The Hills

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

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

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

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.....

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

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

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!