Jan. 17th to Jan. 21st

Well here it is Friday and I have not made a post to our blog, cannot believe how the time just slips away. I still do not have the videos transferred from our expiring external hard drive due to the fact my beloved wonderful computer had the hiccups. My first step was to use the restore system and when that did not fix the issue I ran every program I have one by one to try and solve the issue and spent many hours reading online regarding the error message I was getting and the sad part is if the computer has the same issue again I probably won’t remember exactly what I had to do to fix it, but it running smoothly now and I do have a feeling of satisfaction for having solved the issue! Once I got my computer running smoothly I did all the year end financial fun stuff! I have a database set up in Access which tracks all our expenses and I create all the year end reports; it is scary and interesting to see where our money went! I can also see the difference in our spending habits over the years which is cool!

The weather has been beautiful all week, no freezing temps at night with warm sunny days we just cannot ask for more.

We attended a Soup and Sandwich Potluck Tuesday and as usual the food was awesome and we all brought home leftovers! Potlucks are great, you eat food prepared by someone else and at the same time have the opportunity to visit with friends and meet new folks at the park.

The last three mornings we have been serenaded by a wonderful bird that perches on the tree top and sings his heart out and hangs around for about 3 hours, I think it is a Mocking Bird but I am not sure, bought a bird book last year and cannot locate the darn thing, can you believe one can loose stuff in such a small space. The other nature type story is of honey bees eating our songbird seeds. I asked our Activity Directors if they had any idea why bees would be eating seeds and they did not (they have lived in the area for years), so I went online to check it out. Turns out that when the weather is warmer than usual they come out looking for food, there are no flowers, etc., for them to snack on so they find bird feeders, empty most of the seeds on the ground snacking on the pollen that is in the dust when the feed is bagged and also will eat Millet and some other songbird seeds. The hungry little bees can empty a six cup feeder in about 4 hours and the birds will not challenge the bees but they will eat the seed that the busy little bees dump on the ground. We waited a couple of days to refill the feeder (we have other different type feeders that the bees do not bother) and Woody strained the seed to get rid of the dust, well 20 minutes after hanging up the feeder the bees were back, so now we are feeding the birds and the bees!

This is not a good picture, I took it from the wrong angle and you cannot see the bees that are against the tree truck and also the bees that are in the tray of the feeder, this photo was taken at 1:42 pm.












This photo was taken at 3:14 pm and you see it is empty except for a little dust, most of the seeds are on the ground and the bees left a short time later.

We are going to attend the Jam Session this evening so will go and have dinner. Hope you had a great day!

Jan 12th to Jan 16th

Highlights of the remainder of the week:

Wednesday evening we celebrated the January Birthday’s with home made brownies and ice cream prepared and served by our Activities Directors Jim and Anne and a performance by Johnny Bencomo, always a great time. Friday we attended the Jam Session and Saturday we decided to go the Flea Market in Sierra Vista, didn’t buy anything but Woody met a knife maker who had some gorgeous knives, I was looking for a lady we bought bread from last year but she was not there, after lunch we drove to Elfrida, AZ (about a 45 minute drive) to check out a leather smith that a leather smith from home had mentioned, we didn’t find him but did check out the Art Centre which was cool. Elfrida is a small unincorporated community of about 1000 off Hwy 191.

The rest of the week we spent just doing our thing, Woody working on his projects, I spent time moving a mountain of items from my external hard drive which is acting like it wants to crash, i.e. sometimes it runs and sometimes refuses to run. We have very precious pictures on that drive, examples being family pictures I scanned a few years ago of my family dating back over 80 years plus many years of our family growing up and so many memorable occasions too numerous to mention, I am happy to report I retrieved them all. Next week I hope to retrieve the videos, that involves hours of transfer time and that means that I dare not use my computer while the transfer is happening but I have to monitor as the hard drive keeps shutting down, then I pray I can get it working again, so wish me luck! After I retrieve all the pictures and video’s I will transfer them to another newer hard drive, I thought about burning them to DVD’s but decided that was not feasible, (besides unless I use very expensive DVD’s they crash also) a DVD holds 4.7 GB per DVD and I have well over 100 GB, the other option is to upload each to a online service which is not feasible either and again no guarantee that option would be safe, I will take my chances with the external drive. One thing with an external hard drive, even if it crashes totally I can take the drive to a computer repair shop and pay around $100.00 for retrieval of the data, ah the joys of our digital world eh!

Visit with friends

Left about 10:30 to visit Gary and Deb who live south of Wilcox, AZ about 1 ½ hours drive from here, Gary is the leader of the Jam Sessions at our winter home and they had invited us for lunch. We took the dogs with us, they were invited, and we knew we would not be home until 5:00 PM or later. We visited a couple of times last year so knew the time would pass quickly as it always does when visiting friends. Unfortunately we have no pictures to share as I forgot to put the card in the camera (left it in my computer). Gary and Deb live out in the desert with a view of the Chirichahua Mountains and on our way home travelling the small dirt road leading to the highway we saw 5 Coues deer, we stopped (we were on travelling about 10 KPH), they crossed the road, and then stood in the desert like they were posing, man did we miss a great photo opportunity. Deer and coyotes are prolific in the area along with some cougar and other desert creatures. We arrived home around 5:30 pm and about 15 minutes later had a visit from an Albertan Gordon who camped at the park for a few days and was the person who had repaired our furnace shortly before we left this fall. He and his wife (Linda) had left Alberta Nov. 20^th travelled through Montana, Idaho and Utah, to Quartzite, AZ and had a horrendous trip, snowed most of the way, said he kept the truck in 4 x 4 most of trip and did a lot of white knuckle driving, that is the very reason we do not travel down I-15, too many high mountain passes through the Rockies but he and his wife wanted to see the Grand Canyon which they did and even though it was cold and snowy it was beautiful. Gordon is a character and we so enjoyed his visit, wow another visitor from home!

For information on the Chirichahua Mountains I have included the links below, as with any area we visit there is some interesting history, great scenery and in this case wonderful friends.

http://www.americansouthwest.net/arizona/chiricahua/national_monument.htm

http://statistics.arizona.edu/zeeb/butterflies/habitats/Cave.html

http://www.americansouthwest.net/arizona/chiricahua/national_monument.html

This and That

Went swimming this morning for the first time since Christmas, the water was cool, the pump had quit and John (owner of the park) forgot to cover the pool. The pool is enclosed but there are screens all around the top which allows heat to escape in the summer but of course allows the cool night air in and it did freeze here last night 23.9F (-4C) so we did our exercises and I hit the showers to warm up, some of the girls headed to the hot tub, oh man we are so spoiled, the water was actually warmer than any lake I swam in at home! Upon returning home I grabbed a bit to eat (always need a snack after swimming) and decided I really needed to take down the Christmas decorations. I always have a hard time putting away our Christmas decorations, I so love our little tree with its lights in the evening and it was the same at home, we left our tree up until after Ukrainian Christmas which is one week after our New Year celebration. Our little home seemed a little bare after packing up the Christmas decorations but it was time.
Woody went shopping while I was at the pool and stopped in to visit Cheri at Blue Opal on the way home to let her know what gems he planned on using and tried to pay her, she would not accept any money, she wanted to gift the gems, such a generous lady. While there Albert, who will be reopening the shop as soon as possible asked Woody if he would like to come in and polish stones and then sell them for a commission of course, he told Albert he would have to discuss the offer with me, he is considering the offer. After lunch Woody continued working on a belt buckle he is creating for himself, so far it is going very well and I cannot wait to see the finished product.

Working together

I spent a lot of time working with some of the pictures we have taken to upload to our blog, first job is to choose the pictures, then each picture usually requires some cropping, balancing the levels and all require sizing as we take all pictures at the highest resolution available on the camera. Pictures I use in DVD’s and/or print I use at the high resolution, but to save space and upload time I resize all pictures, blogger has a limit on the space I am allotted and our internet dish company also has a limit of daily usage so I have be careful when uploading or downloading. Besides working on the blog I scanned, sized and printed a design for Woody’s leather craft, if he finds a design he wants to try in any magazine or on the web, I play with it on the computer until it is just the size he needs and I love doing that for him and he is very appreciative, we make a good team!

Woody vists Bill and Barb

A quiet day today, Woody went to Tombstone to visit Bill & Barb to check out how they are doing selling their business, they were doing very well, had sold most of the goods from the store and had most of the equipment packed up, if you recall he is the 3^rd generation leather smith that Woody had hoped to work for this winter. The building that housed the business was put up for sale and Bill decided to shut down the shop as he sells more on the internet than from the shop so will continue to work from his home. Bill invited Woody to visit their ranch anytime he wished and I am sure Woody will do just that. After returning home Woody did the laundry while I continued to spend time catching up a bit on our blog. I doubt I will get ever be caught up as it is just too far behind. My New Years resolution was regarding our blog, specifically to work on our blog at least for an hour each day. When I include pictures, one post can easily take 3 hours, inserting pictures is very time consuming but without pictures the whole premise of our blog is lost. Not all posts have pictures or need pictures but many do and you know the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” and this is so true when it comes to our blog, it is fun to look back now and will even be more fun in our later years.
Yikes I just checked the weather at home, there is a snow warning with blowing wind, expecting up to 5 inches (15 cm) of snow, feeling so blessed to be here with temps up to about 59F (+15C), oh yeah and with the wind temps at home are -4F (-20C) not nice at all.

Jan 3rd to 7th

The weather has been nice, a bit of cloud, temps 54F (12C) Monday to 70 (21C) today (Friday).

Monday I delivered our card to Lenore and Mike, Lenore was not home and Mike said he wanted to wait to open the card until Lenore came home which I certainly understood and thought it was very thoughtful of Mike. Other than ordering a couple of knife blanks for Woody, and the usual daily things like walking the dogs, cleaning, etc., there is not much to report.

Tuesday I was very proud of myself, I took the dogs for a walk on the trails in the desert and managed to walk a full mile, that is a first for me in just about a year, (since I have been having issues with my hip), it sure felt good to walk without any major pain. I hope that means that my hip is slowly healing. Other than doing some major cleaning and working on the blog that is about all I accomplished. Woody keeps busy with his leather projects, he is working on a belt for himself which I urged him to do, nothing like wearing your own creation, he is also working on items for Wild TV which is presenting some challenges for him. Leather is not forgiving, one slight wrong move and the project is garbage, he at least can use the scraps of leather to practice on, so not all is lost and it is the only way to learn. I ordered another knife blank for him today so once they arrive he will be a busy boy!

Wednesday the highlight of my day was a visit from Mike and Lenore, they dropped over to thank me for the card, and they are such thoughtful sweet people. Lenore invited me to go “Street Walking” in Tombstone, I laughed saying that did not sound good, but of course what she meant is window shopping with some of the swimming gang, I thanked her but declined, walking is still an issue as I found out on my morning walk with the dogs, it would have been fun otherwise, some of the girls made themselves costumes so they will fit into the 1880’s look. Many people dress up in Tombstone so you fit right in. Woody made a trip to the gun range with his buddy Rolly to do some shooting; they left around 1:30 and got home around 5:00, almost late for “Miller time”! The weather was perfect for shooting, no wind although Woody said it was a little chilly at the range, and he had to put a jacket on. This is the first time they went to the range this winter but I am sure they will go again before the winter is over.

Thursday was a busy day, we dropped the dogs at the groomers at 10:00 am while they were getting all pretty and clean we did some shopping. After picking them up at 1:30 pm we came home took them for a walk and settled them at home then went to visit with Cheri Saunders who had invited us over for snacks, etc. Cheri is the owner of Blue Opal since her business partner and friend Mike passed away about 5 months ago. We met Mike our first year here and became friends and were very sad to hear he had passed away which we found out shortly after our arrival when Woody stopped over at Blue Opal to say “Hello”. We visited until around 5:00 pm and while there Cheri offered Woody some Mother of Pearl for Woody “to play around with to see if he could incorporate it into some of his leather pieces” (in her words). Woody was surprised and pleased with her generous offer and thanked her excitedly. After dinner Woody worked some on designing some leather projects, incorporating the Mother of Pearl, I did a little work on posts for the blog until Cookie started whining and looking so sad, she wanted to sit on my lap, she really hates it when she doesn’t get her lap time, yeah she is spoiled but how can I resist when she looks up at me with her sad brown googly eyes. When she was just a small puppy I really spoiled her by letting her sit on my lap while I worked on the computer, she is too big now to do that but of course she doesn’t know that so I shut down the computer and watched a little TV with her and Muffin in my lap, not a bad way to finish off the day!

Today our friends Dale, Janice and the boys flew back to Alberta from Tucson, hope they had a good trip, will have to email them and see how the rest of their trip went and find out what they had a chance to explore in Phoenix and Tucson.

Friday was a nice day 70F (21C), sunny with some wispy high cloud floating around and some wind. Not much to report, we did not even go to the Jam Session at the park in the evening, this is first time we have chosen to not attend since 2008 and only the second time we missed a Jam Session, we choose to go and see Johnny Bencomo at the Landmark Café a few weeks ago instead. Woody worked on a belt buckle for himself incorporating a few Mother of Pearl gems, it did not turn out as nice as we both anticipated, the design on paper looked good but somehow did not look real attractive on the leather a little disappointing but he is not deterred, will try something different with the Mother of Pearl after giving some more thought to the design. I will post a picture of the buckle after Woody completes one to his satisfaction.

A sad day

Last night was the coldest night we have experienced here, might have been a record at 13F (-10.5C) but today has turned into a very nice day, sunny 54F (+12C) with little wind. We decided to bath Muffin much to her displeasure; she behaves but does not appreciate a bath. I sit and hold her wrapped in towels for awhile after her bath, and by the time we finish bathing her we have many wet towels so after lunch Woody takes them to the laundry. While at the laundry our friend Lenore comes over to tell Woody that she and Mike had to put down their beloved dog, Danny a beautiful reddish brown dog about the size of a golden retriever, he looks like a retriever except for the colour and is taller. They have had Danny for a long time and of course Lenore and Mike were broken hearted and I cannot blame them, Danny was such a well mannered, even tempered dog that loved life. They took him to the vet today and found out he had liver cancer, and just 13 days ago he had walked 6 miles with Mike on a desert hike. This morning he was visibly sick, didn’t want to eat or drink and was just lying around, he could not jump into the truck and normally he jumps in, loves to go for a ride, by the time they got him to the vet they had to take him in on a stretcher. The vet did some tests right away and found the cancer, what liver cancer does is compact the blood vessels so Danny was hemorraging inside and there was nothing that could be done. I created a sympathy card for them with a small picture of Danny and with the card I printed out a copy of the poem “The Rainbow Bridge”. For those of you who have not heard about Rainbow Bridge I am including the poem here as I think it is very beautiful and healing to read while grieving for a beloved pet.

The Rainbow Bridge

By the edge of a woods, at the foot of a hill,

Is a lush, green meadow where time stands still.

Where the friends of man and woman do run,

When their time on earth is over and done.

For here, between this world and the next,

Is a place where each beloved creature finds rest.

On this golden land, they wait and they play,

Till the Rainbow Bridge they cross over one day.

No more do they suffer, in pain or in sadness,

For here they are whole, their lives filled with gladness.

Their limbs are restored, their health renewed,

Their bodies have healed, with strength imbued.

They romp through the grass, without even a care,

Until one day they start, and sniff at the air.

All ears prick forward, eyes dart front and back,

Then all of a sudden, one breaks from the pack.

For just at that instant, their eyes have met;

Together again, both person and pet.

So they run to each other, these friends from long past,

The time of their parting is over at last.

The sadness they felt while they were apart,

Has turned into joy once more in each heart.

They embrace with a love that will last forever,

And then, side-by-side, they cross over… together.

Author Unknown

This poem surely invokes tears but tears are a large part of the healing process, I believe one should let them flow freely while grieving the loss of a beloved pet that has become a noble, loving faithful friend as well as a wonderful pet. We have lost dogs and know it is not easy and a piece of our heart is always with the dog. I will not deliver the card and poem until tomorrow, giving them their private time today. Our prayers, thoughts and love are with you Lenore and Mike.

New Years Day

The day dawned cool with clear skies 24F (-4C), high of 42F (+5C) with a bit of a breeze, I did not sleep well last night due to overeating last night so did not rise until around 10:00 am, Woody was up much earlier and of course greeted me with “Good Afternoon”, to which I replied “Happy New Year! I love you too”, he cannot help tease me when I sleep in and if I didn’t retort back he would be disappointed. We spent the first part of day quietly doing what we do everyday and Woody cooked a great brunch then around 2:30 pm or so some friends arrived at our door unexpectedly, what a wonderful surprise, friends from our home in Alberta, Dale, Janice and the two boys Braden and Jason. They had talked about coming down over the Christmas holidays for a visit but we had not heard a word from them regarding the visit so we thought they had changed their mind, in fact we had just talked about it the day before commenting with the unusual cold weather here it was probably good they had not come this year.

Janice teased Woody right away about telling them the weather was warm, she said it was warmer in Alberta when they left than when they arrived in Tucson on Thursday. We visited for a time and then Woody took Dale, Janice and boys on a tour of the park, showing them the facilities and introducing them to a few of our friends that happened to be at the clubhouse. I stayed home, I knew walking back to the fifth wheel (a pretty good incline) would be an issue, my hip still does not like me, and I would just slow them down. Being able to share our winter home with some folks from home was such a feeling, no words can describe the feeling or how happy we were to see them. Dale and Janice wanted to take us for dinner and as they had been to Bisbee and Tombstone already we choose to go to the Texas Road House in Sierra Vista. We had not been to the Texas Road House in Sierra Vista previously but had eaten a couple of times at the Texas Road House while in Ohio, we had forgotten how noisy it was but we had a good visit in spite of the noise.

Janice and Dale headed back to Tombstone; we returned feeling blessed to have such good friends that provided us an opportunity to share a bit of our winter home. We tried to talk them into staying a day to visit the Kartchner Caverns but they will head to Phoenix we think, Dale really wants to see as much of the area as possible in their short trip. Safe trip home guys, thank you so much for the visit.

The gang at Texas Road House!