Skywatch 5, #29...

Skies from all over our planet...

This grower burnt the vine on his bog as a quick way to rid himself of some vine that wasn't producing. 

Next year he will plant a hybrid vine which will produce a much higher yield.

Take a quick trip over to Skywatch to see more sky over interesting scenery...

i can't live without wikipedia...

learn more here...

Some Cool Stuff about Phoenix...

Phoenix, Arizona is located in the Salt River Valley, in the northeast part of the Sonoran Desert. It's one of the hottest and largest deserts in North America and covers an area of 12,000 square miles. Phoenix is generally flat, but surrounded by a boatload of mountains. It's really pretty cool to stand outside and look around and see The McDowall Mountains, White Tank, Superstition and The Sierra Estrella, shown below.

I'm not sure I would like to live here. Summer temperatures are brutal. People die here in the summer from the heat. More than 100 days a year are way above 100 degrees. During winter, a few days may see freezing temps. Rain is scarce outside the monsoon season that runs from July to September. The monsoon brings high humidity and often flooding rains. Other than that, weather is pretty non-existent here. It's just sun, sun ,sun all the time. It's sunny about 300 days of the year here. 

Mesquite, fallow cotton field and Sierra Estrella Mountains

Even though it's friggin' hot here, January is nice at about 70 degrees. Here in this neighborhood they grow alfalfa and cotton, and horses. There are horses everywhere here. I would think it would be too hot for horses but they adjust very well to the climate. During the cooler winter (right!) a horse will even develop a shaggy warm coat. I don't believe for one second it ever really gets cool here, but Peg assures me it does. Horse people like this area because there is lots of easy access to mountain trails, beautiful desert vistas and most importantly, horses have the right of way. 

Trav's shaggy winter coat

Traveler has a couple neighbors I met yesterday.Moon was friendly enough, but after I stood near him for a couple minutes he tried to taste my shirt and my hands and my camera, with his teeth. 

Moon trying to bite me...

Pretty Pony isn't terribly interested making friends, but he give me the once over and then promptly turned his back and ignored me. I guess being pretty is all he's interested in.

Pretty Pony being...pretty

Horse Country!

I'm in South Phoenix, Arizona, horse country. It's also ground squirrel, road runner and coyote country. I've seen them all, I just have no photographic evidence. But I assure you, those critters do reside here. I saw them. I do have photographic evidence of other stuff though. Like the huge smog cloud that blew in from California way today.

Nasty brown smog cloud sent by the Wicked Witch of the West...

Today Peg and I visited South Mountain Park, the largest city owned park in the U.S. We drove a narrow, windy and kinda scary road up to an elevation of 2330 feet. We stopped at the scenic overlook called Dobbins Lookout. We met up with folks from all over the place. My favorite was this guy.

Kickin' back with some mellow tones...

Since this is horse country, we went to hang with Traveler, Peg's good friend and companion. He invited us to have dinner with him, but we already had plans so we had to decline the invitation. 

Since Trav was hungry, he tucked right in. 

Puttin' on the feed bag.

Trav's dinner looked pretty good till he slobbered all over it.

In the end, Peg and I did get some work done, we had some fun and now she's asleep on the couch. I think I'll internet for awhile, watch some tv and go to bed. Look me up tomorrow, I'll have more interesting tidbits!

Tonight, I Sleep in Phoenix...

7 hours from now, I'll be in my nice leather seat, with my belt buckled, my seat back tv tuned and  ready to jet!

I'm off to hang with my sister Peg for the weekend. I'm looking forward to seeing her and the sun, even though I hate sun most of the time. We have some difficult work ahead of us the next few days, but I'm also hoping for a few laughs and fun amid the sad.

 I went to Phoenix to visit Peg once before, 12 years ago. It was a sad time to visit then too. I don't get to see my sister hardly at all. I'm hoping sometime in the future we can get together just for fun, without some tragedy.

So, I decided last night, while sleeping in Carver, I'm not going to wait for tragedies or when I have enough money or when the time is right. I'm just going to do the stuff I want to do and see the people I want to see when I want to.

I still have a two day pass for Disney World.