette of sawtooth edged leaves, luring swarms of honeybees (Apis mellifera) and tiny colletid bees (Hylaeus spp.) that come to gather pollen. I've watched the astonishing growth of sotol stalks for nearly a decade, but did not realize until recently that they are dioecious, meaning that there are botanical equivalents of male and female plants.

Male plants bear only pollen-producing flowers. The sheer magnitude of the stalk and all of that pollen production makes me blush. We spent an hour filming and recording audio of this event the other morning, while watching with rapt attention through binoculars. The best entertainment is often just out our front door!

Females bear thousands of seed-producing flowers (below). Although the bees harvest prodigious amounts of pollen, they do nothing for fertilizing the female flowers because there is no nectar to attract them. The females depend on wind to deliver pollen for fertilization.

The seed and pollen producing catkins look very different side by side. From a distance, you can tell the two types of stalks from one another simply by noticing the presence or absence of insect activity.

Prior to blooming, the catkins emerge from the protective covering of a sheath, waiting for the proper environmental signals, probably a certain minimum temperature, before bursting forth in an orgiastic frenzy.

Meanwhile, in our backyard, a 20 foot tall yucca stalk flowers by the light of a full moon.

What's a woman to do?!?

Breaking the Silence

2011-06-05T23:22:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I've written here. My last post was conceived a few months ago in the natural quiet beneath a palo verde tree. Since then, being outside in the brilliant Sonoran spring has taken priority to sitting down to write in this forum. But now it is hot again, so there is less incentive for me to hike, and perhaps more time to write. Summer in Phoenix is the equivalent to bitter winter in northern climates, where people hunker indoors to protect themselves from harsh weather.

Quiet is still on my mind. I just returned from a writing workshop in Santa Fe, where the photo above was taken. Silouhettes cast on canvas walls of a warehouse in the plaza caught my attention, an unplanned work of art among a feast of galleries. There was no author that I know of but Nature. Here, Nature includes a human element, whomever formed the wrought iron fence and hung the canvas. There is no price tag for this work (although I'm willing to sell the photo, of course!).

Breaking the silence comes on the heals too, of conversation with my friend Claudette, who had recently returned from a six day silent meditation retreat in northern New Mexico. Less than 24 hours after she came home, we visited in her kitchen in Santa Fe. She, her husband Charles and I chattered for four hours; we had a lot of catching up to do after over a year apart. Words flowed along with laughter as we shared soup and bread.

Two days later, when I had a few hours to myself, I found myself yearning for more silence. The week had been filled with words: reading, writing, talking, listening to lectures. In the hills above Santa Fe, I sat by a creek and let all those words go. Just bird song and running water and wind in the pines. Natural quiet.

That is when I composed an essay, not the one above, but this one below: a 200 word message of silence:

May Peace be with you.

The Listening Game

2011-03-15T22:38:00.001-07:00

Today we played the Listening Game while hanging out in the desert under a palo verde tree. Here are the sounds we heard:

1. Gambel's quail call

2. Verdin call

3. airplanes

4. car traffic

5. breathing

6. Cactus wren call

7. Farting

8. insects buzzing

9. Curve-billed thrasher call

10. people talking on the trail

In between all of that was quiet. Pure quiet.

Green Time

2011-03-13T04:54:00.000-07:00

Whenever we can, my son and I go out into the desert and rest inside the canopy of a palo verde tree where we can breathe air freshly made from its green bark and peer out through branches to the cactus and blue sky. This is our "green time," an anecdote to "screen time," which seems to keep us in its glowing grip too many hours of each day. In this shelter I teach my son the fine art of hanging out, listening for birds and lizards, watching the sky change colors, and smelling the dry earth and creosote. He always wants to bring along a book to read, which I generally encourage at home, but here, I want him to put it away and just be in the desert. It startles me that this is so hard for him. Screen time has taught him to need constant noise and action. The natural quiet and stillness bores and somewhat disturbs him. This fact disturbs me even more.

I'm going up into the desert to sit under a palo verde tree and think about this.

Inside Outside

2011-01-06T10:52:00.000-08:00

Our New Years Day was highlighted by a visit to Taliesin West, home of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, where we spent two hours touring student designed housing on the founder's spacious estate. A great deal of Wright's legacy is the idea of integrating architecture with the natural outdoor landscape and vice versa. To help young architects develop some personal experience with the unique Sonoran desert environment, they are housed in "shelters" that have been designed and built by former students.

Each structure had its own artistic signature, underscored by airy theoretical concepts of contemporary architecture being taught at the school. One integrated a reflection pool. Another simulated a ship. Several used shade cloth stretched in abstract ways. Many had fire pits or fireplaces to add a little warmth on chilly winter nights. A patch of artificial lawn was part of the patio in one student's cynical commentary on landscaping choices of the "commoners" in the somewhat architecturally parched residential areas around Phoenix. All of them demonstrated heroic efforts to transcend the standard box and peak roof forms of American architecture in general or humdrum stucco and tile of southwest architecture in particular.

But what struck me most was the quixotic inattention to basic elements of the environment that ended up making many of the structures unlivable. Like wind. Or rain. And sun. Our guides let us in on which structures were avoided because of winds that howled through the bed chamber every night, needed a tarp to shield from the rain, became too blazing hot on a sunny day, or happened to be built in the favorite pathway of resident wildlife. Only a few met the criteria of being reliable shelter from the weather. I'm no architect, but I guess I thought that if I were being trained to be one who is especially sensitive to the environment that I build in, these would be some of my primary concerns as a designer. Call me practical.

However, they were all very cool spaces, in the stylistic sense, to hang out in. Some of the features I liked the best were the spiral arrangement of stones for a fire circle; a window that featured an especially handsome saguaro for a view; a dash of the Great Master himself represented by a hanging screen designed by Wright; and that lawn with its symbolic watering can. But next time I want to spend the night in the desert, I'll happily rely on my sturdy dome-shaped tent to help keep me warm, dry and protected from the wind.

For more information on Taliesin West and tours they offer there, you can find everything you need on their website: www.franklloydwright.org

All of the photos in this entry were taken by my daughter Brooke Warren, who has her own fun blog at:

brooklynwarren.blogspot.com

Desert Snow

2010-12-31T19:24:00.000-08:00

Hot and dry versus cold and wet. The two came together yesterday in the hills up by Cave Creek where I ventured to help out with one of the annual Audubon Christmas bird counts. What few birds we saw were hunkered down in the scrub with feathers fully fluffed to insulate them from the blustery weather. I too had my down coat on! Here is my birding partner, Paul, braving the winter storm, and a small pile of snow-(graupel actually)-caught in the club moss.

There is also a wildflower called desert snow, a phlox aka Linanthus demissus, which will bloom in the spring if all this moisture is enough to keep it going past germination this spring! Here are some that I found in Deem Hills in March of 2008. Looks a lot like the real thing, but smells sweeter!

Bougainvillea's

2010-12-18T08:06:00.001-08:00

Arguably the most dramatic flowering plant to grace the corridors of the Phoenix metro area is Bougainvillea, a tropical shrub introduced from rain forests of South America. I decided to learn a little more about them, and found some fun historical references associated with their name, which was given in honor of this fancy dressing French admiral.

Admiral Louis Antoine de Bougainville is well regarded in his homeland as the first Frenchman to lead a sailing expedition around the world between 1766 and 1769. In addition to having a spectacular tropical plant named in his honor, the admiral’s legacy includes several south Pacific islands, ports and straights, plus 13 ships in the French navy that have celebrated his prestige on their transom. The circumnavigation was also historic for being the first to include professional naturalists and the first woman known to sail around the world as members of the ships’ crew. Historians still question the strange liaison between the expedition’s botanist, Philibert Commercon, and his valet, Jeanne Bare, whose true identity as a woman was supposedly not known until the ships landed in Tahiti, where perceptive natives instantly recognized him as a her. Bougainville’s travelogue, Voyage Autour du Monde (Journey Around the World), was influential to philosophers and artists of the time who transformed his descriptions of Tahitian society into ideals and iconic images of the Noble Savage.

Sources:
Kobayashi, K.D., et al. 2007. Bougainvilleas. OF-38, Cooperative Extension Service, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, Univ. of HI, Manos.

Forster, H. Jan. 2000. Voyaging Through Strange Seas: Four Women Travellers in the Pacific. National Library of Australia News.

Buffle Grass

2010-12-08T10:21:00.001-08:00

Buffle grass has gotten a bad rap in these parts. Maligned as an "alien" and an "invader" that exacerbates wildfire, this opportunistic immigrant from the African savannah has sunk its roots deep in the Sonoran Desert. Not happy to be outdone, descendants of European immigrants organize work parties obsessed with eradicating this lovely grass.

I joined a band of Weed Wackers one weekend last spring. Armed with pick axes, we hacked at the grass's roots and trampled dozens of other species in the process. The group bagged a giant trailer load of buffle grass after several hours of back-breaking, ankle-twisting labor. But I often wonder what gain this could possibly have, when several acres of thriving buffle grass remain, since it only takes a few seeds to repopulate the area that was uprooted. Wouldn't it be easier to welcome this lovely new addition to our landscape, just as we have invited and spread our own seed? Or is there some kind of human need to fear and loathe an "other," even if it is a non-sentient and bloodless plant? Or is compulsive weeding just an human character bred into us from our agricultural heritage?

I've decided to accept buffle grass as part of the new suburban landscape. They've got just as much right to be here as I do!

Sunrise

2010-12-06T20:31:00.000-08:00

I'm a morning person. Early morning light is always magical, with or without clouds like these, but this Sunday morning show was spectacular.

After the Rain

2010-11-02T09:46:00.001-07:00

Another early winter rain drenched the desert on October 21st, setting us up for a good wildflower show next spring if more like this sweep through every two weeks or so. In my yard, tiny seedlings are popping through the gravel. Rainbows crown the Deem Hills. Texas sage shrubs bloom like this is the last day on Earth. Orion celebrates by running through the wash. Dozens of palo verde seedlings have emerged from the gravel in neighborhood washes; if they continue to grow, we'll have a new forest!

A Year of Gratitude

2010-10-20T09:25:00.000-07:00

For the past year I've kept a special notebook just for gratitude. This began at a time when I really didn't think I could make it through another day of the sedentary indoor lifestyle that has become my habit in response to the oppressive heat in Phoenix. So I began on October 1st, 2009 with "I am grateful for the heat." Sometimes, acceptance is the first step to making it through those bouts of doldrums. So each day I write down something that I'm thankful for, just to remind me again how very fortunate I am.

Today, I wrote that I'm thankful for Jose and Carlos, two guys I hired to help out with my out-of-control yard. Mind you, it wasn't Jose and Carlos that bothered me; they are both fine young men! But I've always loathed the noisy diesel-powered blowers landscapers use around here to clean out the debris of bean pods and leaves that gets embedded in our gravely xeriscapes. Yup, after years of cursing the vile machines that ruin the peaceful ambiance of our neighborhood on a daily basis, I hired a couple of experienced workers to rescue me from the hideous task of restoring order to our front yard. (Forget the back yard...the HOA doesn't see that!) I did not check their legal status and I paid them cash. They both did an amazing job in short time. The place has not looked so good in all of the eight years we have lived here, even after the semi-annual occasions when we've put in our own efforts with a power blower and rake. Jose and Carlos are real pros and worth every dime.

This is a good way to make peace with the world, to somehow find a way to love what you hate. So along with leaf blowers, I've listed weeds, the bathroom scale, Highway 17, mosquitos, text messaging, donuts, guns, my vaccuum cleaner, taxes, and the plant that gave me a wicked rash last spring. Each of those horrendous, annoying and loathsome things has some benefit or lesson to be thankful for.

Has this year of very conscious gratitude helped me deal with the heat, to really truly be thankful for 90-100 F days in October? Honestly, no. I still whine and complain and get very depressed. But what I do know very well now, is that I have about a gazillion wonderful things to be grateful for in this suburban life. My journal is overflowing with flouncy purple blossoms of jacaranda trees, white winged doves, clean water, amazing sunsets, good health insurance, Odwalla carrot juice, friendly crossing guards to escort my son to school every day, really cool desert insects, great libraries, two very happy cats to keep me company, high speed internet service, a big park to toss the football and fly kites in, flowers blooming year round in my garden, sharing excellent homemade matte lattes every morning with Tom, a cozy backyard where we celebrate life with campfires, yoga and swimming, early morning bird walks guaranteed to see at least a dozen species, big fat trails to hike and mountain bike on.......

So turn up the heat! I am so grateful!

Rainbows & Reflections

2010-10-08T01:53:00.000-07:00

Three days ago a spectacular storm drenched the Valley, leaving flooded streets, downed power lines, hail-pocked cars and uprooted trees in its wake. Heaps of gravel and mud eroded out of the mountains onto streets. Highways and side roads were grid-locked by the mayhem for hours. Mountain trails were scoured into deep trenches.

Those are the stories you may have heard or read about in the news. But did they mention the brilliant rainbows that arched over the hills while we reveled in the sweet sound of rain? Or the crystalline reflection of mountains in the flooded park where we waded up to our ankles the next morning? Or the sweet smell of fresh air after the storm?

Gratitude for Brisk Mornings

2010-10-03T09:05:00.000-07:00

Today is October third. In previous chapters of my life, this time of year has always been brisk. I love brisk mornings. As in cool, sometimes frosty mornings, sweaters, hats, and time to put the down comforter back out.

I've had to redefine what "brisk" means while living in Phoenix. Last night, winds blew through the valley, causing a slight dip in the thermometer. We woke to a blessed 75 F at six in the morning. This is brisk for the Sonoran Desert, meaning that is cooler outside than inside the house. Only 101F forecasted for today's high. We biked to the grocery store and back to get the Sunday paper and didn't come back soaking in sweat. So today, I am grateful for a "brisk" morning in the Sonoran Desert, and praying for more!

The Hills

2010-09-30T17:17:00.001-07:00

Getting over the hills is one of the ways I gauge my stamina every week, now that I'm over the hill. We've got three cardiac tests on our eight mile loop mountain bike ride around Deem Hills Desert Preserve, a chunk of open space spared by the development industry of Phoenix. I figure if I can make it up these without bailing out and walking, I'm still doing okay. This is my new alternative to trying to fit into the wedding gown I wore at the age of 25, which doesn't even squeeze onto my petite 18-year-old daughter, certain proof that it must have shrunk!

The first of the hills has been dubbed Boulder Hill, because it is strewn with rocks the size of baby heads and small dogs. Navigating among the rocks adds a significant challenge to the ten percent grade, but it's just a warm up of a couple hundred yards. I still have a hard time with this one.

A mile long five percent grade through deep sand ending in a steep pitch of about a hundred feet we call Bolder Hill. If we do our route counter clockwise, the same hill climbs for about a quarter mile on a thirty percent grade. But then you miss the uphill, heart-pumping, quad-building, balance-testing mile, which becomes a sluggish cruise going downhill. To achieve success here you have to plan ahead, as if you are running a technical river rapid, to avoid pointy rocks. So you have to begin on the left, then ferry over to the far right and then push hard over a ledge near the top. I always stop to catch my breath, take in the view, and have a drink here.

The crux of our tri-test is named Shoulder Hill, in honor of an unfortunate accident that my husband Tom suffered at its summit a few years ago. After surgery and four months of rehab, he has banned toe clips from his mountain bike, which were the primary culprit in the spill. For this one, you have to shift down to your lowest gear quickly, in order to pump up a short narrow, loose, gravelly grade that tops out onto a roadside curb. It took me a while to master this one.

We do this ride about twice a week, same old ride every time. The triple hill challenges make it fun, but the best part is the triple benefits: getting outside, getting exercise, and enjoying time with my favorite biking partner.

Fairy Rings

2010-09-18T04:47:00.001-07:00

You might think that it's too dry for mushrooms in Phoenix, Arizona, but we've got some monstrous mushrooms on the lawns in our neighborhood. The Green Parasol, aka Chlorophyllum molybdites, is common all across the U.S., the fungus of "fairy rings." They look tempting to eat, but DON'T try it! Chlorophyllum is very poisonous, and will make you puke your guts out.

One fun thing you can do with these is pluck an open mushroom, remove the stem, and place the cap on a piece of white paper for a few hours or overnight. The spores of the mushroom will fall out and make a beautiful print in the pattern of the gills. In this case, the spores are pale green. This is also one of the ways mycologists identify species and therefore avoid being poisoned.

Cattoo

2010-09-12T14:23:00.000-07:00

One the eve of her leaving for college, my daughter, Brooke, and I celebrated her new journey with a visit to a local tattoo studio. We agreed that a cat track would be a fun symbol to share, representing our family bond and one of our mutual totem animals. Elvez, owner and artist at Elements Tattoo in Phoenix, expertly applied the ink on our paws.

I'm sad to see her go, but happy that she and I shared this new and fun experience together. We call them Cattoos!

Candlelight

2010-08-30T01:03:00.000-07:00

For most of us, candles are reserved for romantic dinners, aromatherapy, or as part of an emergency supply. But for my cousin Peter, this is standard lighting, other than whatever sunrays shine through the windows at his home in Eugene, Oregon. Long before anyone even thought of the term "carbon footprint," Peter chose to reduce his electrical use to a bare minimum, using homemade beeswax candles for light, cooking on an open fire in a Weber grill, and eschewing all plug-in appliances except for a corded rotary phone. He also prefers to remain car free, walking wherever necessary, which means his lifestyle is concentrated in a five-mile radius of downtown Eugene.

We stayed with him one night on our way north this summer, ate grapes and enjoyed conversation in the flickering light. There are no LED lights blinking on the periphery of the room, no computer screen or TV begging for attention. Without all the plug-ins, the background hum that normally permeates modern buildings is absent. The house is distinctively quiet.

Peter is quite happy with candlelight, reading and writing prodigiously each day as he researches genealogy, translates foreign texts, and studies oncological reports, obsessions that eclipse even his Luddite eccentricities. Beeswax candles, he says, are preferable to paraffin, spewing fewer toxic chemicals into the air he breathes, and certainly more benign than kerosene lanterns. Even though he is still influenced by the lights of the city, he feels more attuned to natural diurnal and seasonal cycles, which he feels is important to overall health.

Writing in the blare and hum of digital light at my computer screen, I contemplate whether I could do without electric lights. What if I chose to abandon this machine, light a candle, use a pad of paper and a pen instead? Get up at sunrise and go to sleep at nightfall, abandon my insomniac bouts of reading and writing? I could even hone my own quills from goose feathers I've collected, make ink from mesquite sap, revive my cursive skills and burn some of the lamp oil still on reserve under my kitchen sink from Y2K. (True!)

Although I doubt I could sustain those practices by choice for very long, even when camping-for that I have a battery-powered headlamp-we do choose to light candles each night at the dinner table. The flames remind me of what is essential in life, to slow down, enjoy the meal, and share with family and friends. What more do we really need?

(S)he who has the most signs.....

2010-08-24T10:02:00.000-07:00

Today is primary day, that special day in the voting cycle when we can vote for who we want to vote for. Why we have created this system was a mystery to me until I went to deposit my early voter ballot into a box at the polling place this morning. Clearly, we have promoted primaries in order to support the prodigious political advertising industry. Primaries vastly increase the number of signs necessary to let the public know who has the gumption to play the political game. They also fuel robo-call businesses that have planted several dozen messages on my answering machine, adding points in favor of my inclination to get rid of the land line.

Of course, the signs and robo-calls have been a significant factor in my voting decisions. From now on, I vote for any candidate who has wisely chosen NOT to litter the roadsides with signs or propagate automated messages!

White-winged Doves

2010-06-05T18:06:00.001-07:00

Back in the early 1980's when Stevie Nicks' "Edge of Seventeen" hit the Top 40 charts (11th to be exact), I always imagined a White-winged Dove to be a mythical creature akin to unicorns and dragons. In some ways it was, since she interpreted the bird to be a symbol of spirit leaving the body of someone who had died. The lyrics were written in remembrance of a beloved uncle who had recently passed away, as well as John Lennon, who was killed the same week in December of 1980.

Now that I live in Phoenix, Arizona, which also happens to be Stevie Nicks' home town, I've learned that the White-winged Dove sounds just like she croons in the song: "Whoo....whoo....whoo," and is as common as its close cousins, the rock dove (a polite term for pigeons) and mourning doves. They flock in our neighborhood, perch on roof tops and along fences, forage seed in the parks. The white wing is really just the edge of their wings at rest, a shoulder patch in flight, but makes them easy to identify with the naked eye from a distance. Whenever I see one, I still hear that bass note playing in the background from the song.

Most importantly, they migrate north during the summer as far as the saguaros grow to feed on their flower nectar and later, the fruit. Saguaros begin blooming here in mid-April and last through early June. In a few weeks we'll start seeing the ripe fruit burst open to reveal magenta flesh and black seeds that are the sustenance for so many Sonoran desert creatures during our hottest months, including, at least historically, humans. White-winged doves head south to Mexico and Central America during the winter months.

Photos by Richard Halliburton

Just like the white winged dove...
sings a song ...
Sounds like she's singing...
whoo...whoo...whoo
Just like the white winged dove...
sings a song...
Sounds like she's singing...
ooo...baby...ooo...said ooo

Home on the Range

2010-05-10T17:12:00.001-07:00

What could be a more American way to spend the afternoon on Mother's Day, especially in the wild, wild west of Arizona, than to do a little target practice at the local shooting range? Here in Phoenix, we have the USA's largest publicly operated shooting range, courtesy of the Arizona Game and Fish Department. The Ben Avery Shooting Facility has been a destination for gun enthusiasts since 1960. The range is also listed as one of the city's 33 "Points of Pride," along with the subject of a previous blog post, and perhaps its very antithesis, the Japanese Friendship Garden.

Ben Avery was busy on Mother's Day this year. The only spot available at the 67 gallery target practice area was #46, right between two portly young men shooting semi-automatic assault rifles and a husband-wife team practicing with their revolvers. We had asked for a "quieter" area. Our team provided the quiet pocket with our 22 rifle, which created a comparatively peaceful interlude between the two neighbors. But rest assured, we all had ear protection, a must for target practice! Brooke's was nicely accented with her signature flower hair clip.

Being a vegetarian and left leaning peacenik type, my personal purpose in shooting is entirely related to sharing good times with my son, who, like most young boys i've met, has a hard-wired fascination with weapons along with an amazing talent for making gun sounds. We purchased a pack of targets, your standard bullseye format, from a collection of alternatives that included bunny shapes, squirrel shapes, bird shapes, and of course, human torso shapes. Brooke proved to be the most skilled among us, shooting tight clusters at each of her five targets.

What interested me most at the range, though, other than the sub-culture(s) of folks gathered there, was the significantly altered vegetation (oh, that botanist in me!) on the lower slopes of the range. After fifty years of target practice, has the soil been altered due to the decimation of squirrels back there? Does this cause a change in hydrology, making it more difficult for shrubs and cacti to grow? What shrubs and annuals DO persist on that part of the hillside? (Yes, I am a hopeless nerd.) One day, I'd love to walk out there with one of the Game and Fish biologists and take a closer look. The fifteen minute cease fires aren't long enough!

Oasis

2010-04-29T00:17:00.000-07:00

Looking at this picture, with cool water flowing over granite boulders surrounded by lush vegetation, where do you guess it might be? Here are a couple of other clues:

A koi pond:

Lotus flowers:

Somewhere in Japan maybe? Thailand? China? Actually, these photos are from Ro Ho En, the Japanese Friendship Garden in Phoenix, built right on top of the Highway 202 tunnel at Roosevelt and 3rd Avenue. This little oasis includes a traditional Japanese tea house, over 70 species of plants, including a small bamboo forest, and numerous traditional sculptures from the sister city of Himeji.

The most remarkable thing about this garden are that you can wander through the place and have no idea that you are in Phoenix Arizona. It really is as if someone lifted a chunk of Japan and transplanted it here in the Sonoran Desert. Every square inch of the place is landscaped. Each boulder in the waterfall was carefully selected and shipped to downtown Phoenix from elsewhere. The water is piped in from the Salt River. Fish, lilies and bamboo were imported from Asia. River polished rocks gathered from an unknown distant shore are carefully arranged in patterns around the pond and garden borders. The tea house was hand built by Japanese artisans. Not a single saguaro or any other cactus in sight.

Yet just below, heavy traffic rumbles through a mile long six lane tunnel between 7th Avenue and 7th Street.
I am awed at what we can create, both tunnel and garden.
Tea anyone?

Interpretive Display

2010-04-21T15:51:00.000-07:00

Compared to the sign highlighted on my April 20th post, this one communicates a wealth of information. If viewed as an interpretive display about what a visitor to this place might encounter on a walk in the desert, it is definitely more helpful than this, which is what the same sign looked like before February this year:

The empty frame at least tells us that beyond the trail head, a hiker will find a natural area full of lush desert vegetation, including palo verdes, saguaro cacti, brittle bush and creosote. We can expect distant views under a brilliant clear blue sky. Cumulus clouds on the horizon suggest stormy weather coming or going. This is hilly country, with a geology of desert varnished boulders. The soils are rocky. Where soils are disturbed, brittle bush rapidly restores the landscape with seedlings. From here the visitor should not expect any well groomed trails. A sense of calm, if one is comfortable with this prospect, may be expected when walking in this open desert country.

Perhaps this rustic frame is best left in this condition, where the picture of the desert all we need to be welcomed, go forth and discover!

"Other Species"

2010-04-20T11:04:00.001-07:00

This newly installed sign caught my eye today on my ride around a chunk of desert open space near my home. Two thoughts immediately came to mind. First is the fact that rattlesnakes are definitely not limited to "natural habitat" here in the Sonoran Desert. Just yesterday, I got a call from a friend down the street inviting me to come see a rattler that was resting in her front yard in the cool comfort of an aloe plant. Aloe is native to Africa. Rattlesnakes are indigenous to the western hemisphere. This cozy relationship is not natural to either the aloe or the snake.

Fortunately for the snake, my friend called a professional herpetologist for advice. He removed it from her yard and released it in a more remote piece of real estate where it was less likely to be discovered by someone who would prefer to chop its innocent head off.

Second, is the confusing line about "other species." What exactly did the author of this informational masterpiece have in mind? My guess is that they meant "dangerous species," or perhaps, "snake species." But "other species" is really wide open for interpretation. That other species "may be present" is quite obvious. You don't even have to open your eyes to hear dozens of bird species, for instance. If you care to note all of the other thousands of species that happen to live in this particular natural area, from the multitudes of soil bacteria to the noble saguaros, there is no "may be" about it!

Then there is the whole notion of "caution" implied by the presence of rattlesnakes. Was this sign installed here for liability purposes? Should we also warn of the numerous other hazards that may be present to anyone who chooses to walk here, including bees, excessive heat, air pollution, cactus spines, unleashed dogs and humans carrying concealed weapons?

This leads me to also wonder how much such a sign cost our city government to create and install. Clearly another well planned and brilliant use of our tax dollars!

Crane Flies

2010-04-17T17:14:00.001-07:00

It is Crane Fly season here in Phoenix. The house is full of them. They drown in my tea, in the bathtub, in the pool. They perch on the walls, windows and house plants. Fortunately they are harmless and actually quite elegant.

Crane flies are closely related to mosquitos, but don't sting or suck blood. The adults, if they eat at all, sip nectar. The larvae, called "leather jackets," because of their tough exoskeleton, are root eaters. Some people call them "mosquito hawks," but they do NOT eat mosquitos. The name probably comes from the idea that they look like large versions of mosquitos. My field guides boast that there are more than 4000 kinds of crane flies in the world, making them the largest family of insects in the insect order Diptera, or "flies". Over 1700 kinds roam North America. They range in size from a 2.5 inch long one to an itty bitty 1/16th of an inch one. How fascinating! Aren't you glad to learn this stuff?!?

The fragile long-legs of crane flies are thought to be adapted for escaping from predators and spider webs. Since the legs break easily, they can leave a leg behind and fly away to continue on with their mission of mating and reproducing. Like many insects, the adult phase is all about sex and not much else. Once that is accomplished they die. Ahhhhh!

Two weekends ago while camping on a sandy beach in Salome Canyon Wilderness, we woke one morning to see thousands of crane flies hatching out of the sand. We decided to call them "sand skimmers," since they hovered close to the ground, floating like a delicate gray fog in the cool morning air. The tubular husks of the larvae were scattered around on the sand, some just with the tips poking out, and many being hauled away by ants. Several mating pairs were observed "doing it," tail to tail as they flew in tandem or rested on the sand. As soon as the sun hit the beach, the "sand skimmers" flew off into the shrubs and trees.

These are one insect I don't mind sharing my house or my campsite with!

Cactus Flowers

2010-04-15T15:48:00.000-07:00

Prickly Pear Cacti are blooming in the Sonoran Desert right now, AND in my back yard! I could just sit all day and stare at these flowers and all the cool insects that visit them. Prickly Pear flowers come in all different colors, because there are lots of different species. The one in my backyard is the pink one, a perfect delicate but vibrant pink! If these plants weren't so prickley, I bet they could incite a collecting frenzy equal to the Dutch tulip mania of the 1600's!

Wilderness

2010-04-05T21:29:00.001-07:00

Almost a year ago, I began a series on this blog addressing 27 questions asked in a 1985 publication by Bill Devall and George Sessions called "Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered." The last in the "Where You At?" series is:

27. What is the largest wilderness area in your bioregion?

The answer, of course, depends on how you define "wilderness" and "bioregion." For me, I'll use the Sonoran Desert, which is actually a really broad category, since ecologists often divide this up into six more tightly defined bioregions. Phoenix is in the transition zone between two of the largest, which are the Lower Colorado River Valley, which includes vast stretches of creosote dominated scrublands and the Arizona Uplands, best known for saguaro studded hills.

Wilderness, to me, is any area of land that is not dominated by human settlements. An official "Wilderness Area" is designated based on more specific criteria, including the lack of developed roadways. The roadless criteria is very limiting, because humans have managed to create an intricate web of roads just about everywhere on the planet, which leaves only small patches of geologically difficult to navigate land as Wilderness. Only 2.7% of the land area of the lower 48 state is designated wilderness. The balance of the total 5% is in Alaska, for the time being.

For designated Wilderness category closest to Phoenix, we've got the Superstition Wilderness, an area we backpacked into a few weeks ago on our spring break. But that isn't even truly roadless, since the main route we used into Reavis Canyon was originally a road built for motorized use in the 1930's. The USFS just doesn't allow vehicles on it anymore, since the late 1960's, after the Wilderness Act was established. The Superstition Wilderness comprises 160K+ acres or about 250 square miles, but probably half of that is Woodland/Chapparal, not Sonoran Desert. Definitely wild and scenic though.

We've been lucky to spend time in a few other island wilderness areas that include Sonoran Desert territory in southern Arizona, including Aravaipa Canyon (19.4K+ acres/~30 square miles); Salome Wilderness (18.5K+ acres/~29 square miles); Salt River Canyon (32K+ acres/~50 square miles); Hells Canyon (~10K acres/~15.5 square miles); and Kofa Refuge (516K+ acres/~806 square miles).

But by far the largest stretch of wilderness, although with a few roads running through it, is the combined territory of the Papago Indian Reservation (2.7+ million acres/4340 square miles), Cabeza Prieta Wildlife Refuge (803K+ acres/~1,250 square miles), Organ Pipe National Monument (~312K acres/~488 square miles), and Barry Goldwater Military Proving Grounds (2.7+ million acres/~4340 square miles). Together, this vast section of mostly undeveloped (though slightly pocked by bombs and gashed a bit by roads) region of Sonoran desert is over four million acres or nearly 6400 square miles of wild land. Over 400 miles of this is on the border of the U.S. and Mexico. If you add in the area that would be rightfully called wilderness south of the border, you've got a wilderness that is probably greater than all of the combined official "Wilderness Areas" in the lower 48 states. And you better carry water.

This is where the jaguar lives

This is where the United States tests lethal weapons for warfare.

This is where 20,000 or so of an indigenous tribal culture of Native Americans live.

And this is where the United States Government is building a huge fence to keep out "illegal immigrants."

Interesting.

So that's the answer to the question, although I could write a lot more about the concept of wilderness, especially as related to these concluding observations. For now, I'll just end that series, and encourage my readers to answer the "Where You At?" questions for themselves, mostly because it was really challenging and fun to discover a little bit more about the region I call home for now. As if nature matters.

1. Trace the water you drink from precipitation to tap.
2. How many days until the moon is full (plus or minus a couple of days)?
3. Describe the soil around your home.
4. What were the primary subsistence techniques of the culture(s) that lived in your area before you?
5. Name five native edible plants in your bioregion and their season(s) of availability.
6. From what direction do winter storms generally come in your region?
7. Where does your garbage go?
8. How long is the growing season where you live?
9. On what day of the year are the shadows the shortest where you live?
10. Name five trees in your area. Are any of them native? If you can’t name names, describe them.
11. Name five resident and any migratory birds in your area.
12. What is the land use history by humans in your bioregion during the past century?
13. What primary geological event/process influenced the landform where you live?
14. What species have become extinct in your area?
15. What are the major plant associations in your region?
16. From where you are reading this, point north.
17. What spring wildflower is consistently among the first to bloom where you live?
18. What kinds of rocks and minerals are found in your bioregion?
19. Were the stars out last night?
20. Name some beings (nonhuman) that share your place.
21. Do you celebrate the turning of the summer and winter solstice? If so, how do you celebrate?
22. How many people live next door to you? What are their names?
23. How much gasoline do you use a week, on the average?
24. What energy costs you the most money? What kind of energy is it?
25. What developed and potential energy resources are in your area?
26. What plans are there for massive development of energy or mineral resources in your bioregion?
27. What is the largest wilderness area in your bioregion?

Birds and Bees

2010-03-24T11:44:00.001-07:00

One of the bonuses of having lots of wildflowers in the yards is that we also see a lot of wildlife here in the middle of the suburbs. Birds and bees especially love the flow of nectar and pollen.

Last night we became host to a swarm of honeybees who decided to set up camp in the mesquite tree in our front yard. This morning they have been bulking up on pollen and nectar from the well-stocked pantry of our garden, as well as sweet acacia and orange trees that are in full bloom all over the neighborhood. Now it is noon, and they are still balled up on the branch, bustling and humming and probably freaking anyone out who might notice. I have assured one neighbor that there is no need to call an exterminator ("Please don't!") because the bees will eventually move on to establish a hive in a more protected location.

In the back yard, we've been keeping tabs on a Costa's hummingbird nest that was built in our hop bush by the pool. Hummingbird mamas are the ultimate single parents, building the nest, brooding the eggs, and feeding the young all by herself, while dad galavants around mating with multiple partners.

Male Costa's Hummingbird, Photo by Richard Halliburton

A month ago, we found two white, jellybean sized eggs safely tucked away in the teeny nest. Mama bird spent hours sitting through rain, wind, hail to protect them. After about two weeks the eggs hatched and two gray featherless nestlings lay helpless but warm in the insulated cup of down, leaves and spider webbing. One resource says that combined with the warmth of the roosting mama, the temperatures inside a hummingbird nest can be up to 40 degrees F higher than the ambient temperature! That's a good thing, because many nights cooled down into the 30's over the past month.

Every morning after a storm, I would search anxiously for the mom, hoping she had survived the night, because if she didn't, there is no way those chicks would make it another day. And every day, she would buzz over to her regular perch on top on an acacia, survey the area and swoop in to feed the kids. Her nest site selection instincts are amazing. Even when the wind is howling and rains drenching, that little nest hardly moves and stays dry from leaves overhead.

Now the two chicks are bright eyed and feathered, keeping each other company day and night, since mom only visits to regurgitate a little food now and then. She very likely has a second nest brewing babies elsewhere, as hummingbirds are known to maintain two broods at a time when there is an ample food supply. She seems to have marked my garden as her territory, which is overflowing with penstemons, phacelias, fairy duster, acacia and a potted aloe as a bonus. Lots of little bugs too. I've noticed a male visiting frequently as well, presumably her mate.

Any day now, I expect that some synapse in the chick's little nervous systems will pop, signaling them to perch on the edge of the nest and fly. For now, they wait patiently for another meal from mom, stretching their pin-feathered wings now and then, and depositing fecal sacs all around the rim of the nest. When the urge to fly and sip nectar on their own emerges, I'll have to worry about the other local wildlife: feral cats. Not to mention my own two pet kitties. I'm just hoping that natural selection has somehow worked its magical ways so that the instinct to avoid felines is as deeply embedded as excellent nest site selection!

A Certain Color of Blue

2010-02-23T05:44:00.001-08:00

Desert bluebells are blooming in my front yard now, gracing the landscape with a certain color blue that I've found impossible to capture on film, digital media or in print. There must be a certain wavelength of light that just can't be translated by technology, probably leaning towards the ultraviolet, that gives these flowers a certain pizzazz only perceptible to the naked eye. The color blue is often associated with calm or sadness, but this brilliant hue does quite the opposite for me; I find it energizing and joyful. And so, this time of year, part of my morning ritual is to take a few moment to admire this perfect cerulean, this pure indigo light splashing across the rocks.

Here are a few other attempts to bring this azure to the web via my digital camera. But the best and only real way to experience this transformative color is to find these wildflowers blooming somewhere.

This species is Phacelia campanularia, and is related to forget-me-nots. You can find them in the wild, especially in desert canyons in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts in southern Arizona and California. The seeds are used in commercial desert wildflower mixes along with other showy annuals like owl clover, lupines, Mexican poppy and fiddlenecks.

Rooftop View

2010-02-12T02:21:00.000-08:00

Looking out the 6th floor window at St. Joseph's Hospital yesterday, I was awed by a peculiar attention to detail. Someone had been thoughtful enough to arrange different colored rocks on the rooftop in a series of waves, lifting an otherwise industrial scene to the status of art. Beyond the rooftop, towers of Phoenix obscure the distant geological magic of Papago Buttes, outcrops of wind-pocked red sandstone rising from an otherwise flat landscape.

Even more curious is the window sized gallery photo of the Grand Canyon on the wall opposite the rooftop view. Below, I've substituted with a photo of my own taken a few years ago when actually looking across the landscape of Grand Canyon above Tanner Wash.

Which way would you rather look? Which is greater art, rooftop or Canyon? (By this I mean the Grand Canyon itself, not the photo.) And where did those lovely dark river polished rocks come from, I wonder?

Hope

2010-02-02T08:46:00.001-08:00

Some days I need a little sign of hope for the world. Here is what I found today.

Grass growing through the asphalt.

Rain

2010-01-21T21:10:00.000-08:00

When it rains here, the park fills up to make a lake, so we roll up our pants and wade! Today has been one of those rains, all night and all day. If it were snow there would be three feet of it...but alas, we are too warm, so we measure about 3 inches of rain.

Changing Views

2010-01-17T13:25:00.000-08:00

Living on the fringe is very temporary here in Phoenix. When my in-laws moved to their brand new home in 1958, they were surrounded by agricultural fields to the north, and feeling quite rural just four miles from the city center. Now they are thirteen miles south of the northern fringe, and the regional population has swelled from 500,000 to 5 million.

Similarly, we have seen our neighborhood become engulfed by other developments in the six years since we moved here at the end of 2002. Last week I was visiting the site that I've chosen to post as the banner on my companion blog, Natural History of Deem Hills, and realized that the view pictured there no longer exists. Between Pyramid Peak and the once wild wash where I took the photo, there is now a soccer field and hundreds of two story 4000 square foot homes. The photo above was taken in March of 2005. Below is roughly what the same view looks like today (though January lacks the blooms). This, people say, is "progress." I'm not so sure.

January 2010

Of course, I realize that our neighborhood, which was built in 1999, has also contributed to the changing views and loss of wildlands in this part of the desert. It is easy to ignore our own impacts while watching the landscape transform around us. A neighborhood just to the west of us is an extension of our own, built within the past four years. From the top of Deem Hills, a 900+ acre desert preserve to the north, I chronicled this progress in a series of three photos. Unfortunately, I had never taken a photo before the bulldozers came, but the first two photos show "before" and "after" views of what it looks like from ground level. I imagine the first is similar to what our yard looked like prior to 1999.

February 2005

March 2005

October 2007

January 2009

My stomach turned another flip yesterday when we hiked to the top of Deem Hills and noticed for the first time the march of a new expressway across a broad span of desert to the north. Light poles and power lines have been erected. The swath of bulldozed lanes that will soon be covered with cement and asphalt is now clearly visible. It's called the "303," logically following the "202" and the "101," a series of expressways that circle around Phoenix. When this road is completed, and surrounding lands similarly developed, the "fringe" will be five miles north of Deem Hills.

This is a good time to get out my copy of "Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau" by Ron Blakey and Wayne Ranney, and remember just how constant changing views of the landscape are. And maybe find a new "fringe" to occupy?

It's a Jungle in Here!

2010-01-14T07:43:00.000-08:00

Late yesterday afternoon I noticed a sweet fragrance wafting through the house. Following my nose, I was led to a plant in the corner of our dining room and was surprised to see it blooming! Copious clear viscous nectar was dripping from clusters of small white flowers. The plant is an eight foot tall Dragon Tree, Draceana fragrans, also known as a Corn Plant since the leaves look sort of like corn leaves. They are loosely related to lilies, but are in their own plant family, the Draceanaceae. This species native to West Africa, Tanzania and Zambia where they can grow to twenty feet tall in the wild. I couldn't find any information about what pollinates these plants in their native environment, but whatever it is must be active at night, because when I woke up this morning the flowers were all closed up and the fragrance significantly diminished. Maybe I'll try a little hand pollination and see if they produce fruit!

This is just one of the species of plants we share our home with. Since I'm not a great green thumb, most of what we grow inside are nearly indestructable vines like Pothos (Epipremnum aureum) and Philodendron (P. scandens), both of which thrive as cuttings in jars of water all over the house.

We also have Prayer Plant (Maranta leuconeura) and Peacock Plant (Calathea makoyana), which really love the misty atmosphere of the bathroom. All of these are indigenous to tropical forests in South America.

Another one that survives benign neglect as a house plant is the Lady Palm (Rhapis excelsa), which was once native to China. Now this species has been completely domesticated and is no longer found in the wild.

Interesting that we recreate a bit of jungle inside with our "house plants." Is this a deeply embedded biological thing, going back to our roots? (pun!)

550 Steps

2010-01-05T07:18:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite morning rituals is walking to school. We are lucky. From our doorstep to the courtyard entrance of my son's elementary school is exactly 550 steps. That takes the two of us six minutes to navigate, including a thirty second wait at the crosswalk to let cars pass. We leave the house at 8:30 a.m. and he is at school well enough in time to make the 8:45 bell.

On the way, we talk, we laugh, we hold hands (if no one is looking), we watch birds, notice clouds, feel the air, get our blood moving, and maybe finish up a few bites of breakfast if we are in a hurry. If it is raining, we carry an umbrella. If it is cold we put on a hat. If it is hot, we get hot. But it is always, always, a great way to start the day.

Last year I did a little bit of research to find out how many other students chose this archaic method of travel to school, under the auspices of promoting "Walk to School Day," an international event celebrated annually, usually in October. Using an in-school student survey in tandem with my street observations, I was able to summarize the results thus: Recent surveys estimate that of the 1126 students and staff that come to Stetson Hills School about 4% ride their bike or scooter to school; about 10% walk to school; about 40% ride the bus; and about 50% come to school by car. About 300 private cars drop off and pick up kids and teachers every day.

It should be noted that any child who lives over a mile from the school is eligible for free bus transportation. With this in mind, the statistic that alarms me the most is the last one, because at least 50% of the students live within a mile of the school. I'll cut some slack for the harried mom of two preschoolers plus a kindergartner who lives the full mile away, but I know that two of my neighbors, who live one and two houses down from me (10 and 20 steps, 10 and 20 seconds) actually drive their kids to school and pick them up by car again every day! This is the norm around here. This is pathetic. I will even go so far as to say that this is killing us, this habit of feeling like we need to use a car to travel three blocks or a mile.

We could do some even more crude calculations and come up with estimates of how much wasted fuel, how much CO2 and other pollutants added to the atmosphere, how much added traffic risk, etc. is accumulated by the thousands of vehicles district wide, state wide, and nationally because of the inclination of parents to chauffeur their children to and from school every day. Add to that the cumulative impacts of idling while waiting for school to get out, with heat or air conditioning blasting, depending on the weather, for up to 20 minutes per vehicle, usually rather large vehicles with inefficient engines. Plus the more alarming knowledge that these kids are being trained to never walk anywhere. As you might guess, this really ticks me off. It makes me feel sad. Thank you for listening.

But what is even more infuriating is that I did it too, for three and a half years! Not to the elementary school, but to the high school, which, is about a fifteen minute walk, but I haven't counted the steps. I confess. I enabled. I caved.

Thankfully, there are some bright spots on the horizon. First, if I were to amend the transportation survey today, I could add that .1 percent of students unicycle to school! One of our neighbors rolls three times as far as we walk, loaded with a backpack and a trumpet case! A much greater accomplishment is that my daughter, after much cajoling, has agreed to walk to high school for the rest of the year (her senior year), and even lets me walk part of the way with her! YES!!!!

How many steps will you take?

Energy

2010-01-05T05:58:00.001-08:00

I'm going to tackle three questions from "Where You At?" all at once, because they are all so closely related:

24. What energy costs you the most money? What kind of energy is it?
25. What developed and potential energy resources are in your area?
26. What plans are there for massive development of energy or mineral resources in your bioregion?

Here in Phoenix, Arizona, if we are talking about the sort of energy that powers our cars, homes, computers and other appliances, (versus psychic energy or fuel for the body) I'll guess that what we pay for nuclear energy probably tops that of gasoline, coal, wind-generation, solar cells, hydropower or natural gas, all of which factor into our transportation, household and lifestyle uses of electrical energy. But, what we pay on our utility bills and what the various forms of energy actually "cost" are two different things. This is because all forms of energy that we are billed for rarely account for unseen and unknown costs of extraction, generation and massive changes to the landscape and environment that are necessary to produce that energy.

Solar energy is the most abundant and most under-utilized source of energy in Phoenix. If every roof and every billboard had solar panels, if every building had incorporated passive solar design features, this city could probably power the nation. But we are woefully behind on these efforts.

Fortunately, new interest in renewable resources has inspired public utility companies to invest in solar, geothermal and wind generation. Unfortunately, these "green" energy sources aren't exactly benign when implemented at a massive scale. Before you rally behind solar utilities, understand that in order to create a multi-acre solar field, the landscape essentially must be sterilized and graded. The beautiful photos of sheep and cattle grazing in green meadows beneath solar panels are a myth. This is what those places really look like:

Is this a better use of the landscape than, say, the suburban sprawl that ultimately uses the energy produced by the utility? Or, for instance, a fully functioning ecosystem that supports multitudes of lifeforms? Or agriculture? Rooftops, yes!!! But taking more of our precious wildlands, no!!!!!

Chronic Movement

2010-01-02T19:22:00.001-08:00

In his book "House of Rain," Craig Childs attempts to connect clues to the mysterious disappearance of the ancient puebloan cultures of the Southwest (aka Anasazi). Their dissolution is most often thought to be due to a combination of drought, civil unrest, disease and overuse of resources. But another factor comes to light in his own extensive travels: chronic movement. In other words, these people just liked to move around a lot. Since they couldn't carry everything with them, they often left behind villages full of household goods and food, taking only what was necessary for their journey at the time. Traces of their travels are evident in the pottery they did bring with them, and the new pottery they made wherever they went, importing particular designs and styles to other regions.

Having just completed a 700 mile round trip journey to Zion National Park and back, I'm thinking about those folks, toting food for the trail, a change of clothes, a blanket and a few other essentials such as fire-making tools, some hunting gear, and maybe some medicine. For us, it is much the same: we travel with a bag full of snacks, some clothes, sleeping bags, a lighter, and enough cash to purchase food at the next town (that's our hunting gear!). Some ibuprofen and bandaids. We left our house and refrigerator back at home full of many other worldly goods.

In the event that we decided not to come back, or couldn't, we could certainly figure out how to go on without all the loot we left behind. We would just start over. Anyone who then entered our house once it was realized we weren't returning might wonder why we left so much behind. But we wouldn't have disappeared. We would have migrated.

This makes me think about how rare it is for any family to stay in one place for more than a decade, much less for several generations, as some of the ancient puebloans seem to have done. Our society is certainly afflicted by "chronic movement" in more ways than one. Not only do we tend to change dwellings many times during our lives, but we move around each and every day at paces and distances that are far beyond the norm for most people on the planet. In our culture, traveling is regarded as glamorous, adventurous and mind-broadening.

But I have to wonder at times: Could it be that the most radical act a person could do is to stay home?

Mergansers Galore

2009-12-28T19:55:00.000-08:00

For years I have whizzed by Thunderbird Mountain on 59th Avenue, just a few miles from our house, vaguely aware of a manmade wetland just east of the busy road that has been designated as a wildlife refuge. But if you are going the speed limit, it is easy to miss the turn off to the refuge, complete with a small parking lot, viewing benches and an interpretive display. In the photo below, the refuge is the body of water between all of the housing and the open space in the foreground. This was the first time I had the forethought to arm myself with binoculars and a bird book, with no other intention than to drive over there and check it out.

What a fun surprise to discover a flock of hooded mergansers, possibly one of the cutest birds on the planet! There were about three dozen of them, both male and female, bobbing around under the cottonwoods along the waterway. I'm taking the liberty of using a photo lifted from the internet, with all due credit to the photographer, Steve Berliner, since my camera lens is not up to the task.

Also on display today were at least a thousand common mergansers, another one of my favorite waterbirds. The males are white-bodied with irridescent green heads and pointed orange bills. The equally elegant females have rusty red heads with gray-feathered bodies. All were floating peacefully with bills tucked under their wings in the late afternoon. A few busy coots dabbled around, and a great blue heron and an egret cruised across the pond. But no widgeons or pintails as the display promised.

From now on, I will take an extra 10-15 minutes on my errands to the P.O. and library to stop in at this most unlikely desert scene.

Attack of the Lego Monsters

2009-12-28T10:42:00.000-08:00

It all started so innocently with a small pile of Legos.

Now we are being overtaken by semi-trucks,

and dinosaurs! Help!!!!!!

Playing in the Mud

2009-12-26T09:15:00.000-08:00

After a twenty-eight year hiatus, I've come back to playing with clay, which is really just very stiff mud, relearning skills that I believe are some of the most natural inclinations of human hands. I'm drawn to this art form, partly because it allows me to work directly with materials that I can gather myself. Likewise, making twine has a certain elemental simplicity to me, because I can gather the plant fibers and transform them with my hands. A recent newsletter I received from another blogger named Dan Joseph illuminates another dimension related to turning pottery that is also true for me.

If you have learned to build on a potter's wheel, you may be familiar with some of the steps required to create a pot: First, there is "coning," which is the process of getting the clay into a moldable form and squeezing the air bubbles out. Second, you need to "center" the clay on the wheel so that the body of the vessel will be symmetrical and have even thickness. Third, you "open" the clay by pressing down the center and pulling the clay out. After this, you can begin to form the vessel by gently pulling up and out to create whatever form you imagine.

Dan uses the ideas of "centering" and "opening" as paths to the divine, which may be why making pottery is so therapeutic to me, and so fundamental to human civilization.

To access the divine, he says, you first need to "center your mind on a more inspiring, opening line of thought." This follows dispensing with the distractions of unproductive thought, which I relate to "coning," (more crudely stated, the process of getting your sh*t together!) Once you are centered, he says, you can "practice opening to the divine flow of peaceful, loving thoughts and feelings, and you can trust that they will flow through you into the world."

I like this metaphor, because when I am working with clay at the wheel or just with my hands, it definitely requires a certain clarity and focus to consciously create a form. If I am frustrated, distracted or angry, centering doesn't happen at the wheel, because my mind is not centered. Likewise for opening, because without a receptive mind, the clay often goes off center again, and I'm left with a formless lump of clay. TIme to go back to coning!

When the coning, centering and opening all go well, a vessel can be created. At this stage of my ceramics career, more often than not, the shape of the vessel is not necessarily intentional. But that is okay. The point is, the practice of pottery building offers a path to the divine, just as is any practice that someone chooses to engage in with an uncluttered and receptive mind. Unfortunately, I've still got a lot of coning to do, but every now and then, I manage to get centered and open, and produce a few pots.

If you are interested in Dan Joseph's newsletter, you can access it through his website at www.danjoseph.com

Putting a Face on the Web of Life

2009-12-10T08:21:00.000-08:00

"One could not pluck a flower without troubling a star." Loren Eisely

After a little more than a month as an official Face on Facebook, my catalog lists 72 Friends. I was inspired to join in the game, when one of my friends made a surprise move to New York City (Hi Tom!). I could not resist finding out more via his profile. Of course, I could have asked him through e-mail, which I did, or even a phone call...but Facebook is where he now likes to post his amazing photographs. Plus, I decided that I really needed to find out exactly what has been consuming so many hours of my high school aged daughter's time!

In the world of Facebook, we are privileged to see all the other conversations and connections that friends have in this unique digital galaxy, which is a miniscule fraction of anyone's social life...hopefully! But it got me thinking about how this cyberweb expresses the full Web of Life in a newish way, making visible a series of connections that we would otherwise be unaware of. That "six degrees of separation" thing. The coolest thing about Facebook, to me, is that it shows how we are connected between friends, as well as who has accepted our personal invitations. (I had to cajole my husband into accepting my Facebook invitation...but fortunately, we carry on most of our friendship off-line!) Which leads me to ponder, if all my friends, Facebook and otherwise, and all of their friends, and all of the friends of friends' friends were to accept invitations from one another, how many faces would be on all of our Facebooks?

At present, only one of my Facebook pals crosses over between the worlds in my orbit, two of which are Yosemite, CA and Crested Butte, CO. (Hi Elizabeth!). And another Face, whom I have never met in person, is now a new friend in the Darrow family circle (Hi Barbara!). Only eight of my Facebook comrades are of the "long lost" type whom I hadn't communicated with in some way for more than a year. Out of all 72, I can see that only about a handful regularly communicate through Facebook, logging some sort of thought, photo or announcement almost daily (Hi Dawne! Maya! Erin! Nancy! Carla!) Surprisingly, my daughter isn't one of these. She actually spends all that time in her bedroom studying. (Hi Brooke!)

Some people consider Facebook and other cyber-social networks to be a form of "stalking" and "voyeurism," and perhaps use it that way, but I find it to be more benign and quite fascinating in some ways. Sort of cosmic, really. All these WiFi and cable connections might just be a step between the more tangible connections we make when speaking to one another or exchanging actual handwritten letters (Ah! the Good Old Days!) and full blown conscious telepathy. Like those times when the phone rings, or the e-mail dings, and it's exactly the person you intended to contact at the very same moment. This sort of thinking should remind us all to be careful of our thoughts, for they are, indeed, received by others at some level, no matter how well we wish to conceal them, whether benevolent or critical.

Our thoughts, our writing, our deeds and our Facebook posts are like a stone in the pond, the flower and the star, the fly on a spider's web. My dream is that we will eventually go beyond these digital and telepathic connections between people to consciously realizing and fully appreciating our connections with all other living and non-living things.

May your ripples be gentle, your stars be bright and warm, your web strong and flexible.

Gas

2009-12-09T10:57:00.000-08:00

The "Where You At?" series continues (only 5 more questions to address):
23. How much gasoline do you use a week, on the average?

As a Prius owner, I can smugly answer that my car needs re-fueling every two weeks after about 500 miles of travel (how this accumulates mostly within 20 miles of my house, is amazing to me!), at an average of 50 miles per gallon. So, every week I burn through about five gallons of gas.

But, if we were all to answer this question completely and honestly, the sum would be considerably greater because of other goods and services we enjoy that require some kind of transportation in order for us to receive them. Groceries, for example, rarely come from nearby. Perhaps we should add a portion of the fuel that cargo transportation uses to get us strawberries from New Zealand, chocolate from Brazil and coffee from Ecuador, as well as the maple syrup I absolutely NEED all the way from Vermont! The postal service requires quite a bit of fuel to achieve its miracles. And I should really calculate the amount of fuel that comprises my portion of the airline flight I just took to Portland, Oregon and back.

Being a bleeding heart liberal environmentalist, the related questions that I like to think about is: "How do you minimize the use of gasoline in your lifestyle? What could you do to decrease that use even more?"

Here's a few things we already do:
Walk Orion to and from school every day;
E-mail Christmas cards/letters (But this is not nearly as much fun to receive!);
Bike to the grocery store for small purchases;
Keep most recreational outings within twenty miles from home;
Mostly engage in non-motorized recreation;
Drive a Prius!

What else could we do as a family?
Get Brooke to carpool, walk or ride her bike the 1 mile to school;
Bike to the grocery store with burley for larger grocery purchases;
Ban air travel from our lives?

Not sure here. I feel that our government and industries need to get on the ball and produce vehicles that use less fuel. The technology is available. The new "35 mpg" standard is pathetic. This is also about air quality, not just fuel conservation.
But I rant. Time to go for a walk!

Neighbors

2009-11-21T07:02:00.001-08:00

22. How many people live next door to you? What are their names?

I think suburbs get a bad rap in a lot of enviro-media. Yes, they sprawl, and yes, they are sometimes cookie cutter, but a little decent planning can overcome some of these problems. Our neighborhood was lucky to have a few thoughtful planners so that there is a sense of community, there is connectivity with the natural landscape, and there is a reasonable feeling of diversity in the architecture so that we don't feel like we live in factory housing.

We live on a cul-de-sac with six houses. We actually know everybody, sort of a rarity for some suburban neighborhoods perhaps. I feel like if I needed the proverbial cup of sugar, I could knock on any of their doors and vice versa. Let's see, theres Norm, a bachelor who usually lives at his girlfriends house; Zach, another young man who actually moved to Japan recently, so he has abandoned his house to foreclosure; Clint, another bachelor who travels on business a lot, so we rarely see him either. (What is it with the bachelors? Is this common?) Then there is a rental where Gaea, Louie and their son Aiden recently moved in, which is great since Aiden and Orion have become good friends. Then there is Hilda, Robert and their grandson Brylin, another pal of Orion's.

Of the other five households, I have the phone numbers of four of them. This became more important, I realized one day, when the Clint's house across the street had a blow-out in the plumbing while he was out of town and I didn't know how to contact him. We ended up just turning off his water main when we saw that water was leaking out from under the garage door. Since then, we decided it would be more neighborly to share phone numbers with one another for emergency purposes at least.

But our neighborhood is pretty friendly otherwise as well. The nearby park is a gathering place for all kinds of happenings. We have lots of trails and sidewalks, so there are always people out in the mornings running and walking their dogs. With a high school and elementary school within a mile of the hood, there are tons of kids, which also livens things up. On some mornings I can hear the marching band practicing off in the distance or the little league parents cheering for their teams.

So, on a scale of one to ten, I'd give our neighborhood a solid nine in the community feel department. The extra point is deducted for the Homeowner's Association which is occupied, ironically, by folks who are more into strict codes and regulations that decrease the friendliness of the hood. They don't like my "weeds" in the spring, so every year I get a "nasty-gram asking me to pull the weeds! I think everyone else actually appreciates my adding native wildflowers to the landscape!

Celestial Seasons

2009-11-19T20:31:00.000-08:00

21. Do you celebrate the turning of the summer and winter solstice? If so, how do you celebrate?

I like to honor the winter solstice with luminarias and a campfire.
We honor each full moon with a night hike.
But I like to celebrate every day by writing down something I am grateful for, sharing tea in the morning with Tom, and hugs all around. Today, I am grateful for cool mornings and this evening, a new moon!

Housemates

2009-11-19T19:59:00.000-08:00

20. Name some beings (nonhuman) that share your place

We share our house with two cats: Max

and Tiger:

Certain times of the year, earwigs, cockroaches and crickets like to hang around inside the house as well. Fortunately, right now it is cold enough that they have retreated into dormancy! This might sound a little gross, but I don't like using pesticides, and they seem to be just visiting. If they were setting up camp and reproducing, well, I think I'd have to rethink my anti-pesticide stance. As it is, I usually just pick them up and show them to the front yard.

Twinkle, twinkle

2009-11-15T12:47:00.000-08:00

19. Were the stars out last night?

What we really want to know is, "Can you see the stars where you live?" and "Do you ever wander outside at night to enjoy the night sky?" Of course, the stars are always "out"...whether we see them or not just depends on if we care to notice. Otherwise, this is a simple "yes" or "no" question about the weather.

Here in Phoenix, we nearly always have clear night skies, I would say probably 364 nights a year on average. But there is huge competition from the city below. In the photo above, taken from a satellite orbiting Earth, you can easily find Phoenix by the largest blob of light just east of southern California. Even so, on our regular night strolls around the neighborhood, we can alway see the major constellations: Orion, Cassiopaea, Ursa Major, Pleides, Virgo and Scorpius are my favorites to look for. But everything in between and the great swirl of the Milky Way is lost to the glare of city lights, most obnoxious of those emanating from nearby ball fields where giant banks of lights beam out to space.

Depending on your outlook, the city lights can be stunning or frightening, or possibly both. This is my view from the top of Thunder bird Mountain, which I hike to the summit of (all 500 feet or so from the valley floor) by headlamp in the winter time two mornings a week.

I kind of like the "art" that happens when you jiggle the camera a little:

Copper

2009-11-03T11:07:00.001-08:00

18. What kinds of rocks and minerals are found in your bioregion?

Silver, gold, uranium, turquoise and copper are some of Arizona's major mineral assets. Of those, copper is the most important, being one of the "5C's" of that once defined the backbone of the state economy: Climate, Cattle, Cotton, Copper and Citrus. Here are a few photos from Ray Mine near Kearny, which is southeast of Phoenix, where we visited on our way to backpack in Aravaipa Canyon Wilderness Area last May. The scale of the place (the mine that is) rivals Grand Canyon. Standing at the edge of this huge open pit, watching dump trucks crawl along on the winding roads, I have to say I was equally impressed just to think of the human industry required to create this technological wonder of the world.

According to Earthworks, a group dedicated to mining reform, "the Ray mine complex includes the nearby Hayden smelter, which is the largest single source of toxic pollution in Arizona, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The occurrence of lung cancer among Hayden residents is roughly 50 percent higher than for residents of the Tucson and Phoenix areas." This is the air that flows through Aravaipa Wilderness.

There are a dozen mines, along with their smelters, like this one in Arizona, the leading copper-producing state in the US. Think about this next time you pick up a shiny penny, listen to a symphony (any brass instrument), flick a light switch (wires) or take a shower (pipes). They all depend on copper mines. According to geology.com, "the average car contains 1.5 kilometers (0.9 mile) of copper wire, and the total amount of copper ranges from 20 kilograms (44 pounds) in small cars to 45 kilograms (99 pounds) in luxury and hybrid vehicles." There I also learned that the Statue of Liberty "represents the largest use of copper in a single structure."

Fortunately, copper is also easily recycled, so save those pennies!

For more fascinating info on copper and other minerals, check out this web link: http://geology.com/usgs/uses-of-copper/

Out My Window

2009-10-27T16:39:00.001-07:00

Costa's Hummingbird (photo by Richard Halliburton)

I've been keeping a list of all the birds my cats and I have been watching from my office window, or sitting on our front bench just outside the window. The list now has more than two dozen species on it, and growing every day! Just this morning, I spotted a Sharp-shinned Hawk cruising over towards the wash.

Roadrunner (on the road!)

Boat-tailed Grackles, male (on top) and females (below)

Here are the rest (asterisks are birds I've seen in my yard or cul-de-sac in the past couple of weeks):
Mourning Dove*, Rock Dove*, Inca Dove, Great-tailed Grackle*, Mockingbird*, Costa's Hummingbird*, Anna's Hummingbird, Black-chinned Hummingbird, Bewick's Wren*, Canyon Wren*, Cactus Wren*, Yellow Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler*, Townsend's Warbler*, Orange Crowned Warbler*, Bell's vireo*, Say's Phoebe*, Harris' Hawk*, Common Nighthawk, Great-horned Owl*, Gamble's Quail*, Gila Woodpecker*, Black-throated Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow, House Finch*, Song Sparrow, Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher, Verdin*, Canyon Towhee*, Roadrunner*, Curve-billed Thrasher and believe it or not, a stray Great Blue Heron! That one was perched on a neighbor's rooftop, probably on its way between Lake Pleasant Reservoir and neighborhoods north of year where people glide around on pontoon boats from their back yards. Yes, right here in the suburbs of Phoenix!

Arrowhead Ranch (neighborhood south of Thunderbird Mountain 3 miles from where I live as the heron flies)

First Bloom

2009-10-22T13:07:00.000-07:00

17. What spring wildflower is consistently among the first to bloom where you live?

Most people would probably say California poppy, because it is one of the showiest flowers in the Sonoran Desert. But the true answer is Comb Nut, a teeny tiny forget-me-not flower. Pectocarya is the Latin name for this group of annuals, which are only a few inches high, with flowers barely an eighth of an inch in diameter. When there has been a wet winter, the desert becomes carpeted with these plants. If the desert looks green, it is usually Pectocarya, not grasses, that are responsible. The common name is a translation of the Latin, referring to the tooted margins of the nutlets or seedpods.

California poppies actually peak about a month after Pectocarya are first out, anywhere between late February and mid-March, depending on the winter rains.

North

2009-10-22T13:06:00.001-07:00

16. From where you are reading this, point north.

Spending a lot of time outdoors, watching the sun move across the sky, shadows shifting and stars circle around Polaris, I can usually do this without a GPS or compass. Birds do it. Butterflies do it. Cows do it! Bees do it. I'd like to believe that if I ever got left out in the middle of nowhere (or everywhere, depending on your perspective), I, too, could find my way back home using these pieces of information. Tom dialed up the compass on his watch anyway to confirm my sense of direction and I was right on!

Homogenous Eclecticism

2009-10-16T14:41:00.000-07:00

Lantana from South America

15. What are the major plant associations in your region?

In my lifetime, I've lived in at least eight different major ecosystem types, from the Pacific northwest Douglas Fir forests to the mixed hardwood forests of northern Illinois, and now to the Sonoran Desert. Maps for the larger plant associations or communities can be found in any ecology or plant geography textbook. Here in Phoenix, we inhabit a transition zone between the hilly Arizona Uplands, dominated by saguaros and palo verde and the broad flats of the Lower Colorado River Valley division of the Sonoran Desert, which gives us miles and miles of creosote and bursage. Anywhere you venture in natural areas within 50 miles of where I live, you will find these plants. The thousand or so other species occur in pockets, arroyos, at springs and on special rock outcrops along with these four dominant species. Brittlebush is another I would name as ubiquitous, but mostly because it is a reliable drought tolerant pioneer, able to drop in almost anywhere there has been a disturbance, especially in the Uplands.

But the plant association of the suburbs has not been mapped. What is in the wild and what we have transplanted into our suburbs is an entirely different assemblage of plants than the natural areas that have accidentally or intentionally been preserved. The suburban plant association is an eclectic collection of species gathered and cultivated for landscaping from all over the globe. We have euphorbias, aloes and gazanias from Africa; giant cereus cacti, lantana and bougainvillea from South America; acacias, senna and eucalyptus from Australia; oleander, olives and chaste tree from southern Europe. From China we've imported rose vines and jasmine. From other regions in North America we bring Texas sage, red yucca and candelilla. We even have an endemic from Afghanistan, Pinus eldarica, or Afghan Pine.

In fact, if you thumb through a handy guide distributed by our regional Water Conservation Committee, Landscape Plants for the Arizona Desert: Guide to Growing More tThan 200 Low Water use Plants," nearly half of the recommended species are not native to the local region. And so we have created our own kind of plant association here in the suburbs. Although Sonoran natives are still included in the melieu...palo verde and mesquite are favorites in most parking lots...the dominant creosote and bursage that occupied the suburban landscape before they were bulldozed away are largely missing. Saguaros remain as occasional icons of the native landscape, but often don't survive the process of development.

I've often wondered what would become of the Suburban "division" of the Sonoran Desert flora if humans suddenly left, irrigation was ceased, and all of these species were left to fend for themselves in these foreign soils. Would they thrive or die off? Would they adapt and invade? Would they eventually mingle and reproduce well enough with the natives in the wild to create a whole new plant association?

Lilac Vine from Australia

Some have already shown their adaptability. We usually denigrate them by calling them "noxious weeds." Bermuda grass, fountain grass and African sumac are a few of the species that do quite well on their own here, to the bemusement of land managers whose predecessors may have brought them here. Others die off quickly without a drip. Our neighbors abandoned and foreclosed on house is surrounded by skeletons of lantana and ailing Queen palms.

Either way, I quite enjoy all of them, especially when I'm walking in the morning, and notice the also introduced swarms of honeybees (from Europe) feeding on daleas (from the Chihuahuan desert), and hummingbirds (native) slurping nectar from red yuccas (Chihuahuan), house sparrows (from Europe) congregating in fig trees (from Africa and China), and cottontails (native) feasting on Bermuda grass (African). The landscape changes slightly every fifty feet or so, depending on the preferences or inherited landscape of the current homeowner. Perhaps these variations could be called the Bermuda/Palo Verde/Lantana association; or the Texas sage/willow acacia association; or the senna/mesquite association. This wonderfully eclectic collection of plants is, however, uniquely homogenized into our own humanly assembled plant community, and it is spectacular!

On the Edge

2009-10-07T10:00:00.000-07:00

This photo was taken a few springs ago in Burro Creek in Western Arizona. Burro Creek is in a wilderness area. Southeast of there, on the horizon in the photo, is a mountain of mine waste from a copper mine near Bagdad, Arizona.

The "Where You At" series asks this question:
14. What species have become extinct in your area?

As a biologist, I would rewrite this question to ask:
What species are currently at risk of extinction in your area?

I rephrase this because extinction is actually the norm for life on Earth. Paleontologists estimate that more than 99% of all species that have ever existed are now extinct, victims of massive events that changed the planet's climate. Six major extinction events are recorded in the annals of biological life, the last of which is occurring today. Right now. Extinction is generally a very slow process that occurs over hundreds or thousands of years. When populations of a species become scattered, small and/or concentrated, that is when a cataclysmic event can wipe them out forever.

In the state of Arizona, the Fish and Wildlife Service has fifty four species of animals and seventeen species of plants listed as threatened or endangered, or at risk of becoming extinct unless carefully managed and protected. In addition to these "T&E" species, there are hundreds more that are considered "rare" or "sensitive," meaning that populations are stable now, but that habitat and distribution is limited. Most often the causes of rarity for TES (Threatened, Endangered or Sensitive) species are habitat fragmentation, habitat destruction, or, as in the case of many fish species, radical habitat alteration. Today, most significant changes to habitat are due to the activities of humans.

So, the answer to the first question is, "Too many to count or record!" But we could just give one recent example of wolves, which used to range into the Phoenix area, but have been extirpated by government sanctioned hunting so that they now occur only in the most southern ranges of Arizona. Ironically, their existence in Arizona today is also courtesy of the same government that set out to exterminate them. Only now we are attempting to reintroduce them. Unfortunately, at the same time, there are still people who would rather ensure their extinction, a mindset I cannot fathom.

The answer to the second question could be "all species" if you are inclined toward catastrophic thinking. But I am not so morose. I believe that life will always find a way. After each of the major extinction events, life has always evolved into more diverse, abundant and magnificent forms. The biological communities we have today are entirely different than the ones that thrived right here one hundred million years ago. The current extinction event will most likely play out in a similar way. Whether humans are around to observe what happens a thousand years from now is a big question that we cannot answer. Rather than descend into speculative discourse on the Holocene extinction, I'll just feature two species that are on Arizona's list of rare plants.

One is Agave murpheyi, or Hohokam agave. The most interesting fact about this species is that they are documented in the wild only where former agricultural areas were managed by ancient peoples that once subsisted in the Phoenix area. The Hohokam people used the plant for food, fiber and trade. Today, these plants are cultivated at local nurseries for ornamental purposes, so "trade" in Agave murpheyi continues in earnest! In fact I "traded" a five dollar bill for one that now grows in my yard, shown above. The wild populations that remain may have been originally established by Hohokam communities from young plants or "pups" that were imported from Mexico. So here is an example of a species we dub "rare" in our area because there are few small scattered populations, but the reason these populations exist at all is because people imported them! Very interesting indeed!

Another rare plant that I have visited is Purshia subintegra, or Burro Creek Cliffrose. There are four populations known only in Arizona, the largest of which is in a heavily populated area just north of Phoenix in the Verde Valley. Burro Creek Cliffrose is listed as endangered, and is threatened by urbanization, mining, overuse by cattle and burros, road construction, off-road vehicle traffic and extended drought. They are also limited to habitats where there are limestone outcrops. Unlike the Hohokam Agave, there are no known uses to humans other than possibly as an ornamental landscaping plant. But because of its intrinsic value as a unique species, humans are working to ensure that this species does survive in the wild, by salvaging plants that wind up in the path of urban development and by cultivating them for reintroduction into native habitat. The pictures I have of this plant were taken in Burro Creek, south of Kingman. The shiny blister beetle that is visiting the flowers coexists, and may be partly dependent on this plant. Such is the web of life!

So it is on both ends of the spectrum that human civilization influences individual species and entire biological communities. We wipe them out. We preserve and facilitate their continued existence on Earth. How we conduct our lives, both as individuals and communities, will determine the fate of not only our own species, but of millions of others that creation/evolution has graced our planet with.

More information on TES species in Arizona can be found at the US Fish and Wildlife Service website:
http://ecos.fws.gov/tess_public/pub/stateListingAndOccurrenceIndividual.jsp?state=AZ

And at the Arizona Natural Heritage Program page for the Arizona Fish and Game Department:
http://www.azgfd.gov/w_c/edits/species_concern.shtml

Dawn

2009-10-03T22:04:00.000-07:00

When you live in the Sonoran Desert, you are likely to become more acquainted with dawn if you enjoy spending time outdoors, because this is the easiest way to tolerate or avoid the heat much of the year. May through October are months that have highs in the hundreds most days, so getting out before the sun comes up is what many hikers, bikers and runners do to avoid heat stroke and exhaustion. Five in the morning works well. I've always been an early riser, but six years living in Phoenix has led me to experience more dawn hours than all the rest of my years.

By 5:30 most mornings, 6:00 at the latest, I am up and outside either hiking or running. The hiking wouldn't happen if I didn't have a friend to meet twice a week. Caroline and I, plus dozens of other fitness-minded people avoiding the heat, begin our bi-weekly trek often by headlamp, like mountaineers on an alpine start. You can see the little lights bobbing along the switchbacks up the well trod trail leading up Thunderbird Mountain, a silhouette against the urban lit sky rising five hundred feet from the valley floor. On mornings around the full moon, we can navigate by moonlight.

At this time of year, the morning sky begins to glow about half way up the trail, backlighting peaks to the East. We often witness the magical moment when the orange crest of the sun bulges up out of the hills. Colorful city lights wink beneath the orange glow until the sun fully emerges, drowning them out.

Besides the cool air and light, dawn is a time when many desert animals are most active. Owls, nighthawks and bats are making their breakfast flights. The occasional snake moves off the trail out of our way, disappearing into rocks. Coyotes howl and flow through the prickly shrubs on their way to a daytime resting spot. Black throated sparrows, towhees and cactus wrens call to each other, announcing their territory or calling for mates.

For many hikers, dawn is a ritual, a prayer. We greet the day with hope, chatter about our joys and woes, much as the birds may be doing. Some run. We are grateful to be healthy and able to walk the rocky trail, feeling our hearts beat, breathing deeply desert air. Each dawn is a gift.

Geologic Forces

2009-10-02T16:00:00.001-07:00

Back in April I started exploring questions from a series called "Where You At?" (see my April 10th post, "Agua Dulce"). Returning to that series, we are asked this question:

#13 What primary geologic event/process influenced the landform where you live?

This question took me a long time to think about. Perhaps this is because the idea of landform is a bit difficult to suss out in a place where the land has been bulldozed and paved in a way that makes it tough to recognize the natural form of the land. But therein lies the answer! Humans are the primary geologic force at work here in Phoenix. The valley has been transformed from a vast undulating desert of bajadas and arroyos into canals, dams, bridges, reservoirs, mines, and sprawling development that recent reports declare we will add 400 more miles of highway to by the year 2050! Four hundred!!!

Volcanism has also had a big influence on the landscape here. Where the land has not been reworked, paved over, and re-landscaped, our neighborhood is circled by a ring of six hundred foot high hills that rise above the valley floor. Like many of the surrounding desert peaks, Deem Hills is made of rubble leftover from volcanic eruptions that occurred between two and five million years ago, which is relatively recent by geologic standards. The dark rocks, called basalt, glow deep purple and orange in the evening sun. Basalt is basically cooled off lava. Here, many of the rocks have pits and holes in them, evidence that the lava was almost frothy when it flowed and then quickly cooled, leaving small air bubbles in the rock.

Ironically, water has had an equally large influence on the landscape here in one of the most arid regions of North America. Whenever rains fall, flash floods and sheet flow move thousands of tons of rock, sand and silt, gradually eroding the hills. Bajadas are the alluvial fans, or outwash of debris that flows out of the mountains creating a gently sloping landscape at the base of the hills. Arroyos are the beginnings of canyons, like the Grand. Over time, water and wind probably move more earth than any other geologic force other than plate tectonics.

But right now, humans may outweigh even plate tectonics in the effects on landform when you count the accumulated impacts of our civilization on the movement of air and water combined with actual earth moving here in Phoenix.

Black Widow Refuge

2009-10-01T14:59:00.000-07:00

My back yard is a refuge for black widow spiders. While exterminators regularly spray my neighbor's yards and homes with pesticides, I've chosen to let "pests" live in our yard, weaving webs, making nests and providing food for the numerous lizards and birds that also visit. (Although I will admit that when the termites start drilling into our walls, I call the exterminators!) Perhaps it was Charlotte who convinced me that spiders deserve to be allowed their quiet livelihood in the yard, or perhaps my ecological sensibilities that respects the necessary role that all creatures play, even in the suburbs. Whenever I see a gleaming black widow with her slender legs and red violin I am fascinated rather than repulsed.

This may seem reckless or foolish to most people, but so far, the spiders have obliged by keeping out of sight during the day, and sinking their tiny teeth only into edible prey, such as crickets that also enjoy refuge here. Once in awhile I'll catch one resting in it's tangled web in a plant on the patio at night, but as soon as it senses my presence, it scurries out of sight, knowing rightly that I am far more dangerous to her than she is to me. Out in the log pile, I reach in with gloved hands to gather wood for a new moon fire, setting aside the marble sized egg sacs full of soon to be spiderlings.

So far, we have not experienced any grotesque infestations of roaches, ant, crickets, spiders or scorpions, the "pests" that support a thriving exterminator industry in Arizona. Yes, all of these creatures are here, and as long as they stay outside in the back yard refuge, we coexist peacefully. I like it that way.

Capturing a Cloud

2009-09-26T22:16:00.001-07:00

Orion and I were playing with cattails we picked at a neighbor's pond yesterday morning, poking the ripe seed heads to make them burst into fluffy clouds of soft white seeds. With just four cattails, we made a billowing mound around our feet and threw the seeds up in the air to make it "snow." We blew the seeds until we were lightheaded, making thousands of wishes. We had to cut our play short to walk to school, but not before Orion got the idea to stuff a baggie full of cattail fluff to bring to his class for show-and-tell. "I'm going to tell the class that I captured a cloud!" he exclaimed. Another morning to last a lifetime.

These pictures were actually taken in 2005 when we were similarly mesmerized with cattails along the Salt River.

Fall Colors

2009-09-25T06:03:00.001-07:00

Arizona Poppy Kallstroemia grandiflora

As we roll past the autumnal equinox, which was September 22nd this week, I've been searching for fall colors here in Phoenix. Here, we have very few native deciduous trees, and those that we have are more likely to drop in June at the onset of the hot summer. Chilly mornings here are in the 70's, rather than frosty ones that trigger aspen and maple forests to turn. And instead of a harvest season here in the Sonoran desert, it is a time for sowing seed. The lack of northern boreal seasonal phenologies and rituals that were part of my life for nearly 45 years confuses me at a visceral level. My mind and body want autumn leaves and frost, even after seven years in Phoenix. I go searching for fall colors anyway.

I find fall colors here in the flowers. In the wild desert, Arizona poppies, desert senna, and janusia bloom in response to the fragments of monsoon storms that drenched the area a few weeks ago. In the neighborhoods, Mexican Bird of Paradise are at their peak, every bit as colorful as a Vermont forest. Bougainvillea vines glow hot pink where they are planted by the hundreds along Phoenix highways. Many of the trees, rather than dropping their leaves, have put out a new crop of fresh green. Here are a few of the fall colors we have here now:
Desert Vine Janusia gracilis

Mexican Bird of Paradise Caesalpinia pulcherrima

Desert Senna Senna covesii

Bougainvillea

Metamorphosis

2009-09-24T05:47:00.001-07:00

The other morning while out on an early morning walk before school, Orion and I stopped to look at a Queen butterfly perched on a desert milkweed. She let Orion put his hand under her, and perched on his finger. Looking more closely at the milkweed, we also saw a freshly opened chrysalis. Could this butterfly be the one that had just emerged? Then we found another chrysalis still waiting to hatch, a porcelain like pod exquisitely decorated with fine black lines and dots of gold.

Fascinated, Orion looked around and also saw a caterpillar, the kind that Queens metamorphose from. I explained to Orion that Queen butterflies usually lay their eggs on milkweeds so that when the caterpillar hatches out, it has it's favorite food to eat right there. Milkweeds have toxins that the caterpillars can eat, but that make them poisonous to birds and other creatures that might want to eat the caterpillar, so the caterpillar is usually avoided by predators. We didn't find any eggs, but just the three stages all on one plant blew Orion's mind so much that he just sat down right there on the sidewalk and watched for a long time. After a while, he got up and said, "Nature sure is amazing! Wait till I tell the kids at school about this!"

Yes, these are the moments I live for!

The Adventures of Lizzy

2009-09-15T01:53:00.001-07:00

This summer we adopted a new pet, a green anole lizard. She is six inches long, from her nose to the tip of her tail. In her short lifetime, this tiny creature has traveled farther than many people do. She has also survived being attacked by crickets, two nights of camping out in freezing temperatures, and a visit to the second grade at my sons school.

Lizzy came to us from a friend who rescued her when she was found in a roll of sod that had been trucked from east of Colorado Springs up to Crested Butte Colorado. How she got to the sod farm is still under investigation, but from what I've read, these lizards are native to southeastern United States, from Florida to Oklahoma. They have not yet been documented in the wild in Colorado. But, it's not impossible that they are either expanding their natural range or perhaps establishing wild populations from escaped pets in areas where the climate is compatible with their native habitat.

The coolest thing about Green Anoles is that they change colors from a drab brown to bright turquoise green. In response to what is hard to determine, but it seem like she either likes the warmth of our hands or is completely stressed out when handled, which is usually when she turns green. Camouflage has little to do with it as far as we can tell. They also have bulging eyes that move around a little bit to check out whatever is going on. Lizard eyes have a certain wiseness about them.

Green anoles are marketed widely as "starter pets," something small that doesn't require a lot of space or time to take care of. But any child ready to embark on a relationship with a lizard will have had to sell a lot of lemonade to support the equipment and food necessary to keep a lizard alive in a cage. Pet stores have an impressive line of Anole products, ranging from dried mealworms and reptile vitamins, to special basking lights meant to replicate the sunlight that they are now deprived of in captivity. Creating the warm humid environment she is adapted to was a challenge in the poorly insulated house I was renting in Colorado, which cooled down to 50 F at night, 20 degrees cooler than recommended for Lizzy, so her cage was also outfitted with not one, but two special heating pads that helped warm her tank 24/7. Here in Phoenix we have dispensed with the heating pads, but continue to spritz her cage with water several times a day to keep up the humidity.

If you have a pet lizard, you wind up with pet crickets, which also need to be fed. We had a hard lesson in the relationship between crickets and lizards when we took Liz out of her cage one morning to find her guts hanging out. I had put more crickets in the cage than the lizard could eat, so the crickets started to eat her! Horrified, I cleaned out the entire cage, and started her on a diet of mealworms, which presumably would not be quite so carnivorous. Lizzy's gaping wound was miraculously healed without so much as a dab of Neosporin within two weeks, although she is a bit asymmetrical with a hunk of muscle missing in her abdomen.

During our move from Colorado back to Phoenix, we camped for a couple of nights in near freezing temperatures. Without a plug-in for heating pads, we improvised by putting boiling water into water bottles and putting them next to the cage, then wrapping the cage in our down jackets. Wild anoles in the south probably survive cold winter nights, but as adoptive parents, we were feeling a little over-protective, especially after the harrowing cricket incident.

Visiting the second grade may have been even more terrifying for Lizzy then being eaten alive by crickets. Imagine being her size and having two hundred hands reaching out to touch you. She stayed green throughout the experience, which supports the "green when stressed" hypothesis. But, she didn't jump or dart from Orion's hands in an attempt to escape as he carried her from classroom to classroom. Another survival strategy is to stay still so predators won't see you.

All of this has been intriguing to me because it illuminates the quixotic desire of we humans to keep creatures in captivity, despite the complexities, and sometimes cruelty, of taking animals out of the wild. In this case, there was some kind of altruistic instinct in play when she was first discovered in the sod. As a pet she teaches us about her kind and gives Orion a sense of how to care for the needs of others. Some people surround themselves with pets like these. Creating terrariums becomes an art and obsession.

Someday though, I would like my son to see anoles in the wild, or at least living independently in the suburbs of Texas, where crickets are free, the sun is their source of light and they survive the coldest months by hunkering down in a hole in the ground. And there are other lizards like her to mate with.

Where There is Water

2009-09-01T08:50:00.001-07:00

....there is life! We took a field trip to Spur Cross Ranch Conservation Area north of Cave Creek the other morning in search of sedges. I had just returned from "Sedge Boot Camp," a plant identification workshop offered through the Jepson Herbarium of UC Berkeley for anyone interested in learning to recognize sedges, especially members of the genus Carex. If this sounds esoteric to you, it is. But, sedges are a very important component of wetland and riparian ecosystems around the world. Since these habitats are some of the most affected by human activities, botanists and ecologists like to pay attention to what grows in them. A workshop like this is a huge draw for botanists, in this case over forty people gathered to learn about these fascinating plants.

But, I digress. The workshop was in California, in an area where we could walk into a meadow and find a dozen species within fifty feet. Here in the Sonoran Desert, sedges are not quite so plentiful. In fact, mostly absent in the uplands. But, wherever there is water, you are likely to find some kind of sedge. And we did! Growing in great abundance around pools along Cave Creek we found American bulrush (Scirpus americanus) growing three and four feet high.

These languid pools exist in magnificent contrast to the Sonoran uplands where giant saguaros and cholla cactus dominate. Along the creek, cottonwoods and sycamore shade the banks. Cattails, cocklebur, sunflowers and common reed (Phragmites australis, a twelve foot tall cane grass) flourish. Leopard frogs and dace stir the muddy pools. A garter snake slithers by. Hot pink Centaury, a tiny wildflower with spiral shaped anthers, peeks out among the rushes. Queen butterflies glide through the rushes in search of fresh sunflower nectar. Dozens of dragonflies cruise the creek, perching on bulrush tips and dipping abdomens in the creek to lay eggs (the female ones). A bear-sized javelina snorts and huffs as it circles to make a resting place at the base of a cottonwood. Water striders skim the pools, creating four-spotted shadows. A Cooper's hawk rests, eyeing a flock of black throated sparrows. The sparrows and a family of gilded woodpeckers call loudly to alert their neighbors.

Nearby, the mesquite bosque has been burnt recently, blackened stems and scorched earth splattered with red fire retardant that was broadcasted from helicopters earlier this summer. But with a the creek nearby, the mesquite and bursage are sprouting new growth already. Where there is water, there is life!

Summer Skies and Scorpions

2009-05-23T18:09:00.000-07:00

According to Greek legend, the venomous sting of a scorpion killed Orion, the great hunting god. One of many stories about Orion’s fate tells that the Greek goddess Artemis cursed him with the fatal sting because she was jealous of his courting Dawn, the goddess of morning. During the summer, the constellation Orion can be seen lying down on the eastern horizon, greeting his lover just as the sun rises. At the same time, the constellation Scorpius sets to the west. Likewise, Orion is most visible in the night sky in mid-winter, opposite Scorpius, which some say is because they are carefully avoiding each other.

During mid-summer, stars that make up the sweeping spiral tail and claws of the constellation Scorpius dominate the southern night sky. These are clearly visible even around the light drenched city of Phoenix. At the heart of Scorpius shines Antares, a huge star 300 times the size of our sun. The name Antares is Greek for “rival of Mars,” because they both glow red and are about the same size to our eyes when viewed from Earth. However, if Antares were the center of our solar system, it would swallow Mars and reach almost to the planet Jupiter!

Summer nights are also the most likely time that you will see a living scorpion in the desert, since they are nocturnal and more active during warmer months. Scorpions have been very successful, having survived over 350 million years on our ever-changing planet. Of the 1500+ species known world wide, 90+ are found in the U.S.; about thirty live in both wild and tamed regions of Arizona. Three of these are common, and likely to be seen in the Phoenix area if one cares to look for them. The most spectacular but least common of the three is the giant hairy desert scorpion, a dark-skinned beast that grows up to six inches long. Although frightening to look at, this species is not very toxic to humans. But if you were an insect, lizard, spider, or other scorpion, you would definitely want to stay out of their way.

The less intimidating striped devil scorpion grows to less than three inches long, and is blonde or tan with broad dark stripes down the length of their backs. This species is also not life threatening to humans, though the sting can be very painful.

The bark scorpion is the only one in our area that is highly toxic to humans. They are also blonde and similar in size to the striped devil, but lacking the stripes. A well-aimed sting from a bark scorpion can immobilize a 250-pound man, and could be fatal to a small child, unhealthy adult or small pet. The powerful neurotoxin causes numerous symptoms including a sharp tingling sensation, numbing, uncontrolled breathing, muscle spasms, and general aching. Some people suffer allergic reactions to the sting as well. These are the kind that are most common in our neighborhood.

My friend Christy was kind enough to bring me the above photographed specimen that she caught in a jar in her back yard. The wildlife watching was fun for the family until one morning when 22 baby scorpions appeared on momma's back. Something about all that neurotoxin freaks most people out. But I am delighted to have a friend who cares enough to show me local wildlife rather than just flushing it down the toilet as most people would do in this case!

Fortunately, scorpions are not aggressive towards humans, and will only sting if threatened, such as when they get stuck between your shoe and your foot. They hide in rock crevices or burrows in the soil during the day, when humans are more likely to be outside. At night when they are active, it is not uncommon to see one cruising down the sidewalk or crawling on a tree trunk. If you shine a black light around your yard or in the desert on a moonless night, you will be able to easily find them glowing greenish white in the dark. Other than humans, the main predators of scorpions are nocturnal animals including snakes, mice, shrews, elf owls and other scorpions.

Although it is true that the sting of some species of scorpion can be fatal to even a very strong man, this is extremely rare. According to current medical records, there have only been two deaths in Arizona due to scorpion stings since 1968. Compared to other risks we face each day, these creatures are relatively benign. If you can overlook their venomous capability, they are fascinating to see and watch.

However, if you do not feel comfortable sharing your space with scorpions, be sure to keep your yard tidy and free of debris where they like to hide. Look carefully before you put your hands or feet under rocks, in woodpiles, or even when moving outdoor potted plants. Don’t leave close-toed shoes outdoors and avoid going outside barefoot at night. You can also have an exterminator treat your property with a special arachnid poison. Scorpions are not insects, so insecticides will not affect them. However, insecticides are useful if you want to eliminate prey that would attract scorpions to your home.

Suburban Century

2009-05-22T07:42:00.000-07:00

#12 What is the land use history by humans in your bioregion during the past century?

I have delayed writing about this 12th question in the "Where You At?" series (begun on April 10th in my blog) because I thought I would find the time to dredge up more real numbers on the subject. Acres, decades, populations, etc. However, for the purposes of this blog, my personal observations and a few basic statistics will suffice. As a starting point, the Phoenix metropolitan region comprises ~2500 square miles of land.

Anyone who lives in the Phoenix area could make a reasonable generalization that about 50% of the current land use is dedicated to transportation needs. Or desires, if you prefer. That is to say, parking lots, roads, highways, train tracks and airports take up a staggering amount of land. This is a primary characteristic of Phoenix, other than the fact that it is in a desert. Of all the cities I have lived in (Seattle, Chicago, Fort Collins, Boulder, Colorado Springs, San Francisco), Phoenix is by far the most vehicle intensive and pedestrian/bicycle unfriendly.

But it wasn't always that way. Phoenix's humble beginnings were as an agricultural community, with citrus and cotton being the main crops and economic base, although transportation did play an important role since the beginning because large scale agriculture also requires large scale distribution. Agriculture requires prodigious amounts of water, however, so the economy of the area has changed dramatically from growing food and fiber to developing corporate headquarters, malls and housing, which supposedly require far less water to sustain. Which begs the question: So where do we now get our food? But, I digress.

The city was established in 1868. Arizona was inducted into the union in 1912. In the last 100 years, the population of the Phoenix area has swollen like a cancer from ~11,000 people to over 4 million people. We were rated as the 2nd fastest growing metro area in the U.S., after Las Vegas, over the past decade. The growth has slowed somewhat since the economic recession. A shocking 24% of the growth has occurred in the past 10 years. I have personally contributed 3 people to that statistic.

The stunning vastness of this metro area is most easily comprehended from the air or a mountain top at night. Electric lights spread to the horizon in every direction if you climb to the top of Squaw Peak, for instance. This photo was taken one early morning from the top of our more humble neighborhood high point, Thunderbird Mountain.

But, lest I forget, Phoenix and the other two dozen or so cities that comprise the Valley of the Sun's contiguous suburban landscape, have dedicated a reasonable amount of land to open space, including one of the nation's largest city parks, the 16,500 acre South Mountain Park, which you could just about go backpacking in, except I don't think they allow overnight camping.

This is a view from the mountain preserve in my "backyard," a 5 minute hike up the road.

And we also have the standard urban delights of universities/colleges, museums, ballparks, theatres and zoos. Plus a few military bases. To support all of this, I would bet that you could put at least a single digit percentage on the land use dedicated to our energy needs, including a nuclear power plant (see my December 1, 2008 entry). And our water needs (reservoirs and canals plus treatment plants).

However, the majority of land use here now is lots and lots of malls, massive corporate offices, lots and lots of tract housing (much of which is seasonally vacant or for sale now), and huge acres of asphalt. There are also a few remaining citrus groves and cotton fields on the fringes.

Oding

2009-05-20T14:04:00.000-07:00

Common Baskettail Dragonfly, photo by Karolyn Darrow

Every so often we discover an unexpected gem in the Phoenix megalopolis. Last weekend, believe it or not, we found the most amazing wetland, right in the middle of the suburbs! The Gilbert Riparian Preserve, southeast of the crossroads at Guadalupe Road and Greenfield Avenue, is a 110-acre park with eight huge manmade ponds that were created and vegetated with native species as part of a water reclamation program for the city of Gilbert.

We got up very early on Saturday morning to go oding at the preserve. Arriving at 7:00 am after an hour long drive, we joined about a dozen other folks, ranging from ages 5 to 85, to learn about dragonflies. Since these fascinating bugs are in the taxonomic order Odonata, the sport of dragonfly (and damselfly) watching is called oding! Ya learn something new every day. (The excellent photo above of a newly emerged dragonfly was actually taken near Washington D.C. by my sister. That species is native to the Eastern U.S., so is not fund at the preserve.)

Mexican Amberwing at the Preserve

With the help of our knowledgeable guide, Bob Witzeman , we spotted and identified eight species of Odonata, including the Mexican Amberwing, Blue Dasher, Flame Skimmer and Wandering Glider. They have the coolest names! Interestingly, dragonflies and their more slender relatives, damselflies, did not have official common names until 1996. Since then, there has been a proliferation of dragonfly field guides, of which we now own two. Hey, in our house, you can never have enough field guides!

As a bonus, we were also treated to a flotilla of fuzzy ducklings, a turtle, a flock of black-necked stilts, avocets, egrets, great blue herons, geese, and black-crowned night herons. But best of all, I was so happy to see lots of families and children enjoying the outdoors early on a Saturday morning. There were probably at least a hundred people out bird-watching, photographing, fishing, hanging out, walking, running, dog-walking and, of course, oding.

Orion was certainly the spiffiest oder in his new dragonfly vest!

Zoom and Bloom

2009-05-19T14:17:00.000-07:00

One of the most extravagant botanical happenings in the southwest deserts is when agaves have mustered the energy to send up their flowering stalk. Their reproductive strategy is known colloquially as "boom and bust" reproduction, because the plant will live for many years as a leafy rosette, (anywhere between 3 and 100, depending on the species) and then shoot up a stalk bearing hundreds or thousands of flowers in one season. Then the entire plant dies. The academic term for this is "monocarpic perennial," which translates to "plant that lives for many years but only produces seeds once." I call it "zoom and bloom."

For the past few weeks we have been measuring a few agaves near our house every day or two to see how fast they zoom. When we started measuring the first one on April 24th, it grew three or four inches a day until a thoughtless vandal snapped the flowering stalk and put an end to the zooming. But in that week it went from 38" tall to 65" tall. The broken stalk is still alive but could not grow any taller since these plants grow from the tips of their stems (the apical meristem, if you want to speak botanese). Today we noticed that, despite the damage, the remaining buds on the lower part of the stalk are beginning to open.

We started measuring two other agaves after the sad day when the first plant was brutalized, one of the same species and one of a different species. (I confess that I haven't taken the time to identify either of them yet. There are over 300 species, and in landscaping it could be any of those, not necessarily a native to the area.) The slim stalked species like the one that got broken has topped out at 115" tall, nearly 10 feet, and is now beginning to bloom. The other is growing even faster, zooming up to 9" per day, with no sign of flower buds yet. Eyeing old stalks of the same species, I'm going to predict that it will zoom up to 15 feet tall before it blooms.

So this is what we do to amuse ourselves during the hottest May on record in Phoenix-14 consecutive days of 100+F highs.
Tune in for the next exciting installment of the Agave Chronicles next week when we begin counting flowers and recording pollinators!

Solar Cooking

2009-05-17T16:30:00.001-07:00

Today I set up the solar oven to bake a loaf of dilly bread. We cranked it up to about 300 F, kind of on the low side since it is partly cloudy today. I also used an egg from my friend Merrily's goose, since I made two loaves (one goose egg = two hen eggs). One was baked in the solar oven and one in the conventional electric oven. Both loaves of bread turned out great! Here is the recipe, which is an old favorite from my mom:

Dilly Bread
1 package of yeast (~2.5 teaspoons)
1/4 cup warm water
2 T. sugar
1 cup cottage cheese (heated on stove until smooth and creamy)
1 T. butter
2 t. dill seed
1 small onion or 2 shallots, minced
1 egg
2 1/2 cups flour
1/4 t. baking soda

Blend yeast with water and sugar. Stir creamed cottage cheese, butter, dill seed and onions together. Beat egg and add to cottage cheese mix. Stir in baking soda then add flour 1/2 cup at a time. The batter will be very sticky. Don't knead it, just leave in the bowl and let rise till double. Turn into buttered round casserole dish or pie pan. Bake at 350 F for ~45 minutes or till golden brown.

Magic Mornings

2009-05-12T09:24:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things about mornings here is walking into my backyard and seeing hot air balloons gliding by. There is a popular launch site just a mile to the east of us, so we see them several days a week. Sometimes they float right over our yard and we can wave to the basketful of people. The propane gushes flames, roaring like a dragon as they drift up over the hills. Usually there are at least four or five, sometimes a dozen balloons with the trademark giant saguaro on a rainbow background.

We took a balloon ride a few years ago over land that is now covered with houses and streets. The land below was a maze of dry washes with lines of palo verde and ironwood marking their traces. Black-tailed jackrabbits loped across the desert grazing on shrubs and grasses. Ravens swerved and called between our small group of balloons. There is a special kind of silence floating through the air. Riding a balloon feels like being smoke.

The ride was magical, but it is just as magical to see them from the ground, sometimes rising or setting like a giant colorful sun from behind the hill. The big wicker basket, the flames, the kaleidoscope of fabric seem part of another world, another time. Sometimes, with the world the way it is here on the ground, hot and violent in so many places, it is a great relief to be taken for just a moment into the fantasy world of ballooning.

Migrants and Residents

2009-05-07T20:26:00.000-07:00

#11 Name five full-time resident and five part-time resident birds in your area.

A red-tail hawk family nesting in a saguaro, one of our full-time residents

Everyone loves to deride the "snowbirds" of Arizona, the masses of retirees who winter down here where it is warm, heading north between May and October to escape the insanely hot summer. Or is it that they are residents in the north during the balmy summers, and flee south to escape the blistering cold winters? Either way you look at it, they are in plenty of good company, because hundreds of bird species use the same strategy of seasonal migration to up their chances of finding decent food year round and good nesting sites when the urge to mate urge arises. As opposed to the northern or high-altitude bio-regions where avian life is much more diverse during the summers, the Sonoran desert region hosts more winter residents. We are the south that many birds migrate to during the winter, especially for a lot of ducks and other birds seeking open water. But there are some masochistic summer resident birds that hang around here during the searing hot summer months and migrate further south during our ever so slightly chilly winters. I know of no humans who would choose such a lifestyle!

Then there are those, both birds and humans, who tough out the entire year wherever they happen to be, adapting either to the blistering heat or freezing cold, and maybe even enjoying it. I have to say that my true nature is as a winter adapted bird. I would be very happy as a chickadee, snowy owl, or ptarmigan. But here I am among the cactus wrens, roadrunners and Harris hawks that thrive in a year-round summer climate.

Off the top of my head here's my five plus five:

some Full-time/Permanent Residents:
Cactus Wren, the Arizona State bird
Roadrunner
Gamble's Quail
Verdin
Phainopepla

some Part-timers:
Black-chinned Hummingbird-summer residents
Common Nighthawk-summer resident
White-crowned Sparrow, winter resident
American Goldfinch-winter resident
Western Bluebird-winter resident

Mud Dauber Mom

2009-05-07T17:55:00.001-07:00

We recently observed a mud dauber wasp building her nest on our back patio. She was busy early in the morning building the last of nine cells, each of which will eventually hatch out a new wasp. I read in our Field Guide to North American Insects that in order to provide for her young, Momma Mud Dauber stuffs each cell with up to a dozen spiders. We are thrilled, because our back patio has been a refuge for black widows. The last one I spotted had spun a web right next to the door. But since the mud dauber built her nest, I haven't seen any black widows! To me, this is a great alternative to pesticides.

When we first saw her, she had just started the last cell. Within an hour, she had built it up and was ready to cap it off. Now we wait for the next generation to emerge.

Urban Trees

2009-05-07T12:12:00.000-07:00

#10 Name five trees in your area? Are any of them native?

One of the things I've come to appreciate about Phoenix is the enormous diversity of trees growing in the city. Though the surrounding desert is mostly lacking in trees, except along watercourses, the well-irrigated urban landscape supports a lush forested landscape of trees from all all over the world. There is even a Department of Urban Forestry for the City of Phoenix that promotes planting trees in the city.

My favorite five around here are:

Desert Willow: This one is native to the Sonoran Desert, growing along washes all the way from Grand Canyon down the Colorado River drainage to the southeast corner where Arizona borders Mexico. They are not willows at all, but have long slender leaves like many willows. Unlike true willows, which are mostly wind pollinated, Desert Willows have huge showy orchid-like flowers that attract many types of pollinators. They are in full bloom all summer long, from April through October, defying the stifling heat and periods of drought that send many desert plants into dormancy.

Jacaranda: This is a tropical relative of the Desert Willow that is imported from Brazil. Huge clusters of extravagant bright purple flowers contrast with elegant white trunks and bright green fern-like leaves. These thirsty trees are not exactly a great choice for desert landscaping, but there are many of them established especially in older parts of the city and they are gorgeous in bloom!

Ironwood: A hearty native famous for very dense wood, ironwood is another spectacular bloomer. These ones burst into a cloud of pale violet about now, and are so pretty in the early morning light. I haven't succeeded in capturing the ethereal quality of flowering ironwoods on film or microchip, but this is sort of what they look like.

Sycamore: In canyons and along the big rivers, sycamores are the giants of the native desert trees. Some of the older ones have trunks up to 3 feet in diameter! These are one native you don't see so much in landscaping, but I'm not sure why. I think they need a little more shade than is available in the city to do really well. This picture was taken along the Upper Salt River. The great white trunks are silouetted in the desert side canyon, survivors of the early days of the Salt River Project, which removed most of the great cottonwoods and sycamores along the river because they "used too much water."

Washington Palm: I love these guys. And they are native! There are a few wild remnant populations in the state, but now they are more abundant in city than in the wild. One of the coolest things about palm trees is that they are most resilient in the high winds of monsoon season. Last fall when we had a huge storm that brought down huge old pines and eucalyptus trees all over downtown Phoenix, the palms just laughed and remained standing. I love the way they look with their skirts, but people are obsessive about shaving them off in the city because they don't like the fact that birds and rats like to nest in them.

Shadows

2009-05-06T09:12:00.000-07:00

#9 On what day of the year are shadows the shortest where you live?

The June solstice, usually on June 21st in the Western hemisphere, is the day when shadows are shortest here in Phoenix, but this can vary slightly depending on the calendar year. If we lived in the Southern hemisphere, we would observe the shortest shadows on the December solstice, December 21st. As the sun rises higher in the sky and the days become longer, and warmer (the forecast for Phoenix is 104 F on Friday this week!), the shadows become shorter. A good shade tree is a blessing.

The path of the sun, or ecliptic, is the basis for many ceremonial observances in all cultures. June weddings (in Euro-centric cultures like ours) were originally celebrated around the solstice, symbolic of ancient pagan observances of this celestial event as the marriage of the God and Goddess, or Heaven and Earth, a union that creates the fruits of harvest. I wonder if December is a popular time for weddings in South America and South Africa for similar reasons?

One of my favorite exhibits about the ecliptic, besides the cool archaeological monuments like Stone Henge and some rock art in the southwest, is a contemporary design at the North Mountain Visitor Center in Phoenix. Although I've been aware of the ecliptic and observed the equinox and solstice dates for decades, this exhibit really enlightened my understanding of the dramatic variation in where the sun rises and sets over the year. Seeing this on paper is not the same as standing in the middle of the exhibit and feeling it.

Another fun exhibit or artwork on this theme is a human sun dial at Life Lab near the UCSC campus in Santa Cruz, California. When you stand in the middle of the circle, your shadow points to the solar time of day. I've got some ideas to create a pebble mosaic like this when I have a big enough yard to accommodate one.

Archaeoastronomy, or "the study of how people have understood the phenomena in the sky, how they used phenomena in the sky and what role the sky played in their cultures" is fascinating to me. I wonder how our modern urban cultural myths might change, or have been changed, as we've become less and less tuned to the sun, moon and stars in our daily (or nightly) lives And how would it feel if we returned to judging the time of day by the length and direction of our shadows, rather than using a clock?

First Grade Wisdom

2009-05-05T09:16:00.000-07:00

I've been reading Deepak Chopra's book "Life After Death" this week, which explores the idea of consciousness and death from various perspectives. There are more questions than answers on this subject, so it is an area ripe for discussion. So, just to make conversation on the way to school this morning I asked my 7-year-old son, Orion: "Why do you think people are afraid to die?" Orion thought about this for a moment, and said, "Well, I don't know, but I do know that the reason people die is to make room for more people, because if no one died, this would be a very crowded world!"
So true.

And here is Orion, who also says that he is not afraid to die, because he really enjoys living. Eating strawberries and chocolate is his version of heaven!

Growing Season

2009-05-03T13:49:00.000-07:00

A more successful and much larger garden than mine at The Farm at South Mountain. This photo was taken in late September.

#8 How long is the growing season where you live?

Growing food in Phoenix is a year round affair, as long as you have water, which, thanks to humongous water projects by CAP (Central Arizona Project canals) and SRP (Salt River Project reservoirs), we have been conditioned to believe we have an abundant supply of. With no significant frost, an attentive gardener can nurture veggies right through the winter solstice here. Diligent growers can also plant and harvest two seasons of annual crops, starting in August and January, according to "Desert Gardening for Beginners" by Cromell, Guy and Bradley. Most gardeners in the area take a break during the hot summer months, from June through August, to let themselves and their land restore themselves.

Timing is everything, as with most anything we do, but especially when it comes to gardening. Last year I attempted to grow squash from seed starting in October, which is way off, since these are one plant that wilts at any hint of frost. Although rare, frost does happen for a few early morning hours during December and January most years, and one morning hovering around 30F is all it takes to put an end to a hearty thirty-foot squash vine. Had I consulted the handy gardening calendar in the above mentioned text, I would have learned that planting in any month between January and July will work for squash to grow to fruit, but forget it after August. I also would have escaped the tragedies of my spring planting of frost tolerant lettuce, kale, broccoli and spinach, which all prefer the fall growing season beginning in August.

So now I'm keeping it very simple, and planted six zucchini transplants yesterday. The book says seeds should go in no later than mid-April, so I'm crossing my fingers that the month old seedlings will be okay. Since the cats have become accustomed to using the fallow garden beds as a "powder room," each plant is protected with a vine cage. I estimate that we will be blessed with an abundant supply of zucchini within a couple of months. We also have a potted herb garden with spearmint, basil, oregano, sage and rosemary to season it with. And a strawberry plant that, if we are lucky, will produce a few succulent snacks by late summer. But that one isn't even listed in the desert gardening book, so we and our suppliers, Home Depot, may be hopelessly optimistic. Thank goodness Safeway is less than a mile away!

Breathing

2009-05-01T13:37:00.000-07:00

A good day looking north from the top of Deem Hills

On the long list of things we take for granted that I've mused upon in this blog, including water, waste management services, and food supply, I probably think more about breathing than anything. On the two mornings a week that I hike to the top of Thunderbird Mountain with my faithful hiking partner, Caroline, we are able to take a 360 degree survey of our air shed at 6:00 a.m.

Some mornings, especially after a light rain coupled with wind, the view to the south is blessedly clear enough to see the silhouettes of downtown Phoenix's skyscrapers. All around, layers upon layers of desert hills circle the city. Early morning light gilds the green urban landscape. I feel good about taking a deep breath. Other mornings, we gaze out in horror at the brown smog that has settled in the valley, obscuring silhouettes, dimming distant hills and casting a ghastly haze over everything. What we see is what we are breathing, and this cannot be escaped.

A scary day looking north from the top of South Mountain

According to a recent study published by the American Lung Association in their State of the Air Report (http://www.stateoftheair.org/), Phoenix, Arizona is the 9th most polluted city in the U.S., with over 100 days a year declared "unhealthy" to breathe. This is mostly from ozone, the low level smog that is created from burning fossil fuels, although many locals want to believe it is "just dust." Ground level ozone is produced when nitrous oxides combine with atmospheric oxygen in the presence of sunlight. Cars are the largest emitters of the nitrous oxides, which is why large urban areas tend to have the highest levels of this type of ozone.

I experienced the toxic effects of ozone this winter when I had a chronic cough that was not associated with any infection. My doctor prescribed an inhaler loaded with steroids to reduce the inflammation, and the condition abated within a month. But I can't help wondering what long-term effects are going on deep in my lungs. I have never smoked cigarettes, but that may not matter. Just breathing in Phoenix may create similar effects!

What can be done? This is another one of those "Tragedy of the Commons" issues that requires a cooperative effort to solve. Less driving. More walking and biking. More fuel efficient vehicles. The cumulative effects of each of our miniscule efforts does matter. So now that I'm finished writing this, I will ride my bike, rather than drive, to the grocery store to buy the organic milk and free range eggs that I need to make dinner tonight!

Trash

2009-04-28T09:38:00.000-07:00

#7 Where does your garbage go?

Today is pick-up day for the recyclables. We fill up that bin about twice as fast as our "trash" bin. This can be a good thing, by the fact that perhaps the materials actually do get recycled. Or it could be regarded as a bad thing, since we are obviously overwhelmed with disposable packaging. But the answer is that, ideally, about 2/3 of our garbage goes to a recycling center in downtown Phoenix and gets separated out to be made into more disposable packaging, paper and other products like carpets and fleece.

The other quarter of our garbage goes to a landfill west of Phoenix. Our local landfill used to be just a mile to the east of us, but was declared full and closed about two years ago. Now we deliver any excess, especially yard waste from pruning the ever expanding trees, to a transfer station about five miles away. We actually visited there yesterday to deliver nine giant hefty bags full of weeds (in photo above) that I plucked from a community clean-up project I've adopted near our home. From there the waste is appropriately separated (green waste in one area, metals in another, "real" trash in another, etc.) and loaded into huge trucks to deliver to the new landfill.

I used to compost, but did not enjoy the side effect of a burgeoning population of cockroaches, crickets and mice that ensued. The cats were great at keeping the mouse population down, but much as a I love insects, the cockroaches creeped me out. I used to put out sticky traps, which would collect dozens of roaches each night. We finally turned the compost piles in with some soil to create two big raised bed gardens. Composting sounds really great, but the reality is better suited for a community garden or farm setting where the pile can be well separated from the home. So now our compost goes to the landfill, where I'm certain it will play a useful role in bio-degrading the rest of the trash.

The good news about our landfills is that the old full one is planned for restoration to create a regional recreational park. And I recently read that the new one will be teamed up with windmills and solar arrays to produce sustainable energy for the city!

Waste disposal services are one of those under-appreciated city services that if suddenly halted, would rapidly result in even greater urban chaos. Be kind to your dumpster drivers!

Storms and Seasons

2009-04-27T23:04:00.000-07:00

#6 From what direction do winter storms generally come from in your region?

This question in the "Where You At?" series (see April 10th intro., "Agua Dulce") clearly comes from a climate other than the Sonoran Desert. "Winter" and "storm" don't really go together down here. But if you want to see some really phenomenal summer storms, come visit in July through mid-September when the monsoon season kicks in. Huge piles of cumulonimbus bring moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and Sea of Cortez, erupting into massive downpours and lightning storms that are awe inspiring entertainment for any skywatcher.

What the question is really getting at is assessing one's awareness of general weather patterns where we live. When I moved to Phoenix 7 years ago (Yikes! Seven years!) the notion of seasons, as well as weather patterns, was transformed for me. Having lived all of my previous life in four season climates with leafy falls, snowy winters, and balmy summers, moving to Southern Arizona was like landing on a different planet.

Here we are blessed with five seasons, according to "A Natural History of the Sonoran Desert," published by the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum in Tucson. Here they are:

1. We have fall, or so it is called, in late September through November. But our falls have very little color, since the landscape is mostly lacking in deciduous trees. It's more of a dry break between the torrential summer season and the drizzley winter. You can actually plant a veggie garden in September to harvest sometime in December. Snowbirds arrive.

2. Winters are mild with gentle rains blowing in from the west and northwest in December through mid-February, if we are lucky. These are the rains that set us up for spectacular wildflower displays come spring.

3. Springs are pretty dry, from late February through April. A blissful time of year when nights are cool and days are warm. Once the soil warms up, you can plant a second season of veggies to harvest in June.

4. Dry Summer starts in May, when things heat up into the 100's. By mid-June it is pretty much time to put the veggie garden to rest until September, because it is so hot and dry. Sane people migrate north to more reasonable climates.

5. And then we have the fifth and most famous Wet Summer or Monsoon Season that drenches the desert with torrents and flash floods. Winds that knock over hundreds of trees. These are the leftovers of hurricanes that devastate communities closer to the ocean. Even though it is hotter than heck, this is the most vibrant of Sonoran Seasons, the one that defines the region, the season of myths and legends. Our stormy season.

I think about this seasonal awareness every year when the schools and stores dutifully decorate for each according to, not the local five season reality, but the four season climate of northern deciduous forests that is defined by fall leaves, winter snowflakes, spring bunnies, and summer flowers and flip-flops. In summer here, the flowers are dried to a crisp. There is no snow. We do have plenty of spring bunnies, but we wear flip-flops all year round. That's where I'm at!

Bring on the summer. I'm going to Colorado!

Sex in My Garden (X-rated!)

2009-04-25T16:43:00.000-07:00

After being transplanted from a pot in our front yard to soil in the backyard last fall, this Argentine cactus is two weeks out of sync with the full moon, having bloomed closer to today's new moon rather than the full moon as is usual for these flowers. As always, a breath-taking spectacle with intoxicating pheromones wafting from deep in the corolla. These photos were taken over a period of five days. Enjoy!

Munchies

2009-04-15T13:07:00.000-07:00

#5 Where You At?
Name five native edible plants in your bioregion and their season(s) of availability.

To address this part of the quiz, we need to first define what our "bioregion" is. A bioregion is different than just drawing a circle with a radius of some random diameter, which is one popular approach to trying to eat "locally." While the distance limitation is valid, the bioregion differs because it may extend further or may actually constrain the definition of "local" by being smaller than the hundred-mile radius.

In the case of living in Phoenix, AZ, I'll define my bioregion as the Arizona Uplands subdivision of the Sonoran Desert, which is quite huge. The Arizona Uplands are the highest part of the Sonoran Desert, extending from north of Phoenix into northern Mexico, covering the eastern part of the Sonoran Desert. This encompasses mountain ranges up to about 4500 feet, which receive an average of up to fifteen inches of rain per year, down to about 1000 feet, where the landscape transitions to the much hotter and drier Lower Colorado River Desert subdivision of the Sonoran. Compared to the rest of the southwest deserts, we live in a rather lush bioregion here in the Arizona Uplands.

Edible plants are abundant in the Arizona Uplands. There is a ton of great information on what and how to harvest plants in a book called Food Plants of the Sonoran Desert by Wendy Hodgson, which is compiled from oral histories by indigenous people of the area. The Sonoran Desert at large has supported over 70 different cultures, many of which still exist today, subsisting in part on traditional native foods. My five favorite native edible plants around here, ones that I've actually harvested and eaten on my own, are saguaro fruit, mesquite pods, wolfberries, yucca pods, and miner’s lettuce.

We actually gathered miner’s lettuce on a hike last weekend and had some for a trail snack. Orion said he “love’s it” and even brought some home to have in his school lunch the next day. Miner’s lettuce can be found any time of year in shaded canyons.
Yucca pods can be sliced and fried when young and green, usually in the spring. Wolfberries are abundant in the spring, from February through April, after a good rainy winter. This year, not so plentiful. Mesquite pods can be gathered in June, and ground into flour and stored to make cakes and gruel throughout the year. Saguaro fruit ripens in July, and can be harvested for both the seed and the pulp. This can also be dried and stored.

Supplemented with quail, rabbit, deer and javelina, one could subsist nicely in the Arizona Uplands. But I’ll stick with my two favorite store bought staples, granola and yogurt. Maybe I’ll add a handful of saguaro seeds to the next batch of granola in honor of my bioregion.

Signs of Summer

2009-04-14T01:56:00.000-07:00

Warmer winds blew over the weekend, tipping the season into summer. Some biological signs that mark the transition are the emergence of rattlesnakes, blooming desert willows, flower buds on saguaros, an explosion of crickets, and nighthawks cruising the washes and streetlights at dusk. At home, I take note of the first official swim of the season in our solar-heated pool, which has warmed to a balmy 76 degrees. A favorite flame-flowered cactus blooms in the backyard. I now put away the down comforter brought out for cooler nights back in November.