Last Week

Had a humdinger of a dust devil come through. And my clothesline?

Lost the game.

Womp womp.

The end.

It died.

My corn is growing ears.

Now we shall see if kernels develop.

Gardening requires much patience.

Bill started on making a circle driveway out front.

It's going to go across here.

When it's done, I can plan my front steps up to the porch and re-landscape it all! 

Here is a view from the other side.

I am pretty amazed by myself.....

Not only do I kill scorpions with a flyswatter,

I fought a rattle snake with a board!

Yup.

Me.

I did it all by myself.

Bet you are impressed with me too!

One evening I was going to shut off the garden irrigation down by the shed and there was a diamondback rattler right in the path.

I was watching it and it wouldn't move. I was home alone so I waited and it slowly started moving into the rocks.

Then I realized I would have to walk back up the path and I wouldn't know where the snake was so I HAD to deal with it. I grabbed a board and as it came out of the bigger rocks I started whacking it.
There was quite a frantic hullabaloo going on for a few minutes there.

As I was walloping him, it kept rattling it's tail and trying to get at me. I hit it so hard a few times it bounced up in the air. Finally it got up near the house wall and I used the board and kept ramming it's head into the wall but it kept on trying to go under the rocks.

Finally.

It curled up in a ball and cried for it's mommy.

After I quit shaking and my goosebumps went away I wiped my sweaty brow.
Then I counted coup and did a little victory dance.

And boyohboy was I so proud of myself!

By this time Bill was almost home but it was getting dark so I used my phone's flashlight to watch it til then. Bill picked it up with a pincher tool and put it in a 5 gallon bucket with a lid. We decided if it wasn't dead, it was nearly so because it barely moved.

The next morning I took this photo. That is the 5' long 2x6 board that I used.

I was scrambling with that snake over a distance of 12 feet.

And then later Bill reported that when he went to dispose of the snake-
it slithered away!

Guess it was just a yellow-bellied cry-baby faker.

I still won.

Last Thursday came our first monsoon storm. It was so exciting! We haven't had rain since March 4th. 

It was so beautiful to sit on the front porch and watch the 'walking rain' in the sunset.

And we could smell rain in the cool breeze!

We didn't get any rain until later in the evening and it wasn't measurable, but still- reason to celebrate!

It had kinda bugged us that the bunting we had for our MN house was too small for this house but I decided to not worry about it. Then we went to eat at the Cracker Barrel a week before Independence Day and they had bunting on sale!

First!- See the clouds in the sky?!! Woot woot! The monsoons really have arrived!

These new buntings are 6' long and 3' wide and they only cost $22 each so we decided to go for it. We had priced bunting online and it was way too expensive to justify. 

←This is what our old bunting looked like.

Pretty wimpy!

I'm happy we went to eat at the Cracker Barrel that weekend. 

Exciting news for the San Pedro River.

source

From Arizona Highways....

"As Arizona Public Media reports, the county and The Nature Conservancy have joined forces to build a series of retention basins in the land near the San Pedro River . The basins will slow down the flow of rainwater out of the Huachuca Mountains, allowing more of it to seep into the aquifers that feed the river.The 2.5 million project aims to keep the river flowing even during the dry season. If it's successful, it's hoped that the project will spur similar efforts elsewhere in the state."  

(partially funded by a $1.7 million grant from the Walton Family Foundation )

I am so excited about this. Sure hope it is successful and they start restoring other rivers in the state!