My penance is to post all these pictures and promise to at least do 2 postings per year. This is the first for 2013. I'm sure there will be plenty more pictures where these came from during the rest of 2013.
Last May I posted a bunch of pictures of ground squirrels on our property. These are normal tree squirrels. There are a few around here, mostly around houses that planted eucalyptus trees years ago. I think this one got lost.
We have plenty of sunsets worthy of photos. This is from last summer when the sun was very far north. I thought the cloud formations were interesting.
Then I looked out our east windows and this was happening in the clouds there. When is a rainbow not really a rainbow?
Trout and I got home from the northwest last summer to find all this grass. When I left on July 31, this was all bare and brown and yellow. Green grass is not what I wanted when we moved down here.
It was everywhere complete with lots of weeds. Obviously it rained a lot during the month of August.
Cisco tolerated the grass in WA, but he was perplexed by it back home. Mom, it's just not right.
I keep promising myself I will carry my camera when I walk Cisco. I keep forgetting. This was one time I didn't. This is a turkey buzzard on a entrance to a driveway about a block away.
Closer to home, like on the front porch, I saw this guy from the office windows. Road runners are my favorite birds and here was one up close and personal.
See how the different light changes the coloration.
Even though we have had a bat guy out to help plug up the places they get in, we still get some bats hanging out and breeding under our porches. They are migratory and eventually head on down to Mexico. Road runners like to eat them.
He finally left the front porch, on foot of course.
This is a bird of a different feather. Trout and I had our own Christmas dinner. I cooked my first turkey. It was good. We still have some frozen and I used it just last week to make turkey soup for Trout's cold.
I don't cook much that's picture worthy, but Trout insisted I take one of this quiche, Lorraine naturally.
This is a kind of locust. We didn't have many last year. We think they are beautiful. When they fly, the wings are red.
This guy hung out on the back porch for a long time, under the messed up rug to get out of the sun, and on it to get into the sun. I finally had to go out there and clean up to get him to go out in the desert where he belongs.
November brought Katie and family. The timing was perfect to go to the Day of the Dead parade in downtown Tucson. We dressed up. Behind us is the offrenda I did for my family members lost in 2012.
Parking was free and we got a great place to see the parade.
It's a celebration to remember departed loved ones. These women carry pictures, as did many in the parade.
I love it when people highlight the bones on their slick, dark colored dogs.
There are many large puppets and people walking on stilts.
We joined the parade at the end and walked the 2 blocks back to our car.
More recently, we saw these new (to us) birds in a dead tree where lots of birds like to hang out. They are called cara-caras and are a raptor/carrion bird more often seen south of here.
They didn't mind sharing the snag with some Chihuahaun ravens.
One of the reasons we like our location is that we can see weather fronts come in over the mountains from the west. Most of the weather we get comes from the south and west.
Just the past few days we have been having some rainy and cold weather. A couple of days ago, I noticed this piece of a rainbow to the south west of the house.
I got a new Panasonic camera with a heftier zoom and have been loving it.
The rainbow started getting bigger and even doubling.
It was so big, I couldn't get the whole thing in one frame.
You may have heard that back in February we had some snow. We had to go into town that day for a doctor appointment. Before we left I noticed this jackrabbit in the grass on the west side of the house.
My favorite weather guy, Chief Chuck, predicted that the snow would start in town at noon. Trout hates it when he's right. We were eating at Beyond Bread just down the street form the UofA Medical Center when it did. It varied from big wet flakes coming straight down to sideways snow. We had planned to go grocery shopping on the way home, but Trout got that "I know I can drive in this but I don't trust anyone with AZ plates" look in his eye and we decided to head home.
On the way we experienced snow, sleet, rain, you name it. When we got back, it was evident that it had snowed. We thought it might be over, but nooooooo. We got the same mix at home for a few hours in the afternoon.
The jack came back to the same spot, even in the snow. There must have been something very tasty there. This is my favorite mammal. Nice ears.
No LMMM update is complete without a new picture of Cisco. Such a handsome, hairy fellow.
So that's it for this posting. I'll try to do 2 more this year, just so I can get extra credit.
