Spring cleaning, spring planting…and of course, spring hiking!

Winter is over and summer is already in full swing at Nuestra Casa, our home in Mesa.

But spring is in the air at our cabin in Pine.

It's been over 100 days—and FINALLY, we are back at our cabin!  We walked in the door and felt like we were home.  Boy, are we happy here.  We are so very lucky to have two beautiful homes that we both love.  And each of our homes provides such a different experience in our lives.  

We plan to spend most of our time during the hot Arizona months at our mountain cabin where the nights are cool and the days pleasantly warm.  We will hike, head out for camping trips, cycle, play ping pong, dance, and have visits with our children, grandchildren, and family.  

This past week week we played together and worked together to make the cabin more beautiful and ready to be truly our “home away from home.”

Dan repaired the fence that started to fall apart with the winter snowfall, and I re-stacked the wood pile that had come crashing down one day last winter.

Dan spent hours removing superfluous wires and an old security system that was no longer functioning.  He striped wires from the outside of our log cabin and from underneath the house in the crawl space.  Boy, it sure looks better!

Dan also removed the very ugly metal box and cut the wires that he believed were for the satellite dish the previous owners had.  Unfortunately, these wires and box were for our new internet service.  No harm done.  Within hours the SuddenLink truck pulled into our driveway, and like magic the friendly technician had reconnected our internet.  He didn’t even laugh at Dan.  But he did make Dan come down off our porch to look at the new wires, and jokingly told him that these wires should not be cut.

We bought two sets of book shelves from antiques/collectibles shops in Pine, and Dan set to work organizing the shed and his model car supplies.  This is now his Man Cave.  He can have the shed as long as I get the cabin, especially the kitchen.

I got to try out the washer and dryer that my dear husband had installed in the shed.  No more hauling our dirty clothes back to Mesa—thank you Dan!

I guess that since the washer and dryer are in his Man Cave, Dan can can now do the laundry. Hmmm.

The red dirt in these hills and in back of our cabin is clay.  Hence, when it rains, we have to tread through a quagmire to get to our shed.  So we had a dump truck full of rock delivered.  It had to be hauled to our backyard—by wheelbarrow.  

We claimed that we are too old for that kind of back breaking work, so we hired two young men to shovel, haul, and spread our new rocks in the backyard.

Our backyard before the rock:

Our backyard after the rock!

I planted manzanita, a native shrub that has tiny blossoms, in our front yard.  

Manzanita grows into a large shrub with small green leaves that are a beautiful contrast to their red bark.

 

They grow with wild abandon in the mountain forests.  Manzanita will look spectacular in front of our cabin.  

Here are some manzanita bushes that we saw this week while hiking the Arizona Trail:

I also planted lupine seeds in the back yard.  They are perennials and will blossom all spring and summer.  Lupines are one of my very favorite flowers.

Dan worked on the Avanti model car that I had given him for his birthday.  He is making an exact copy of the Avanti that he loved and drove for years. (Except this Avanti is in miniature and the engine won’t work.)

I worked on a baby blanket that I am knitting for our youngest grandchild….this new treasure is due to come into the world in October!

We relaxed on our deck in the afternoons and ate our dinners as the sun set.  The young elk came by to welcome us home.  Such serene sweet days and evenings….

We discovered that there was still snow up on the Mogollon Rim, and many of the forest roads were still closed.

See the snowman on the other side of the pond?  Well, since we don’t do snow, we hiked on the roads and trails surrounding Pine.  Pine is 1000’ below the rim, warmer, and all the snow has melted.

Candice is doing a solo self-supported hike on the Arizona Trail, 800 miles from Mexico to Utah.  She is in her second week, about 100 miles south of Pine.  We decided to hike the AZT near Pine in support of her effort.  This is the photo we texted her. 

We hiked on the Arizona Trail south of Pine.  Here are some photos of us on this amazing trail!

My first sighting of spring flowers in the mountains!

We hope that Candice sees the message we left for her at mile 448 of the Arizona Trail.

She should pass by our message in about two days.  Here’s our message to Candice that we made out of rocks:   💗CAB

We are back hiking in our beloved desert.  Life is good and we cherish every day that we are given.

Mr Elk, get ready to welcome us to our cabin!!!!

After the heat of the Arizona summers, I guess that we didn’t really understand what it meant to own a “mountain cabin” on the edge of the Mogollon Rim.  We expected to enjoy our cabin from time to time during the winter when it was sunny—but no, a mountain cabin means SNOW even in Arizona!  And, uh, we don't do snow.

Here are some photos at our cabin of what we have been seeing off and on for the past four months, with the help of the security cameras that Dan installed….SNOW!!!

….And foxes!  

This winter our foxes have been enjoying both our front and back decks.

But now that SPRING has sprung, the snow has melted, so we are headed up tomorrow to enjoy a few days at our beautiful cabin.  It will still be 20 degrees cooler than “down in the Valley” (we have learned that in our mountain hamlet of Pine everyone calls the Phoenix/Mesa area “down in the Valley”).  

This is the view today of our cabin from our security cameras…no snow but lots of sunshine!

We are more than happy to share our decks with the fox family.  

And we expect Mr. Elk to welcome us back home again!

Jules and Diane visit: Show and Tell

Diane had not seen Leisure World.  And Jules and we had not seen Diane's old haunts at Arizona State University, where she attended college.  This was a fun Show and Tell weekend.

They arrived late Thursday afternoon.  We had Mexican take-out, and then Vicky surprised Diane with a birthday cake.  

The next day was the Leisure World tour:  Our Show and Tell day.

We walked on the golf course over to the cafe by Rec Center 2, where we had our breakfast outside in the sunshine by the pool.  The cafe is one that Jules went to many times when his grandparents lived here. 

 

We walked home walked along the Leisure World streets where we could admire the homes surrounded with flowers and cacti.

 

After a short rest, we took the 3.5 mile pond walk. 

Then we cycled for an hour in LW.  No photos, unfortunately.  Jules and Diane rode the tandem, and we rode our Rads.  It was a blast.  

Then we relaxed out on our back patio and enjoyed the sunshine, the eucalyptus trees framing the fairway, and the buzzards soaring in the sky.  Beautiful but kind of freaky to have a colony of large buzzards living in our senior community and always circling overhead….

For dinner we barbecued hamburgers.  Vicky surprised us with her Christmas fudge for dessert.  She and Diane frosted their fudge with peanut butter.  Those two are clearly kindred spirits. 

The next day we were off to Arizona State University for Diane to do Show and Tell:

 

 The dorm she lived in for awhile in the Honor's complex:

 

Here is the side view of her college dorm and the balcony where she lived.  You may ask what are Diane and Jules doing?  Well, Vicky wanted to make sure to not cut off their feet in the photo.  As you can see, Jules and Diane also wanted their feet in the photo.

 The Old Main building.  

 

 

Then we took a walk to downtown Tempe, so. Diane could show us all of the restaurants, bars, hang-outs, etc. 

And then we did something that Vicky and I had never done.  We stopped for awhile at a Board Game Cafe.  We don't know the real name for one of these places, but Board Game Cafe will do.  It was called Snakes and Lattes.  

Diane had remembered this cafe from her college days.  She was thrilled that this old haunt of hers was still open, and that she could show it to us!

We learned a game, a Board Game, called Azul.  Jules and Diane were very patient, allowing us "do-overs."

We had so much fun playing Azul, that as soon as we got home I bought one as a surprise for Vicky!

Today was eleven years since Vicky and I first saw each other and danced together.  It was a special to get to celebrate our 11th anniversary with Diane and Jules!

For dinner Vicky had made her family's broccoli casserole, homemade fried potatoes, and her adaptation of Jules' grandmother's meat loaf.  Then?  Vicky's death by chocolate cookies and her fudge.  

The next morning after an early breakfast, they had to head out to catch their flight home.  It seemed like they had just gotten here.  

Like my father always used to say when we came to visit.....on our way out the door:  "I wish you had never come."  We knew what he meant then, which is that saying goodby after a wonderful visit was so hard.  And we know what it means now.  The same thing.

We are blessed.  

What a wonderful visit.  It hurts to say goodbye, but it is a good hurt because it comes from the love that Dan and I feel deep within our hearts.