Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Environment

Almost Cloudless
Plus an Irish Feast

The (clickable) satellite image above was taken the morning of August 4th showing the southwest and Arizona in particular having virtually no cloud cover. There are a few cumulus clouds forming over the mountains north of the Grand Canyon at the time this image was taken. We seem to be having a lack of our usual monsoon rains with a side effect of warmer than usual temperatures. Rest assured that there will eventually be a return to normal to come hopefully sooner than later. The global climate scammers are unnecessarily worrisome over normal weather deviations.

Now that we’re about halfway between Summer Solstice and Autumn Equinox it is again a Celtic Cross Quarter celebration of Lughnasadh which means (to us) that there must be a traditional Irish or Scottish meal to be consumed. So, Damsel is being creative and will offer a hybrid Western/Gaelic feast consisting of a Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado and Tomato Chicken Salad (western) served over Homemade Soda Bread (Irish). There may be a traditional Irish Cocktail involved.

We will be posting about our feast on our Food Website later this weekend. Meanwhile, everybody please enjoy your weekend with whatever you consider to be relaxing.

04 Aug 2023 by Arizona Environment Food & Dining Global Warming Notions

Flowering Paloverde Trees

This is the time of year when most of the paloverde trees get bright yellow flowers on them. In addition to the naturally occurring native paloverde trees in this part of the desert, we asked our landscape guys to provide some additional trees for us. In July of 2021, they planted a mesquite and a paloverde along the west side of our lot. The tree in the (clickable) image above is how the 2021 paloverde looks today, all decked out in little yellow flowers.

Last August, 2022, we had the landscape guys plant two more little paloverdes in front of the house along the road. Those trees are also showing off their flowers this week (pictured below).

In the preceding (clickable) image, you may notice a few native desert paloverdes also with yellow canopies on the hillside west of our abode (image left). As we took our afternoon stroll today, we enjoyed seeing not only all the desert paloverdes in bloom, but some of the saguaro flowers are starting to open up. Spring is a beautiful time in the desert. Cool too – only 97 today in the shade.

22 May 2023 by Arizona Environment Flowers Home & Garden Notions

Vernal Equinox 2023

OK — the first day of Spring and the Equinox are here. The nights of darkness and days of sunlight are of equal lengths, according to the official astronomical ephemeris. However, at our particular latitude and longitude here in Arizona, the day length grew to just over twelve hours last Wednesday per the actual observed sunrise to sunset times. So, we can look forward to longer days peaking at the Summer Solstice and then on to the Fall Equinox when they fall back to be less than 12 hours again.

As of a couple of weeks ago, the Turkey Buzzards have begun to migrate back to Arizona and other northern places, I assume. These vultures bring the promise of warmer conditions for us, although there is still some cooler weather and precipitation still headed our way.

Even though it will be a month or more before the Pride of Barbados or Red Bird of Paradise shrubs to return from their winter slumber (we cut them back to nearly ground level in the fall). We expect that the hummers will begin to take advantage of the nectar when the gorgeous flowers return to our courtyard.

Enjoy the warmer weather and longer daylight. We know we will be enjoying the spring weather, birds and flowers.

Images courtesy of Damsel.

20 Mar 2023 by Astronomy Environment Notions

In Like a Lion

Now that I’m finally posting Damsel’s photo of a light dusting in the local foothills, it has all melted or sublimated away. However, we did get some snow in the area with freezing temperatures in early March which isn’t totally unusual for us. We’re at about 2200 feet above sea level here and have on occasion had snow stick here in town.

I know that other regions in our Nation have had much colder winter weather than we’ve recently experienced and, in fact, so have we here in past years. However, this is the coldest we have had this winter and it’s happening in accordance with the March Proverb.

Normally, this would be the time of late winter when we’re beginning to have cactus flowers blooming and other signs of impending spring. And, as a matter of fact, Damsel and I just walked out into the rock and cactus gardens and verified that there are tiny flower buds appearing on the prickly pear, beavertail, hedgehog and Argentine Giant cacti. I’m sure that Damsel will be posting a few early spring cactus flower pictures in a few weeks or less.

All that remains now, is for the March weather to go out like a lamb and then, in a few more weeks, come back like a fire-breathing dragon when the summer temperatures return to our Sonoran Desert — and we’re OK with that.

p.s. If you think that weather and climate can be influenced by anthropogenic (man-made) activities, please refer to our on-line paper about The Great Climate Hoax.

06 Mar 2023 by Arizona Environment Global Warming

Musk Hog Day — February 02, 2023

Musk Hog (Javelina) in our back yard. Clickable

Well, we didn’t seem to have any groundhogs handy, so a Javelina (a.k.a. “collared peccary” and “Musk Hog”) will have to do. Anyhow, the critter saw it’s shadow today and I guess that means that we in Arizona will have six more weeks of Winter. You know, the kind of winter weather that makes places like we live in very popular for people who don’t have mild weather at this time of year, hence the infusion of “snowbirds” into our community.

So that means it will be at least six more weeks of extra bodies in the stores and extra vehicles on the roads before the part-time residents begin to head back to their tundra. Maybe more than six weeks since our experience shows a couple of snowbird exodus dates being IRS Day (4/15) and Memorial Day. By Flag Day (6/14) they should be mostly gone.

I shouldn’t focus on only the snowbirds, since there are a lot of other temporary visitors this time of year. We have the influx of Team Ropers (rodeo), the Senior Pro Rodeo, Gold Rush Days and the carnival and parade that go along with those events. It’s good for the community and the businesses here.

So, getting back to the topic of the environment and the weather conditions here, we expect to have gradually warming days leading up to spring equinox and more significant warming thereafter. As we age, our bones and joints seem to appreciate the warmer conditions, so we are looking forward to the highs in the low 100s and lows in the mid 80s that should be here in a couple of months. That and the nearly empty roads, parking lots and shopping aisles will be welcome as well.

02 Feb 2023 by Arizona Critters Environment

Solar Ephemeris Back On-Line

Solar Ephemeris from the Wandering Minstrel Sidebar — March 24, 2018

Remember the Solar Ephemeris sidebar widget from the old Wandering Minstrel blog theme? The widget gave daily information about the sun cycle: you know, daybreak, sunrise, sunset and so forth. Well, I have it back on-line in the form of a sidebar link to a dedicated page that has the old widget code embedded in it.

I had some problems with making it work with the newer versions of the PHP server-side software that the ISP uses. There were some minor, but show-stopping changes to the software that killed the Ephemeris code that ran on the old Minstrel site. I spent a couple of hours debugging the code yesterday and now have the prototype running again in the “Solar Ephemeris” page. Click on the link or select the page from the sidebar. Disclaimer: it’s still a work in progress and is subject to formatting changes.

One of these days, I might start on an interactive widget where users can put in their own geographical coordinates to see the sun’s daily times for their location.

06 Jan 2023 by Astronomy Environment Notions Technobabble

Cooler Weather Is Now Happening

Damsel took this photo earlier this month before we cleared out the Red Bird shrubs in the courtyard. A nice butterfly lit on one of the last flowers of the season to sip its nectar. The shrubs are now cut to the ground and will be dormant for the next several months. Photo courtesy of Damsel — Click on the image to enlarge.

We had some rain showers over the last week or so and today the temperatures are quite a bit cooler than when Damsel took the photo above. Then, the highs were in the mid-nineties and today the high was below eighty. Brrrr. It’s time to break out the longies and put the shorts away until spring.

We enjoyed the weekend despite the cooler weather. We had excellent food on the table both days: Cajun Gumbo on Saturday and Jägerschnitzel today. Click on the links for photos and details. Both meals were consistent with our low-carb, low-sodium diets (within reason, that is) and were excellent. Damsel did most of the work, but I collaborated by performing the sous chef tasks she required. What a good eating weekend — and there are leftovers for during the upcoming week.

We will be changing out of our summer garb in favor of the flannel and hoodies we wear during the cooler months. Of course, we are blessed that we live in a climate that isn’t as harsh as some places in the world. We will deal with our climes just fine as we have in the past years since we moved here.

In closing, just a quick note — we’re suffering as many in the nation who are on a fixed income with the increased cost of living due to Brandonomics™. We’re dealing with it, however, and hope that after the coming midterm elections that we can turn the corner back towards fiscal sanity, border security and (thanks to the SCOTUS) Second Amendment rights restoration. Just remember to get out and VOTE. Tell your friends, neighbors and family to do likewise

23 Oct 2022 by Arizona Critters Environment Flowers

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