Recent Photos
Nice paver work, Steve!
Planter shelf to go b/w two tanks
Dining room porch view 6/13
Master BR tank - 200 gallon capacity
200-gallon bedroom tank and dining tanks 6/13
All Blogs
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Rain-Ready & Reaching Out
The summer heat is here, but with the unexpected “cool front” over the weekend (93 degrees) – Steve was able to place some of our water collection tanks. Should be ready to harvest some water for monsoon season, which officially begins June 15. It will be nice to have the tanks filled and waiting for [...] -
The Desert in Bloom II
Though the bright colors of the desert are fading fast, May brought another rush of pigmentation. Along with the yellow blooms of the palo verde, mesquite and acacia came the arrival of even more bees. The hills are alive with their buzz right now. The most exciting discovery, though, was the arrival of western tanagers! I’ve [...] -
The Desert in Bloom
Who says nothing grows in the desert? I’ve got proof to the contrary, as you’ll see from the photos taken during my various spring hikes. It has been an incredible wildflower season here in Mammoth’s slice of the Sonoran Desert. Some of my local friends say that some of the flowers we saw this year [...] -
Whooo goes there?
I love this time of year! Not only is the Sonoran Desert teeming with wildflowers, but also a host of local desert dwellers. On April 14, during a hike up Mammoth Wash with neighbor friend, Roxanne, we saw the elusive great horned owl that I had seen a few weeks earlier (that time, I had [...] -
Disappearing Downspouts
Mother Nature was not cooperating with us on March 27, when we tried to tape off the downspouts for painting… Lots of wind that whipped our protective paper away. Once Steve decided to make a cardboard shield (instead of paper), we were in business! We took on this endeavor since we decided that the south-facing [...] -
We’re Seeing Spots!
It was a happy Valentine’s Day for us, as we drove the four-plus hours to Cottonwood, Ariz., on Feb. 13 to pick up our bundles of joy: two beautiful Bengal kittens. A mix between a wild Asian Leopard cat and a domestic cat, Bengals have gorgeous, exotic spots. They retain some wild traits from their [...] -
Water, Water … Nowhere
On Feb. 5, it looked like the Tasmanian Devil had whirled around the new house, given the freshly dug three-to five-foot deep trenches. But within eight hours, Steve had all the drainage pipes installed, and our backhoe operator, Rocky, had backfilled all the pits. Roof water that isn’t being collected in the local tanks outside the [...] -
Rain Drain, the Alaskan Pipeline and U.S. Customs
If any of you folks outside of Arizona have been watching the news, you’ve seen that we were bombarded with rain in January. Fortunately for us, we got our gutters, scupper boxes and downspouts installed just before the deluge. We didn’t have time to get our ditches dug for drainage pipe before the rain hit, [...] -
Happy Holidays
It’s hard to believe another year has flown by, but when we look back through our photos, it becomes a little more real. Especially when we look outside and realize we went from a hole in the ground on Oct. 7, 2008, to a Tvyek-covered structure with porch overhangs exactly a year later. So – [...] -
Rattlesnakes and Rainbows
Even though we’re taking a short hiatus from construction now that stucco is complete, a lot has happened at the ranch. On November 13, Steve pushed on the kitchen door in the evening so he could get some fresh air, only to find that it was ‘stuck’ on something. I was right behind him, and [...]
