Left in Tucson

It was with truly a heavy heart that Jim and I said our tearful good-byes to Tucson on Wednesday before Thanksgiving 2016, as our U-Haul truck headed out of town and onto I-10 for the two-day drive through New Mexico and Texas to our new home base in Sherwood AR, part of the Little Rock AR metro area. While traveling by truck may have slowed the journey, it afforded us more time to savor the clear weather and light traffic through Dallas on Thanksgiving Day.  We arrived in North Little Rock late in the evening on Thanksgiving Day, having enjoyed a traditional turkey dinner at Cracker Barrel in Weatherford, TX.  So glad that Cracker Barrel was opened for us and the hundreds who also chose to join us at the Weatherford CB for Thanksgiving dinner. Nine years ago, when I arrived in Tucson with all my worldly belongings from central New Jersey to join Jim on a new life adventure, I was filled more with excitement than trepidation.  Sure, I had vacationed in AZ and visited J...

For the last 9 years I have experienced the most amazing, wonderful, quirky,  and transformational lifetime adventure in Tucson, AZ.  I began this blog in early 2010 to record and share my experiences of living in Tucson.  As we prepare to move onto the next adventure of the Beverl(e)ys partnership,  here are a few of my last images of living the desert lifestyle in southern AZ. Fall Sunset from our backyard  Today, Fall early morning in Sabino Canyon Saguaro in the fall early morning light, Sabino Canyon  Catalina Mountains in Sabino Canyon, early fall morning Chinese (Tibetan?) Monks  enjoying a visit this morning in Sabino Canyon  Good-bye my lovely Catalinas

Here it is the middle of October, 2016 and Figaro is still providing me and all my Tucson fig loving friends with a continuous supply of sweet, succulent, organic, healthy FIGS!  Thank you, Figaro for thy wondrous bounty!

As of August 1, the Summer 2016 Fig Crop is in jeopardy.  Up until last week, I had been seeing these huge beetles flying around our Tucson backyard.  However, for some reason I was not recognizing as beetles but as our amusing carpenter beetles just looking for a home for their next brood.  I must have been in denial or something.  Several days ago, as I was checking for newly ripened figs, I discovered that Figaro was being infested by the notorious and feared Tucson and Sonoran Desert gardener's nemesis, the FIG BEETLE   .  These guys are huge compared to my old New Jersey Japanese beetles. These guys fly very slowly and bump into all sorts of things and structures.  While they may be very bad fliers, they are extremely efficient at gobbling up figs and leaving nothing but a limp, brown fig skin hanging from its stem.  They will crowd onto one fig to the point where you can not longer see the fig, just a mass of these green-black iridescent b...

A couple of months ago I noticed a volunteer plant growing in my backyard garden here in Tucson.  I took a few photos of it clearly showing the leaves and the flower; shared it with my Master Gardener friends and a local landscaper but no one seemed to recognize it.  Finally, Jim, in his persistence found it online.  It turns out some bird or a gust of wind brought an Arizona native wildflower, an  Indian Mallow Plant  to our garden.  I must remember to save the seeds from this one.