Wednesday, March 31, 2010

More of the same...

Here are some random shots of a hike and some work pictures, mostly critters and flowers....what do you expect from the biologist?


Not usually into spideys but this one had the shape of a daddy long legs but had the most beautiful colors!! he was purple with black and white specs on his legs!


Taj-It's the poppie that grew from concrete:)..get it?! This gal was amazing standing straight up outta a massive rock on our 12 mile excursion, we were planning on doing 8 miles but decided that we didnt want to turn around since the 8 miles would be there and back, instead we opted for the loop which was 12.5 miles and then it dumped us 2 miles from the car...suffice to say it was one of the longest day hikes we ever took!...but now we consider ourselves hardcore:)


LOVE HIM!!



Strawberry hedgehog cactus!



I loved this ocotillo bloom!



A very curious Canyon wren, what a pie!



Gotta love it!



So, i know it's dificult to see but there is a FAWN!!! They were at the base of my OP and it was amazing! i have to admit i wanted the fawn to be cuter than it was. Although, i do understand that these animals need to be able to run immediately and fast! so he was bigger than i suspected..still cute:)



but this guy totally made up for it! He was/is by far the cutest thing i have ever seen!! still waiting on a friend to tell me the species....

love you guys and take care..I'm sure Shyam will come back with some cool camping pictures and you will be able to see some different stuff:) ac
Hey guys! Hope everyone is doing well. I think the weather has improved for most of us, so we will all be able to get out a little more. And thanks for the concern Amanda, there has not been any flooding where I live luckily. My area is prone to flooding and I did have about six inches of water under my car the first week I moved here in November. But nothing now.

I didn't really have anything going this month, so I compiled some pics and put them together in this posting. And most of them are of the mouth-watering bbq I made a while back. :)







On the left is about 60% of a Boston Butt that I got. I figured there was no way I could eat an entire one in any reasonable amount of time. And I am glad I did because it took about 2 weeks to eat all the bbq I did make. I didn't season it or anything being that it was my first attempt to make homemade bbq. So I just put it in the casserole dish and popped it in the oven for about 10 hours at about 250 degrees or less. At first it smelled really bad and I thought I had done something wrong, but that was the blood slowly cooking away (or whatever blood does). After 10 hours or so I opened up the oven to see this beautiful piece of cooked pork. :)










Out of the oven an into the pot to cool a little bit. Once it was a little cooler, I used a fork and my hands to just shred the pork. In the picture to the left in the pot, you can kind of see the bone on the left of the meat. It literally fell right off the meat. I've heard of the meat falling of the bone, but never the bone falling out of the meat. Anyway, once it was shredded it was ready to fix.








Ahh, the final result. A nice pot of pulled pork bbq with a can if Simpler Times. Nice fuckin combination if you ask me. The pic of my car is to show the work I had done on it. I wish I took a before shot to compare to, but I couldn't bare to see my car in such bad shape so I never took a picture of it. The work was unbelievable. Apparently, the guy who did the work used to paint Ford Buy-backs, and if the paint did not match, then Ford did not buy back the car. So he is very good at what he does. I also got the engine tuned up and four new tires. She is ready for road! (once I get current plates that is)













To the left is the spot where I would like to put the fire pit. Of course the Holly Bush would have to go in order to make room for the pit. And that means the first thing I would do in the backyard is cut down an old tree, and that kinda sucks. So, I have put that project on the back burner for a little while. On the right is all the things I have been up to the past few weeks. I took a few classes at the Norfolk Department of Public Health in order to be certified by the city to be a food safety manager. It was not necessary at my job, but I felt that it couldn't hurt to have on the resume some certifications. Plus the CPR and First Aid is just nice to know.

Wish I had more exciting things to show, but it has been kind of a grind this last month. The weather has just changed to Spring last week so I will try to get out and take some nice pics.

Take Care,
sh

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Spring Bloom vs. Spring Training...

I have to admit that i have never seen a desert bloom until this season and it is just amazing! We have had more rain this year than last year already and it is supposed to keep coming so the blooms will continue!




<-----Mexican poppies, Desert lupine and Owl's clover. Below is hat mountain, we take this drive bi-weekly doing raptor surveys











These are Ajo lillies-just amazing springing to life in the middle of the desert..outta stones and dirt. They can get to be 4 ft tall!







<-----not sure about the species but thought they were amazing coming out of the rocks










spring bloom of Mexican poppies



This is Alamo Lake-Shyam checked it out last week in hopes of finding good camping for when Justin arrives..i think he was a bit disappointed. beautiful body of water though!
...and look what he ran into while looking...feral mules or wild ass-whichever you prefer! i mean who gets lucky enough to run into wild ass when you're not even looking for some:) nice one, babe!


We finally made it to a spring training game the last weekend of the season and i may be tempted to drag him out for the remainder 4 games i had such a blast! Thanks for sucking it up honey-its gonna be so much worse when we are sitting on the couch indoors watching baseball:)

Hohokam Stadium-this is the Cubs Spring Training stadium where they hold all of their home games in Mesa, AZ.















Hooray for baseball and Sunshine!


Not a bad view at all....











And here is Shyam representing my city!!

Decide for yourself; nature w/ wildflowers, cacti, and mountains or baseball, butts and beer? Sunshine included in both:)...i think i need a round 2 of both to decide:)...keep ya posted:)

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Springtime in the Desert

Hey guys, I've really been enjoying everyone's posts, makes us all feel a bit closer. So here's my contribution, and you better appreciate it cuz it took me forever. -ss
The Biologist in action! The frontlines of the conservation effort! Sorry, but this photo makes me want to write an article for the sierra club or something. Amanda finally got my lazy ass outta bed in the wee hours of the morning to see what she does for a living now. It was pretty cool, I must admit. I even got to see some of the elusive pronghorns. And yes Steve, they did look tasty :) But they were too far away to get a picture. It was a great day, we went out afterwards looking for bighorn sheep, but alas, to no avail. We will try again though, and dammit, I'm gonna find a gila monster in this enormous desert if its the last thing I do!



Last weekend we went for a 9 mile hike in the White Tank Mountains, about 30 minutes from our house. It was awesome, but man I was feeling it the next day! Here's some highlights.



Cactus Nest





Ocotillo Cactus in bloom.











Check out how green the desert is. All that rain really livened things up.




Towards the end of our hike. Like my caballero hat? I know you want one :)






We've been camping the last couple night in the Tonto national forest. It was nice to get outta town. We also went for a beautiful hike yesterday but unfortunately the camera batteries died so we didn't get any pics of that one. Here's what we did get though.

This was the view from our campsite. It looks this nice cuz Amanda purposefully aimed away from all the trash stuck in the trees out there. This portion of the Salt River is popular with rafters, fishermen and kids coming outta town to party. We had originally planned on camping at the Lost Dutchmen State Park, but it was full. Also found out that due to budget cuts Arizona will be closing 13 state parks in June, which is a bummer man. So we'll have to try and see as many as possible before that happens.



I like the colors in this cliff..



This is Saguaro Lake in the Tonto National Forest.








The Salt River below Saguaro lake.



Flowers...



More Flowers...



And a whole bunch more. Pretty cool to see the desert bloom.











Friday, March 19, 2010

Hiking Fun!

...and I'm back, and it hasn't been very long since I posted last! :) I sure do miss you all, and (as I already told Steve), I'm getting really excited about our upcoming visit! After looking further into it, the Mt. Hood hike appears perfectly manageable until mid-June, so it looks to be all coming together for a great June adventure for everyone! What is the AZ crew thinking at this point?

The weather here in the NW has been absolutely unusual... there's this weird yellow thing in the sky almost daily, and the ground has this odd solid consistency and lacks the normal puddles and worms. So, in the mindset of getting in shape, enjoying the weather, and making you all miss this place even more, I've gone on a few hikes in the last week. On the WA side of the river, I went to Rodney and Hardy Falls last friday. Then, on Monday, Kim, Mickinzie (her daughter), and I hiked up to Angel's Rest (on the OR side). On wednesday, Kim, Rose (my sis), and I did Multnomah and Wahkeena Falls, which was an awesome 5.4 mile loop. The pics are below...

Rodney and Hardy Falls








Angel's Rest










Multnomah and Wahkeena Falls









And, since I promised them, some great shots from the coast a month and a week ago...