HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY KAELYN JOY!
Have a fun day celebrating life.
Hugs and Kisses from your Great Aunt Arizona
Thursday, July 16, 2009
happy birthday hokey pokey
Have a fun day celebrating life.
Hugs and Kisses from your Great Aunt Arizona
Monday, July 13, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
dancing with the prickley pear
After our Saguaro fruit adventures Jay and I were both excited to see the fruit on the Prickley Pear Cactus were turning red.
We got up early last weekend, donned gloves, hats and backpacks with water bottles and headed to the trail head near our house.
Our elderly neighbors recently told about the tiny needles of the Prickley Pear fruit and how they get stuck in your skin and are painful and hard to get out. It wasn't long before we discovered just what they were talking about. I quickly declared my job was to take a tool and scrape as many of the needles off the goads (small bumps where the needles grow) as possible before Jay picked the fruit. That way I had very little contact with the offending prickers.
After filling a backpack with fruit and a rubber glove with pickers we headed home with our haul. After researching on the Internet, we decided we would burn the needles off the fruit and then hopefully be able to cut them open and extract the fruit without further pain.
That evening we set up a table outside where we could be cooled by the misting system and set to work. It was after midnight before we finally stopped...with a pile of fruit still remaining. Unlike the Saguaro fruit, the seeds in the Prickley Pear fruit are big and hard and undesirable in jam.
Between the prickers and the seeds I was happy to hear my husband announce that this was going to be our one and only experience harvesting Prickley Pear fruit.
We got up early last weekend, donned gloves, hats and backpacks with water bottles and headed to the trail head near our house.
Our elderly neighbors recently told about the tiny needles of the Prickley Pear fruit and how they get stuck in your skin and are painful and hard to get out. It wasn't long before we discovered just what they were talking about. I quickly declared my job was to take a tool and scrape as many of the needles off the goads (small bumps where the needles grow) as possible before Jay picked the fruit. That way I had very little contact with the offending prickers.
After filling a backpack with fruit and a rubber glove with pickers we headed home with our haul. After researching on the Internet, we decided we would burn the needles off the fruit and then hopefully be able to cut them open and extract the fruit without further pain.
That evening we set up a table outside where we could be cooled by the misting system and set to work. It was after midnight before we finally stopped...with a pile of fruit still remaining. Unlike the Saguaro fruit, the seeds in the Prickley Pear fruit are big and hard and undesirable in jam.
Between the prickers and the seeds I was happy to hear my husband announce that this was going to be our one and only experience harvesting Prickley Pear fruit.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
why i love arizona #4
I love shopping at
More organized than Goodwill...
Cleaner than Salvation Army....
Larger than any second hand store I've visited before....
Multiple locations throughout the city....
Thursday is my favorite day to visit Savers as that is the day the new sale color tag is introduced. Thursday through the weekend that particular color is on sale for half price.
Monday morning Savers shopping is only for the brave and seasoned shopper. On Monday the color that was half price the previous week now sell for $1.00 regardless of the original price. People line up outside the store before the doors open at 9 AM. If you are interested in women's clothing and you arrive at 9:15 you are too late. In the first fifteen minute each rack has been searched and stripped of any decent garments with the sale color. Shopping carts are stacked to overflowing. People buy the clothing and then take it across the boarder to Mexico and resell it. Buyer beware...you don't want to mess with the professional shoppers or you just might get hurt.
More organized than Goodwill...
Cleaner than Salvation Army....
Larger than any second hand store I've visited before....
Multiple locations throughout the city....
Thursday is my favorite day to visit Savers as that is the day the new sale color tag is introduced. Thursday through the weekend that particular color is on sale for half price.
Monday morning Savers shopping is only for the brave and seasoned shopper. On Monday the color that was half price the previous week now sell for $1.00 regardless of the original price. People line up outside the store before the doors open at 9 AM. If you are interested in women's clothing and you arrive at 9:15 you are too late. In the first fifteen minute each rack has been searched and stripped of any decent garments with the sale color. Shopping carts are stacked to overflowing. People buy the clothing and then take it across the boarder to Mexico and resell it. Buyer beware...you don't want to mess with the professional shoppers or you just might get hurt.
Friday, July 3, 2009
silly lily reads a book
As I've been collecting children's books the last few weeks, I've been using peanut butter to remove the sticky left when I take off the price tags. Lily frequently helps clean up the peanut butter after the sticky removing is done. The other day she discovered that the stacks of books that are on the living room floor smell like peanut butter. I watched her pick up a book out of the stack. When I said something to her she dropped the book in the middle of the living room floor. I had a good laugh when I saw the title of the book she chose.
Silly Lily!
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
dance of the saguaro jam
Earlier this spring the Saguaro cacti that live in our yard began to bloom. Their blooms were high on the top of their trunk so were tricky for me to photograph until I found one that had fallen to the ground. Birds of all sizes love them, even the little Humming birds.
At the end of their bloom life the flowers dried on the end of the young saguaro fruit. Many of the dried blooms would fall to the ground where it was easy to mistake them for dog do-do.
As the fruit grew and became ripe it split open to expose the seeds inside. Again the birds flocked to the cactus and feasted on the sweet treat.
Jay has been in competition with the birds and the ants to see who could get the ripe fruit first. Sometimes he uses a ladder and climbs up and plucks the fruit off. Other times he uses a long pole with a homemade picker/catcher taped to the end.
After the fruit is harvested the seeds can be removed by cutting the fruit in half and scraping the inside.
Then it's into the pot to boil down, a little sugar, a little lemon juice and....
yum! Saguaro jam!
At the end of their bloom life the flowers dried on the end of the young saguaro fruit. Many of the dried blooms would fall to the ground where it was easy to mistake them for dog do-do.
As the fruit grew and became ripe it split open to expose the seeds inside. Again the birds flocked to the cactus and feasted on the sweet treat.
Jay has been in competition with the birds and the ants to see who could get the ripe fruit first. Sometimes he uses a ladder and climbs up and plucks the fruit off. Other times he uses a long pole with a homemade picker/catcher taped to the end.
After the fruit is harvested the seeds can be removed by cutting the fruit in half and scraping the inside.
Then it's into the pot to boil down, a little sugar, a little lemon juice and....
yum! Saguaro jam!
Sunday, June 28, 2009
salvation army march
Imagine my surprise when I walked in the Salvation Army Store looking for children's books and there, front and center on the bric-a-brack display, was a cow milk pitcher just like the one we had when I was growing up. Similar to the one that was passed on to my niece Julie, this cow also was missing the "moo" box that made an entertaining noise when the cow was tipped. The $15.00 price tag seem like a good deal for such sweet childhood memories. But wait...to my delight I overheard the cashier telling shoppers that if they waited 20 minutes to make their purchases everything in the store would be on sale for 50% off. What a wonderful find.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
