Sandhill Cranes

We took our friends, Wayne and Judy to White Water Draw on Monday to see the Sandhill Cranes. This is a wintering site for something like 20,000 Sandhill Cranes and we try to get out there to see them at least once before they leave for their summer breeding grounds around mid March. We arrived about 10:30 am and not much happening on the pond except a good close look at the rich colors of a family of Cinnamon Teal. Then a flock of snow geese flew in which was nice, but the real show started just before 11am. A small flock of maybe a dozen cranes flew in from their morning foraging on nearby agricultural fields. Pretty soon we could hear another flock of maybe 20 birds "clattering" as they headed to their resting spot. For about two hours straight it was wave after wave of birds descending from the skies and jockeying for a place along the shore of the wetland until it was a sea of grey chattering Sandhill Cranes. Pretty amazing show. Here they will rest and roost for the night until they disperse at dawn to glean what they can from fields all across the Sulphur Springs Valley.

A Great Horned Owl watched us eat our picnic lunch from the rafters of the pole barn where we found some shade. Earlier there were actually two of them but only one was still there at lunch time.

Rooftop view

This is the view of my backyard from my roof top. And that's the Catalina Mountains to the east and the Tucson mountains across the valley to the west--from the roof of our house. We have lived here 5 years now and this is the first time I was on the roof. Really interesting view of the neighborhood. We were up there for a good reason. Will is sealing the roof with a waterproof coating material--something you have to do every few years in the Southwest if you have a flat roof like ours. He had to patch a few places that were showing signs of cracks, clean it off so material would adhere and then roll on two coats of the product. He said it was hot up there during mid day--I thought it was a nice view.

I think I have been permanently corrupted. I recently got introduced to real Kona coffee and think I might become addicted. Bought my first very expensive bag of beans on the Big Island in Hawaii while we toured a coffee farm. Now that we are home I have looked on the Internet and found a source of slightly less expensive green beans that I can have shipped to my house. I have been experimenting with roasting my own beans for about a year now but this is the first coffee that I can say that I can tell a absolute distinct taste. The only word that comes to mind is smooth and creamy--that is probably not the right vernacular for coffee connoisseurs but it works for me.

Back home in Tucson. . .

My citrus trees are having a banner year. Can't keep up with the lemons and grapefruit. How many lemons can one use in a day? Can't stand to see them go to waste so I freeze the juice, give bag fulls away and make lots of lemonade and a few yummy deserts. We eat grapefruit every day and I'm juicing all I can of those also. In fact, the lemon trees are also starting to produce blossom for next years fruit. What a pretty fruit hanging on the tree with its bright glossy leaves. In case you didn't know, they are desert adaptive in that they also have really nasty thorns on the branches so picking them is an art. I haven't gotten the hang of it as I come away with some nasty scratches and pokes.

Picking fresh citrus is one of the glorious things about living in Arizona.

Sarasota, Florida

Will and I traveled to Sarasota, Florida for 4 days to attend a Partner's Worldwide planning and board meeting. Turned out to be a good and inspiring conference attended by many devoted and careing people who have a heart for doing something about poverty in the world. I had a bit more free time than Will did so I got to see a little more of the area than he did. Sarasota is a nice city on the Gulf Coast and we are anxious to return someday to really check it out. Together we managed to see the downtown area and some of the barrier islands and spent several hours at the Ringling Museum. It is a first class art museum specializing in Italian Renaissance art but also an interesting circus museum and Ringling mansion. Obviously the Ringlings made their money in other ways besides the circus, successful as it was, as the grand home will attest. I spent an afternoon at the Marie Selby Botanical Garden, one of the nicest botanical gardens I have visited specializing in epiphytes (orchids. ) got some birding time in also. And the best part was meeting up with Tess and Gerry VanderVorst--old neighbors and dear friends from our Minnesota days--for dinner at a wonderful Peruvian restaurant. They were vacationing in Florida and we just happened to find out we would both be in Sarasota at the same time. Was so fun to spend a few hours together catching up on each other's news.

You'd think we were still in Hawaii