Twitter Mosaic was a featured link on Dooce last week and it just showed-up on Digg a few minutes ago. These fun mosaics are made out of Twitter Icons. How cool is that?
Interesting, non?
I was wrong! I was wrong!
The wee hummingbirds are alive; the Pequeña family is okay. Early this morning two little brown heads popped up from the nest and my hope for urban wildlife was restored.
I've Mcguyvered a hummingbird feeder out of a tiny bowl and some koolaid. As we all know, red dye #5 is an essential ingredient in any city bird's life. I just hope Mrs. Pequeña gets a drink before it evaporates into rock candy, which I will later sell in the parking lot of the local Circle K with the other hustlers.
Hummingbirds are my second-favorite type of bird, number one is the burrowing owl. I'm glad these little chirplings are still alive.
Mrs. Pequeña's babies are dead. Our little baby hummingbird's are no longer chirping or stretching their necks for their mother's attention. I wonder if Mrs. Pequeña just didn't feed them or if they roasted in the insanely hot temperatures. I would think hummingbirds need more foliage and water than our square plot of brick-colored dirt in the backyard can provide.
I did buy some birdseed today for the other birds in the backyard. I need to look-up how to make a bird feeder out of objects from around the house. If you have an idea for how this can be accomplished in a stylish yet functional manner, please let us know.
Finally, you can read my blog in a browser other thatn Explorer!. My template had been loopy for a while there but New Blogger helped me do all the design things I wanted to do and without all that messy html. Thank-you, New Blogger. At first I hated you but now I think you're pretty okay.
It's hot here in Phoenix, real hot. When it gets this hot, I don't want to cook or eat heavy things. I made this super simple rice salad the other day and it's been receiving rave reviews around the house.
Simply Rice Salad
Ingredients:
1 Cup Rice
2 Lemons
1/4 cup Olive Oil
2 Tbs Cumin
Fresh Cilantro to Taste
Salt
Pepper
1/2 Red Onion, chopped finely
3 Ears of Fresh Corn
1 Can of Frijoles Negro (black beans for you gringos)
1 Red Bell Pepper, chopped finely
1 Ripe Avocado
1 Ripe Mango
Step 1: Cook the rice, you can use brown or white. You can also use quinoa if you're feeling adventurous.
Step 2: Steam the Corn just a bit, don't let it get mushy
Step 3: Combine the juice from the lemons, olive oil, cumin, cilantro, salt and pepper in a big bowl and whisk until combined.
Step 4: Slice the Corn off the cob and add it to the bowl.
Step 5: Add rice, beans, onion and bell pepper
Step 6: Chill
Step 7: Serve and garnish with Avo and Mango. Enjoy!
What in the dickens is that?
That is a nest of baby hummingbirds who have made a home on my back porch in a sun chime. The mama was just building her wee nest when I left for the city a few weeks ago and when I came home, little hatchlings were raising their tiny beaks to the air. I love sitting out there, watching the mama come and go. She doesn't seem to mind my company and her presence provides much joy for me in this city that so often feels devoid of nature.
Other than a few photos of town, I wasn't a good picture-taker on my trip home. I took some snapshots of my friends and their new baby, Odin. But, since I'm not sure they want me plastering their newborn's face all over the internets, I'll post a picture of the new baby pigs they have wallowing in their barn. These piglets seem large to me, but they are young'ens and will grow far larger before they are sliced into bacon.
They look delicious, don't they? I'm glad pigs don't have much in the way of personality because they are scrumptious and I would have a much harder time enjoying their wonderful insides if they were more friendly. Harder, but not impossible.
I also took some pictures of the new puppy at my Mom's house.
This one's not a puppy, but she's adorable nonetheless.
I would not like to eat the insides of either of these creatures. They are far too lovely.
To keep you from gagging on all the cuteness and/or the talk of eating animals' insides, I'll leave you with a picture of my favorite spot in Portsmouth--the Brewery. Fabulous times with fabulous friends make me really miss that place.
In New Hampshire, they say that if you don't like the weather, just wait 5 minutes. The weather here can be some of the darkest, wettest and coldest out there. It was a constant source of contention and depression when I lived here. But now that I live in the land of perpetual sunshine and oven-like temperatures, I think I have a new appreciation for the varied weather here, especially on days like today which make make me fiercely miss living in this place. It's sunny and breezy, not to hot but not too cold and everything is bright green. Flowers are blooming and streams are full. It's a nice time of year of be visiting the old home state.
I'm up in NH for the week and it's nice to be back in the lush trees of the Northeast. I've been living out of a suitcase for the past few weeks and I'm still not sick of it. The road is my friend these days. And, while home is filled with the usual family drama, it's good to be here.
I'm giving a big thank-you shout out to Super Shuttle this morning. This was the first time my attempts to get to the airport from my new(ish) place without myself or a friend behind the wheel has actually worked. Every time I've called a cab, they've either not shown or they've been woefully late.
One cabbie told me it's because my address is in a bad part of town and cabs don't want to go there. He, however, was from my neighborhood and said he'd be happy to pick me up anytime. Too bad he took the most backasswards way to the aiport, which is literally 7 minutes down the road, totally disrespecting the directions I gave him and costing me $20 for what should have been a 2 second ride.
Anyway, I'm all happy because I'm here on time and for once the lines at SkyHarbor weren't out of control. I guess this is how the airport runs on Sunday mornings, its very zen. My flight is already late though and we're still almost an hour to scheduled take-off so we'll see how it goes.
As promised, I bring you part two of Adventures with Sarah. As you will recall, we left off on the drive from Flag to Sedona. It's a quick jaunt down a windy road, lined with pine trees. The first sign that you're getting close is a magnificent scenic outlook at the mouth of Oak Creek Canyon.
We arrived just in time for dinner, a lovely Italian spread on the Veranda at Dahl and DiLuca where I sipped on Cabernet and contemplated 'borrowing' a seat cushion as a sleeping pad for the evening. I decided against it as I've been making a more concerted effort to make grown-up-like choices in life. Turns out, I was able to make a pretty comfortable bed inside The Pebble (my tent) with my yoga mats and some strategically placed sweatshirts and bunched-up clothing.
It's always my hipbones that hurt from sleeping on the ground. It also poured rain all night, but a drop we did not feel. The Pebble, trusty as ever, kept us warm and dry throughout the night. I love the sound of raindrops on tent fabric. To me, it's the most true expression of pitterpatter. We woke up and decided to hike around here:
The weather was spectacular! We could see the rain in the distance, showering down on the red rocks, moving through crystal blue skies. The storm clouds cast shadows over the landscape that made for some incredible views.
We hiked up a little trail, greeting many friendly travelers along the way and kicking up red dust and trying to identify all the yuccas and century plants around us. We talked a lot about red rock crust. It looks like coffee grounds or dirt but it's a living thing that contributes to the balance of minerals and nutrients in the desert. Pretty neat. This is a flower I looked at for a while.
Up the trail we came to the main event, a natural bridge. It's called Devil's Bridge, it's made of sandstone and it's 50 feet high. As I stood on it, I wondered just how long it would take for this thing to destructuralize and fall down. It's going to happen one day and that will be a real shame because this arch is cool. Here's a picture of me sitting on it.
And the view from below.
This is what the walls looked like.
I just love Sedona. It's beautiful and full of energy. The only thing that sucks is the tourists but even they're not so bad. I'm excited to go back this summer and play in the creek.
We made a quick stop at Montezuma's Castle, which is comprised of 20 rooms over 5 stories nestled into a giant limestone cliff cave. Montezuma never actually stayed at the cliff dwelling, actually it was abandoned over Century before Montezuma was even born! It was built in the 1400's right above Beaver Creek in the Verde Valley by the Sinagua, an ancient desert people who originally settled around Sunset Crater.
The only thing to watch out for there is the rock squirrels. Apparently, they carry the black death.
It's been a whirlwind of craziness the last couple of weeks with work, play, traveling and a not so brief stint getting intensely ill. However, I'm on the mend and I've got a photo essay for you!
You were hoping to get lucky this Friday night, but I bet you didn't dream of getting this lucky.
A couple of weeks ago, my friend Sarah and I met in Flag for a mini-weekend getaway. After a night of rabble rousing and dancing (more swaying pensively) to Lucinda Williams at the Orpheum, we stayed in the Presidential Suite at the historic Monte Vista hotel. The Monte Vista is a great historic hotel now run by hipsters. It's awesome, they have club and a bar and all the rooms are decorated real crazy-like. The Presidential Suite is red, royal chinese red with bright gold trim and dragons on the walls. Pretty cool, right?
After all the drinking and running around town, I thought I'd start the day off with a fine plate of eggs. EGGS! If you know me, you know that I DO NOT EAT EGGS. EVER. For some reason, I was feeling adventurous. It was probably Sarah, she does that to people. You know, makes them feel adventurous. This is a good thing. Except in the case of my insane breakfast choice. After the reckless breakfast, we were feeling brave and so embarked on an ambitious hike up Humphreys Peak.
At 12,637 feet, it's the tallest peak in Arizona and the last mile of the trail to the top traverses the only region of tundra in the state. That fact alone may have clued me into the fact that this mountain is not to be taken lightly. While the trail was very short, only 4.5 miles up, it was one of the most difficult hikes I've ever experienced. And, I'm sad to say, we didn't make it to the top.
The trail started off nicely enough at the Snowbowl, walking though a beautiful open meadow full of grasses and plants and sweeping views. As we started into the forest, the wind was picking up and the trees were creaking something crazy. It was one of the strangest sounds I've ever heard.
The forest up there is comprised mostly of Ponderosa Pines and, my favorite trees ever, Aspens. The Aspens, swaying the breeze sounded like people moaning or like cats crying. It was crazy loud and a little creepy. On our hike down, we saw this Aspen, which had fallen to the wind just recently. It smelled like heaven.
So, being tough mountain chicks, Sarah and I fought against the altitude, the snowy and icy trails, the chilly temperature and the scary forest noises as we made our way up the incline.
I had no idea the altitude would slow us down so much. The trail begins somewhere around 9,600 feet which didn't seem like such a substantial differential from 2,500 where I had come from the day before. It was slow going though and as soon as we hit the tree line, the wind smacked us in the face and tossed our dreams of summitting the great peak. We felt a little bit better when we met a couple of mountaineering experts outfitted in full alpine regalia with hoods, crampons and goggles who also had to turn around because of the insane wind speed.
Making our way to that beautiful open meadow was such a relief. After we returned from our jaunt into the clouds, we hopped in the Subi and headed down to Sedona. I'm going to save that story for the next post as this one has turned out to be the longest ever! I will, however, leave you with a preview of the photos to come.
