White Tank Mountains and Hassayampa River Preserve, November 2017

The first half of November has been a quiet time.  My classes are keeping me busy and I am planning for my December trip to Nicaragua with the Fuller Center - I fly into Managua, spend a couple of days there exploring and then the team of 15 volunteers will travel west for three hours to the coastal town of Las Penitas where will be building homes.

Both my Tuesdays at the Desert Botanical Garden were busy, especially free Tuesday on the 14th.  One of the agaves has started its spike - to help us visualize how quick it grows, a blue tape was placed - on the 14th, the blue tape is just above the leaves.  I hope to post more photos from subsequent Tuesdays.  I am told the spike grows several inches per day.

On the 15th, while on my early morning walk, I got a couple of photos of the beautiful morning sky.

After my doctor's appointment later on the 15th at 10:00 (I walked the 2.5 miles there and back), Patty and I went to the White Tank Mountains Regional Park.  We saw some gnarly trees next to our table in the picnic area at the base of the Water Falls Trail.

Friday night, the 16th, we met Anne and Shawn at Little Cleo's Seafood Restaurant, one of the many new restaurants on 7th St.  Among other things, Patty had a selection of Washington and Massachusetts oysters and I had traditional fish and chips with an excellent dish of cole slaw.

Saturday, Patty and I went to Hassayampa River Preserve just south of Wickenburg, AZ.  We took a leisurely drive there on secondary roads, avoiding I-17 and the crazy drivers.  When we last visited, it was run by the Nature Conservancy.  This year, it became part of the Maricopa County Regional Park system - since we have an annual pass, instead of the $10 fee we expected to pay, there was no additional charge.  There are still many of the Nature Conservancy displays in the visitor center, including these birds and a javelina.

Hassayampa is one of the few places within an hour's drive where we can hike tree shaded trails - everything else is pretty much out in the open.

In some places, there was a lot of evidence of animals.  We saw what was clearly cow manure, but we were stumped by these flat wet spots of manure - we later found out that many of the cattle have diarrhea.

We came across these smaller piles of scat that had lots of seeds in them - we later learned that this was from the javelinas that live in the park.

We also came across this large cottonwood tree with a disfiguring fungal growth was was much larger than me.

We hiked for about 90 minutes, including up to Lykes Lookout - from there it was easy to see the green trees that grow where the river flows - in all other directions it is obvious we were in the desert.

We then went back to our car to retrieve our lunch and ate at a shaded picnic table near the visitor center.  After lunch, we went back out for another hour, and hiked Lion Trail.  In the visitor center, there was an active warning for mountain lions - apparently one has been seen periodically in the park.

We then drove north for a few mile to the Chapparal Cafe - where they sell home made ice cream and we had our afternoon snack before driving back home to Phoenix.

Phoenix, Sierra Vista and Vermont, October 2017

After Megan left, I did some cleaning and brought stuff to Goodwill and Lions International - they have a program for reusing old eyeglasses and cellphones.

Megan sent some beautiful flowers to her mom.

I worked on a proposal to redevelop part of the Carlyle Condo property into an off leash dog run - the HOA owns a large chunk of land that could easily be fenced and made into a dog area that would be close enough for residents to use without having to drive - the closest one is more than a mile away at Steele Indian Park.

The HOA residents have complained about trespassing, vandalism and theft.  Part of that is due to the recent increase in graffiti and tagging - so I gathered photos of work that needs to be done on HOA property outside the fence.  A contractor is now doing the stucco repairs and repainting of all exterior surfaces, but that work is all inside our gates and fences - the outside areas need to be done as well.  I presented both the dog run and maintenance work at the October Board meeting.

After putting those reports together for the upcoming Board meeting, I went for a walk after dinner.  It had cooled down some from the record highs we were having in October.

There were problems with the pool, so they drained the pool to make the repairs to the pump and heater - but emptying the pool created other problems.  The drains are all connected and when there is a clog, what goes down one drain comes back up through another drain.

On another walk, I came across a fun sign with which I agree.

Three new restaurants are opening within a block of our condo - Meaningful Dining will replace a garage, Farm & Craft will replace one that was only open for a year and Pomegranate Cafe (no photo) will be across the street in the Basha's shopping center.

Patty sent me out shopping for artificial vines and trees to put on our patio - live plants are not good because you need to be here year round or have someone who can care for them when you travel.

We ended up deciding on some fake grape vines to give us some sense of privacy with one open end of the patio - and we did add a few live plants to add some color.

On the 20th and 21st, I drove to Sierra Vista and taught my classes at Wayland Baptist University.  And we continued to have unseasonably warm weather for late October.

This was on my after dinner walk on the 25th, before I headed to the airport.

That evening, I flew to Chicago and on to Burlington - less than 12 hours later, on the morning of the 26th, it was rainy and cool - 49 degrees when I picked up the rental car.

My first stop was Lake Champlain Chocolates where I bought some goodies for the Halloween potluck for the Tuesday Docents at the Desert Botanical Garden, and then stopped at Waterfront Diving Center to discuss with the owner about our cancellation out of the diving trip to Roatan in November.

In Jeffersonville, I stayed at the Smugglers Notch Inn as usual.  There was still a lot of good foliage in Burlington, but in Jeffersonville it was mostly gone - but there was a lot of homes decorated for Halloween.

This house is now used by the community of Jeffersonville for a variety of things.  And it was nicely decorated.

After class on Friday the 27th, in the warm afternoon sun, I came across this butterfly.

And my walk on the Jeffersonville Greenway was vastly different from what I had seen in September.  This is where the canoe and kayak rental office had been located - now all is gone for the winter.

After class on Saturday, I turned in the keys to the class room and office I use at JSC - the rest of the semester is online and this was my last trip to Vermont for 2017.

I returned home to Phoenix that night and had a quiet weekend before heading to the DBG for my usual Tuesday as a docent.  In the morning, I did an hour at the Mesquite station before Charla took over, then an hour at the Agave station.  While there, I saw this flock of Desert Quails playing in a newly planted section.

After lunch, I did an hour at the Cactus station, but it was deader than a door nail.  And so ends another month for Sherpa Tom.