Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Retirement

Planning for the 2012 Annular Solar Eclipse

path.jpgAs Jack Horkheimer used to say (before passing) “keep Looking Up.” That’s why we’re starting to plan for a fairly short trip in May to witness an annular solar eclipse. The path of maximum eclipse extends from Asia, across the Pacific and then through the western United States. The path in Arizona will pass over Page and continue into New Mexico to Albuquerque.

Image: Path of maximum annular eclipse. Click to enlarge

Our target destination will be to go to Chinle, AZ, adjacent to the Canyon De Chelly National Park. In the image, you can see that the red path goes right over Navajo land and just along the southern part of the national park. Our plan is to tow a travel trailer to the area and find a place to camp after the eclipse that will occur on May 20, 2012.

I’m ordering some eclipse shades and a solar filter for each of our two cameras for the event. We are hoping for some excellent pictures of one of the most spectacular events to happen on Earth.

01 Feb 2012 by Astronomy Environment Retirement Travel

Rosemary Progress

mar2011.jpgLast March, we had the landscaping crew plant rosemary bushes on the embankment behind the house along the RV drive. They planted approximately sixty one-gallon bushes in diagonal rows of two or three down the slope of the embankment. They set up the irrigation tubes and started the automatic timer for the watering cycle. The photo at the right shows a section of the embankment with the newly-planted rosemary bushes.

jan2012.jpgYesterday, Damsel took this picture of the embankment. The two photos were taken looking toward about the same area of the embankment. The top photo was taken in the morning while the bottom photo in the late afternoon. It has been roughly ten months since the rosemary were planted and the progress is obvious. Eventually, we’re hoping that the rosemary will cover the entire embankment to help stabilize the erosion and to make a pleasant backdrop along the RV drive.

Click either image to enlarge.

25 Jan 2012 by Arizona Home & Garden Retirement

Rejuvenating the Compost Heap

compost.jpgCompost red wiggler worms slow down their consumption of organic scraps in the wintertime, but we humans keep producing the scraps. So, to reinforce the worm workload, we ordered a thousand more red wigglers from Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm.

Image – the compost bin after introducing the new worms. Click on the image to enlarge.

The worms arrived in the mail today, so to get things started, I gave them a “drink.” The worms are packed in dry peat and come in a bag (see insert in photo). The next step was to dig down below the organic scraps in the compost bin to the layer of worm castings below. I added some moist garden soil and put the ball of worms on top of the soil. The instructions that come with the worms say to cover them with a wet newspaper. The worms will absorb the moisture and begin to crawl into the soil and thence start consuming scraps within 48 hours.

11 Jan 2012 by Critters Environment Home & Garden Retirement

The Quailing Wall

quailing-wall.jpg

When we returned from running errands today, we were greeted by a covey of quail on and around the courtyard wall. We have seen them do this before, but this is the first time my camera caught them in the act. When we first arrived, there were five or six on the wall but as I approached with the camera, they started to retreat toward the wash. Click on the image to enlarge.

05 Jan 2012 by Critters Photography Retirement

Gorgeous Autumn Days

We had some rainfall over the weekend (and some hail too). After the weather passed, we have been having beautiful weather. The temperatures during the daytime have been around the low to mid 50’s and the night temperatures are just a hair below freezing.

I took this photo from the ridge just about a quarter mile north of our house. The Bradshaw mountains are in the background with the northeast part of our little town visible below the rim of mountains. We think that there may be a little snow on the north side of the mountains after the weekend precipitation. One of these days, we will take a drive up that way after the next snowfall for some photo ops. Click on the image to enlarge.

pretty-day.jpg

06 Dec 2011 by Arizona Environment Photography Retirement

Lower Casandro Wash

lower-casandro.jpg

This is the view looking east from the point where our access road meets the pavement. The hieroglyph mountains are in the distance and the wash runs downward toward a storm drain about a quarter mile away. Click on the image to enlarge.

21 Nov 2011 by Arizona Retirement

Lemon Harvest

lemon.jpgNow that the lemons are ripe, we went to the “orchard” next to the RV drive and pruned off all the lemons. These are the “Lisbon” variety of lemons. There were about forty on the tree before we picked them today.

The bucket in the image to the left measures about a foot in diameter and is fifteen inches deep. Click on the image to enlarge.

Most of the lemons are quite large. We’re planning on giving some to the neighbors and keeping a few in our fruit bowl for our Friday fish meal.

18 Nov 2011 by Arizona Home & Garden Retirement

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