Blog
[Translate] Heck of a night and morning, the night before last. Just turned in around 11pm, and as my head hit the pillow, I heard some odd scratching noises somewhere outside. As animal noises are by no means an uncommon occurrence around here, I grabbed my trusty bedside flashlight, and proceeded to flip […]
[Translate] The Greater Roadrunner is probably the most conspicuous bird in the Arizona desert. These speedy birds can travel up to 17 miles per hour on land when seeking prey or fleeing from harm. They are a fixture around our place and prey on snakes and lizards on the adobe walls and rock ledges around […]
[Translate] The other night we decided to put our jack-o’-lantern out in the front 40 and I’ll be darned if it wasn’t gone in the morning! Being a city slicker, I had no idea what kind of varmint absconded with my artistically carved autumn squash, (a beauty if I do say so myself!) be it […]
[Translate] A lot of you know my books and calendar work but few outside of the business know my arm can be twisted to direct or license my concept for television ads. Here is one I did for the Cincinnati Zoo. The whole Parmalat milk campaign was particular fun to do. One day I got […]
[Translate] A Horse Lubber. Not the two legged kind, but one mighty big and beautifully patterned grasshopper! In late August early September these giants start showing themselves, and pretty soon they are crawling all over the place. Called the Horse Lubber (Taeniopoda eques) because of its resemblance to a horse to the person that named […]
[Translate] Here in southern Arizona we have what they call “open range”. This means, if you don’t fence your land you are liable to have a 1000 lb. cow staring at you through your office window like this one. Or like the mother and calf below. This pair came almost every day for a […]
[Translate] It had been raining pretty hard all August and I hadn’t been out trekking for weeks. So, when the sky finally cleared one early evening I grabbed my camera and headed off in the direction of the old Sopori Ranch, once owned by movie mogul Jack Warner of Warner Brothers fame. Well now that […]
[Translate] How small is a hummingbird nest? Pretty durn small! I found these two Anna’s hummingbird fledglings in a potted palm on the veranda. To give you some idea of the size of the nest, I would say it is no larger than a twenty-five cent piece, but certainly smaller than a half dollar. This […]
[Translate] This picture is the desktop image I use on my computer. I bought this Echinopsis, possibly a hybrid, soon after I moved from New York to Arizona. I’m pretty sure I picked it up at the Desert Museum, but then again it could have been Walmart. Ed Bartlett from the Tucson Cactus&Succulent Society, was […]
[Translate] The rains have finally arrived. Where I live, in the Sonoran Desert, just a stones throw from the Mexican border in southeastern Arizona, the rainy season is referred to as the monsoon. Not just heavy rains but incredibly dramatic lightning storms, often followed by rainbows and spectacular sunsets. From the middle of July to early […]
