The brief story of sunshine and water in Tucson goes like this: Sunshine: Way too much! Water: Not enough! Ultra-bright midday sun is turning my cabeza temporal squash plants into a bunch of swooning drama queens… Save those plants! Must have emergency infusion of greywater! To the kitchen we must go! It’s garden-bucket-water time! The…
So far, August’s monsoon storms have been quite impressive. A total of .55″ to date. More than half of the rain came during last Friday’s sudden downpour. Here are the results from my neighborhood, starting with the street flooding at 3rd Avenue and Flores Drive… The downpour was preceded by a windstorm, which pushed this…
Okay, so I finally found a great way to wash and dry large quantities of mesquite pods: Put them in that used produce crate that’s been sitting in my shed. Set them atop one of my gardens. That feral cat-deterring thorny branch lattice makes a perfect “table.” Watering can rinses the pods and waters the…
February 2022 update: The website has been redesigned since this post was published. This blog exists to drive traffic to the Tucson-based American Journal of Medicine. It’s managed by a longtime friend and mentor, Pamela Powers Hannley. The AJM blog started out on Blogger, but Pamela and the journal’s editorial board decided that it needed…
A month ago, I blogged about the start of the mesquite bean harvest at my place. Around Tucson, you’ll also hear those beans referred to as pods. This post is about my adventures as a pod farmer. The harvest started slowly, but let me tell you, my front yard is now under full bombardment. That…
Well, look what’s back in town! Looks like big drops of water, falling from the sky! Alas, this was one of those five-minute wonderstorms. We’ve had more convincing ones, but no gullywashers. Yet. This is the time of year with the night-blooming cereus present their annual flower show. They’re supposed to do this for just…
News Flash: It’s hot and dry here in Tucson, Arizona. We’re eagerly anticipating the start of the monsoon rains. In the meantime, my container garden appears to be holding up… I give the container garden at least one watering a day. The cactii? Well, they could use a drink… What happens to sagging cactus branches?…
Nature has a funny way of demanding your attention. It can send huge storms. Or it can do more subtle things, like dropping mesquite beans in the front yard. Okay, big front yard mesquite tree, you have my attention. It’s time for the annual mesquite bean harvest. Which starts with picking up the fallen beans,…
For the fourth year in a row, I was the official photographer for the Tucson Folk Festival. Held during the first weekend of May, the Folk Festival featured more than 500 musicians from Arizona, the Southwest, and beyond. View my best 2013 Tucson Folk Festival photos.
Jim Hannley is a Tucson, Arizona-based financial planner who feels the need, the need for speed. When he wants to update his website, he wants to do it NOW. Working on his old website was a convoluted process that involved downloading web page files, editing them with a word processor, then uploading the edited pages back…
Dinner Plate Buds? What kind of a headline is that? Are strange things happening in my kitchen? The kitchen report: Nothing is amiss. The venue for this post is my back yard, where my dinner plate cacti are doing their normal spring thing and budding. Oh, are they ever…
May 2015 update: This website is no longer online. No doubt about it, Arizona is in a long-term drought. The University of Arizona’s DroughtWatch project draws on the input of people who observe the effects of dry climate in their locales. Here’s what the site looked like before my redesign: The new look worked the physical…
Ahhh, April in Tucson. Time once again for our city’s annual Bike Fest. Which motivates Yours Truly to go on bike-tographic expeditions to all sorts of cool events. Let’s start with Cyclovia Tucson. Did you know that there are two them this month? The first was on Sunday, April 7. Believe me, getting a photo…
It was around this time last year when I was calling my mesquite tree a slacker. Thing was taking its sweet old time about blooming. Not this year. That tree’s well into ultra-green mode. Fully bloomed in less than a week. After a winter of looking at leaves falling to the ground and the branches…
Spring has come to my front yard in a big way. Cue up the flowers, starting with the potted aloe vera… Just to the west of the aloe is another front yard flower-fest. This is bellflower beardtongue penstemon… Pretty yellow flowers. But the name for this one? Dogweed. That’s right. Dogweed. I think it’s time…
For a variety of reasons, this has truly been the winter of my discontent. Which means that I have been looking forward to spring. Oh, have I ever. This week’s forecast promises 90-degree temperatures. So, time to head out back to the furnace room and shut off the gas. Done. Outside the furnace room door,…
Back in January, I blogged about my Tragic Garden. It was hit hard by sub-freezing temperatures. Since I grow some of what I eat, crop losses are never good news. But what should I see this week but rebirth! Plants growing in places where I’d given up on seeing any such thing! Check this out:…
I like postcards. Oh, do I ever. To the point where I’ve been known as The Passionate Postcarder. That character has been on hiatus for a few years, but now the passion is back. Feast your eyes upon the front image from my latest promotional postcard… Okay, so you’ve seen the bike-tography on the front…
Twice a year, the City of Tucson has a Brush and Bulky Pickup. Which prompts thousands of Tucsonans to lug their old couches, busted-up bookshelves, cracked flower pots, and tree branches out to the curb. For those of us who enjoy the creative re-use of castoffs, the weekend before Brush and Bulky Pickup means one…
Since I didn’t win the slumbering championship last night, I decided to sleep in. All the way ’til 7:25 a.m. Time to rise and shine and go outside for a look at the snowfall in the yard. No, I’m not kidding. This is a blog post about snow in Tucson, Arizona. It’s a sequel to…
Being a native Pennsylvanian and photoblogger, I’m will never pass up a good snowstorm. Those flakes start falling, and I’m outside with the camera. But wait a minute. I’m writing this post from central Tucson, Arizona. This is the desert! It doesn’t snow here! Oh, yes it does. Here’s the evidence from my place. Poor…