Hard Work

Saturday, we joined with 34 other members of Epiphany Episcopal Church in Tempe, where we attend, for the annual fall clean-up day. We were assigned to the crew removing some cactus plants along the north wall of the church. There were a number of purple prickly pear cactus that had been infested with cochineal, an insect that leaves a white powdery substance on the pads of the cactus. (In early 2012, we volunteered at Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge in Texas, along the Rio Grande River. There we learned that cocineal was used by the early Spanish clergy to die bishop's robes. You can learn more about the insect and the dye in this Wikipedia article.)

The unwanted prickly pear plants where put onto a tarp, then hauled to a dumpster.

Next, we dug holes for new plants.

Finally, all the plant along that wall were in place.

Around the corner, there were even larger pots of vegetation to be planted. That meant large holes to dig. But John was up to the task.

In other areas of the grounds, people were trimming trees and bushes.

That meant the trimmed branches had to be picked up and taken to the dumpster.

Just look at how full the dumpster was.

A group of women spent the morning cleaning and organizing the parish hall kitchen.

Another group cleaned a very dirty, very old, very crowded basement. That explains why this woman was in a hazmat suit, going through the old church records they found there.

Finally, most of the work was done and lunch arrived. Everyone there was happy to share in this feast from Subway.

Oops!

Today, we drove to the county seat of Pinal County, where we are currently living and where our new winter home is located. We knew that Florence was the county seat and knew where the courthouse was located, so that is where we headed. We wanted to find our if it would be less expensive to license our truck and trailer here in Arizona, rather than in Colorado, since we now own property here.

This is the Pinal County Courthouse--the second Pinal County Courthouse.

The central stairway is impressive.

The building was constructed in 1891 and restored in 2012. But notice, I said second county courthouse. Come to find out, there was a third and fourth county courthouse. The third courthouse was built in 1961, though the second still housed county offices. The fourth courthouse was built in 2004. and houses the Sheriff's office, jail and courts.

This shows how the courthouse looked in 1895.

The 2nd edition has been restored as an historic property. But there is no motor vehicle office there. In fact, there is no motor vehicle office in Florence. Those are located in Coolidge and in Apache Junction, which is right next to Gold Canyon, where we are staying!

Next time I head out to a government office, I will do an internet search to make sure I am headed to the right place. We did, however, enjoy checking out the second Pinal County Courthouse.

Thank You For Your Service

Every day, Old Glory flies proudly at the entrance to Canyon Vistas RV Resort in Gold Canyon, Arizona, where we are spending the winter. This is the view one evening as the sun was setting on the Superstition Mountains to the north.

Today is Veterans' Day and the resort had a parade that ended at the flag pole for a flag raising ceremony. It was perhaps the quietest parade we have ever seen, but a number of people staying here decorated their golf carts, bikes and motor cycles to participate. The parade began with a truck carrying two accordion players who are here for an RV rally. They played patriotic songs as they rode the parade route.

Here are some other parade participants.

In any Arizona snowbird resort, you will find lots of Canadians. It gets cold, really cold, up north during the winter. One parade participant wore his Royal Canadian Mounted Police uniform. We once saw a unit of these Mounties participating in the Skagway, Alaska, 4th of July parade. They patrol the US-Canadian border not far away.

As the parade passed by, those of us staying here follow along to the flag pole at the entrance.

There were flags for each of the branches of the US military.

Before the flag raising, we sang the Star Spangled Banner. I always choke up and my eyes fill with tears when I sing that. I'm not a very emotional person, but thinking of how that was written (we have been to the fort where it was composed) and what our freedom means to me, to our country and the world, always makes me teary-eyed. We also sang (OK, I listened) Oh Canada, the Canadian national anthem. Their military often fights alongside ours around the world. Then the large  United States flag was raised up the pole.

Shelly Glaus, activity director here, gave a moving speech about her father, who was a prisoner of war during World War II, and a saying they had hanging on their wall as she grew up, talking about the value of supporting our country, being willing to serve and die for it, and the fact that some things are so important, so valuable, we must be willing even to die for them.

Our family has many members that have served in the military. Our older son Doug, seen here at his wedding to Sherry in 1998, served in the US Marine Corps for 23 years, seeing action in Kuwait and Iraq, as well as Panama and other places.

John's brother, one brother-in-law, two nephews, the husband of a niece, my uncle and John's cousins have all been in the service. And the history of family members who have fought for our country goes back to the Spanish American War, the Civil War, the War of 1812, and The Revolutionary War.

I remember marching in the Denver Veterans' Day Parade when I was in the pep club in high school. In 1973, John and I were in Washington, DC, on Veteran's Day and attended the ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery when the head of the Veterans Administration laid the wreath at the Grave of the Unknown Soldier.

I am so grateful I live in this wonderful country, that I am free to do and say what I want, go where I want. I am grateful that so many people over the centuries have served to preserve that freedom and to help other people and countries be free from oppression. Thank you to all who have served and to those who have died to give me this way of life.

Product Review

In August, we decided we needed a new laptop computer. The old one John had been using was having serious problems--not starting, not shutting down, etc. My laptop was still working well. Since John spend most of his online time using his iPad and I am usually on a computer, we decided I would get the new computer and John would use my old one when he needed to write in Word. We decided on a touch screen computer, since both of us have become accustomed to that. Then the saga began.

We were in Minnesota and went to the Walmart in Albert Lea, where we bought an HP laptop with a touch screen. Our last four or more computers have been HPs, so we expected another good experience. It worked fine for a week, but then quit. So, we returned it to the Rapid City, SD, Walmart, then bought a Dell touch screen model at Best Buy. Before returning the computer, I had done some online research and Dell had very good reviews. The day we bought it, as I was doing the initial setup, the touch screen stopped responding. So, back we went to Rapid City and Best Buy. This time, we bought a Lenovo Ultrabook. I had to ask, who makes the Lenovo? It is an IBM product, I was told.

This computer is small. It starts up extremely fast--no waiting for everything to load. On the whole, I am very pleased.

I do have a few issues, in case you are looking at an Ultrabook. You will notice the scotch tape on the left part of the touch pad. When I am in low light, I can't see the line that separates the left and right buttons so the tape helps me do it by touch. Also, one reason the computer is so small and light is because it doesn't have a CD drive and the hard drive isn't really large enough for all my photos. So, I have an external CD drive and an external hard drive.

The Ultrabook is a cross between a tablet and a computer, so I can fold the screen 180 degrees and use it like I do the iPad, or I can put it in the tent shape and have it stand up on the counter when I am following a recipe saved on the device. I think I have the best of both worlds.

A couple of other bits and pieces of our last few days.

There was a beautiful full moon the other evening.

We bought a couple of bookcases for the bedroom, as well as some baskets for storage on what is called a plant shelf above the closet. Look how well the painted twigs on the sides of the bookcases pick up the colors of our new bedspread.

Saturday we attended a CPR/first aid certification class at our church, taught by members of the Chandler Fire Department. Scott and Nate were the instructors. When you spend most of your life around people of our age, you never know when someone might stop breathing!

Like most newlyweds in the mid-1960s, our first home was an inexpensive one-bedroom apartment.  I imagine it didn't have more than 250 square feet of floor space.  Over the years, we moved on to a two-bedroom apartment  A month of so before our first son was born, we bought a 12' by 60' mobile home.  About three years later, we bought an actual stick and brick house that was 1200 square feet plus a full basement.  We had three bedrooms by then, making room to have another son a year or so later.

Next, we sold that home and purchased John's family's funeral home.  There we had a 3,000 square foot house attached to the business which was another 3,000 square feet.  We loved living there.  We had plenty of room for overnight guests and were able to entertain and hold church gatherings there.  Would we keep going bigger and bigger?  No.

When we sold the funeral home, we moved into a small condominium where we lived during the three years John attended seminary.  I loved that home.  For the next few years, we lived first in a rented home of about 1,200 square feet and then a smaller vacation condo in the Colorado mountains while John was serving churches there.  It isn't really convenient to live in a place designed for weekend ski vacations.  We had quite a bit of space but very little storage room.

When John was called to a church in the Denver area, we rented a neat townhouse until we found a home we wanted to buy.  We loved that house in Centennial and lived there till we decided to become full-time RVers.  The same couple has been renting it for nearly six years.  Yea.
We have really enjoyed living in small spaces most of our married life.  In fact, I also grew up in a house that had only 900 square feet and didn't feel cramped.  All of this may explain why we have been content to live in an RV with about 300+ square feet of space for six years and why we just purchased a winter home that only has 716 feet of floor space.  We feel comfortable in this kind of space.  It is compact, easy to clean, and convenient. 

There is a Tiny House movement these days.  And the Swedish store IKEA features furniture that can equip small living spaces of 100 and 400 square feet in their stores.  I must admit, 100 to 200 feet is just not enough space for us these days.  But less than 1,000 feet is great for our style of living.

Change of Scenery

There really is more here in southern Arizona than RV resorts, a new house and furniture shopping. Today we finally had a change of scenery, going to the Gilbert Water Ranch and Riparian Area for our morning walk. In an effort to recharge the underground aquifers, the town of Gilbert has created a number of ponds which attract numerous birds and encourage lots of plants to grow in this desert area. This a view of one of the paths.

At times, one or more ponds are dry.

But all you have to do is add water and the birds come.

We saw great egrets

There were cormorants and what I think are snowy egrets feeding together. There must have been a school of fish and the birds followed each other from one place to another.

There were mallard ducks

and northern pintails

There wasn't too much water. Obviously, it wasn't even 3 feet deep.

We also saw spotting scopes (and a group of bird watchers nearby).

 And lots of people walking with their children or their dogs, horseback riders and a few bike riders.

Note to self: go there mid-week, not on the weekend.