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As Terra described the camping trip, it was fairly accurate. The last night there was described as wet and rainy. In fact it started raining about 6:30 and gradually progressed and progressed until at about 7:15 it was pouring bucket fulls of rain. It was about this time when everyone decided that it was time for bed and headed that way. It did make for an early night, but who wants to sit around and try to baby a fire in the wet weather? The next morning AJ & I worked to get a fire going. It took a stir of the coals, two pours of Coleman white gas and finally one solid quart of gasoline doused on the top to finally light it. The rain had soaked all of the kindling and other wood despite our best attempts to tarp the wood. But it finally started, and we dried out enough to pack and return home. Doesn't AJ just look so cute with is football and Green Bay pajamas on? |
| Although there was no photographically documented evidence of the rain captured on the camping trip, seeing how it was dark, on Saturday 9-10-11 we ended up with a pretty good rain in Benson. As the afternoon progressed the weather report changed from a 40% chance of thunderstorms to a 80% chance of heavy rain. In fact what we ended up receiving was a mix between the two. We ended up getting hail 5 separate and disticnt times throughout the evening. Over the course of about 1 hour we received over 2.5 inches of rain. |  |
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I have found out that this type of rain is not "normal" but it did make for an interesting evening. The washes around here were running to full + capacity. Our street in the front of the house eventually was underwater with the current flowing down it. The main road into Pomerene was impassable, and Old Pomerene road completely washed out. I don't know the extend of the damages around, but many people ended up getting flooding during the run-off from this storm. We received no damages (this house apparently is built on high enough ground that the water flowed around the house). I have long maintained that this is the "best built" house that we have ever lived in, and as time goes on, I have not found any reasons to disagree with that statement. |
| Life is interesting in that no matter what the circumstances are, if you swear up and down that you will not do something, life has a way of making you eat your words. Once such example of this comes to my mind with my sister, Mia. She swore and swore that once she moved out of Oracle, she would never, ever, ever move back. Well for those of you who know the story, she ended up marring someone from Oracle, and eventually they not only moved back to town, but bought a house there as well. They have since moved on, but that is how life works. I mention this as when Terra and I moved into this house, we didn't like it (and still don't). We went round an round with Karren about his house and she said that after we lived here for a while we might want to purchase it. We swore that would not be the case, well we are now having that debate. We don't like the layout, and never have, but when compared with the alternatives, it is far superior in its construction, location, layout, and price. We still don't like it, but when the price to build a house is between $100 - $115 / square foot, how do you turn your nose up at one that is $90? Particularly since the market is forecast to continue to drop another 10 - 20% over the next year. So as they say, stay tuned for late breaking news... |  |
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As most of you know, we have been growing watermelons in our garden this year. We don't have photos of all of the ones that we have harvested, but we had two plants. One we purchased from ACE as a 2" plant, and the other came up on its own after the garden was tilled, planted, and watered. We decided to let it grow and see what happens. Well other than being a nuisance in the garden (watermelons aren't happy unless they take over all of the square footage available in the garden) they have started producing fruit. The one that we planted grows long skinny ones, and the volunteer grows fatter rounder ones. I don't pretend to know the names of the exact plants, but they are both watermelons. If you really want to know, go goggle it. We have picked three melons off of the plant that we planted, weighing: 19.6 lbs, 29.5lbs, and 37lbs. The 37 pounder is pictured above. They were good tasting melons when picked ripe. Picking them ripe is an art in itself that we have not mastered yet. |
| The first melon that we picked - was picked because it looked like it was "going to explode", well it was the smallest so far off of that plant, and when cut and opened was completely white on the inside. We put it back in the refrigerator and waited about 2 weeks before it started to pinkish up a bit. We then ate it. It had good texture but not that great of a taste. The rest of the long skinny plant were excellent. We ate them when company came over, and now have another "volunteer" growing next to our back porch. This round mellow we picked and started eating last night. It weighed in at 23lbs. I think that is was almost over ripe as when I started to slice it open after the knife was in and had penetrated the inner red fruit the melon split alone a radial helix around its perimeter. So far, by experience, we have decided that watermelons are done when the bottoms are white and flat when compared to the rest of the circumference. That is how all of the "ripe" melons have looked as we began to devour them. We still have 1 more round one and about 6 more long skinny ones. Anyone interested in trying them should come for a visit within the next month or so. |  |
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This weekend my boss, being a New Mexico native, made a special trip to purchase some green chilies. I being a fan of them had him pick me up a few pounds of them since he was going. He lives in Tucson, so he would have to drive past my house both ways. He consented and dropped them off Friday afternoon about the time that the kids were getting off of the bus. He promised me 20lbs of medium and 10lbs of hot. Well apparently he was mixed up on which were which, and we ended up with lots more hot ones than medium. The kids aren't keen on the idea of trying them, but we made up 25 bags of roasted green chillies and froze them. Each bag containing about 7chillis. |
| I believe that sometime tomorrow (at work) we will make arrangements to swap out the ratios of the chilies. You see, he wanted the same ratio of chilies (medium:hot) and I ended up with all of the hot ones. They actually taste very good. I had not tried the "hot" ones until he called, but the medium ones I thought were medium. After trying the "hot" ones, they are very mild and the "medium" ones are really the Sandia extra hot chilies. One of my jalapenos would lite you up faster and longer than a bag of the super hots, but that is the way that green chilies go. I am sorry that I didn't plant any of them, but there is always next year... if we could only figure out where we would be living next year. I would sure hate to put in a garden and then move out for someone else to enjoy it... |  |