Hawks, hummingbirds, wildflowers...

...Spring break has come and gone here in Tucson...and along with it, the in-laws. My wife's parents were here for the past week; they left this morning to catch their flight at 'dark-thirty,' as my fisherman of a father-in-law refers to pre-dawn hours...

This morning, then, I didn't feel I had to tiptoe around the kitchen, trying to avoid disturbing my in-laws while getting my coffee before leaving early for work...I had a few minutes to read the paper, and in the local section, I saw this:

...another cheap morning thrill, to find a photo of mine published in the Tucson paper! ;-) Two juvenile Coopers' hawks cooling their talons in the fountain outside our front door--I took this photo last summer, and never again since then have I seen this pair land together like this, a symmetry of raptors.

From big birds to tiny birds:

This past Sunday, we took my wife's parents out to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, and in the hummingbird aviary, there were a couple of easily-viewable hummingbird nests--Wow! The 'chicks' in the above photo are two-week-old Costa's hummingbirds. Below, a closer view of them--notice all of the 'pin'-feathers surrounding their heads, and how stout their beaks are. The speed with which birds change from hatchling to fledgling is amazing...

Nearby, an Anna's hummingbird was feeding her five-day-old chicks--too small to be seen from outside the nest, but you can see the mother feeding them here:

Back to bigger birds--one of the biggest raptors here in AZ is the seasonal ferruginous hawk--migrates to live down here from fall through spring--a true 'snowbird:'

One of the smaller raptors--the smallest, I believe, in AZ--is the American kestrel. Cool eyes, eh?

...and a great horned Owl:

...and the relatively common, but no less impressive, Harris' hawk:

...and with spring well under way, of course there are flowers, including these claret-cup-cactus blooms, which are just starting:

This year, the brittlebush, ocotillo, and palo verde are somewhat late, but the globemallow are at their peak right now--and the gardens on the grounds of the AZ Sonora Desert Museum have some less common variants--most globemallow are orange or apricot-colored, so this bright-red globemallow really caught my eye:

..and this grouping of pale pinkish-white globemallow and Parry's penstemon in the background--looks more like an English garden than a corner of the Arizona-Mexico desert:

Before heading back into town, we drove my wife's parents through part of Saguaro National Park, and I stopped to climb a short trail up to the Hohokam petroglyphs (between 800 to 1500 years old). These glyphs of antelope look to me to be leaping into the hills:

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On Saturday morning, I thought my wife and her folks might enjoy some 'parent-child' time alone, so I decided to go for a hike in Catalina State Park--local reports have said that the wildflowers were at their peak--the best in years...I was able to check out a few spots one afternoon after work the week before, as the photos in my last posting show, but now I wanted to hike further in. So, up before sunrise, and when I started on the trail, the thermometer was a chilly 36 degrees. Fortunately, crossing the flowing washes, I was able to find boulders; didn't want to get my feet wet with such a cold start to the day:

After a couple of miles, I started seeing the expanses of Mexican gold poppies--but even after the sun had been up for a while, it was still too chilly for the flowers to open up:

I didn't have to wait too long, though; the desert warms up quickly,and soon the poppies' "faces" were becoming visible...

The trails continue, opening up to seemingly endless expanses of wildflowers; and the further I hiked in, the more I saw fields of poppies mixed in with heliotrope, lupine, chicory, desert marigolds...This is only our third spring down here, but even many locals have said that it's been one of the most spectacular spring 'shows' in years. The hills to the east of Tucson--entire slopes around Safford and Clifton--are also in bloom...

The contrasts in textures are so vibrant--spiny cactus, scraggly still-leafless-mesquite, and the soft carpet of petals all around...

The lushness of this spring display belies the aridity...the blooms are so ephemeral...One spot where I took S. just two Sundays ago is now practically 'all dried up'--just a few flowers left...Catalina State Park is lingering a bit more, but I think that by next week, the poppies will be gone. The lupine tends to linger a bit longer, and brittlebush is just starting to bloom, but these golden-yellow faces shimmering in the breeze--gotta catch them NOW...

Although the morning began at 36 degrees, by lunchtime when I had hiked back to the car, the thermometer was in the mid-70's. Ah, spring in the Sonoran desert...Enough to keep us wanting to live here...

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We also took the in-laws down to Bisbee--the old mining-town with the vaguely Italianate-feel--in the Mule mountains near the Mexican border:

...and on the way, we stopped at the San Pedro riparian reserve just east of Sierra Vista--birdwatching par excellence--one of the major migratory flightpath corridors in North America...and from there, looking back across the grasslands at the 9400' snowcovered peaks of the Huachuca mountains:

I lived just up the road from here for a couple of years when I was in first- and second-grade. These mountains marked the horizon of 'my backyard'--always visible from anywhere in town--from school, from the grocery store, from our back porch...I missed them when we moved back east. I missed the stars at night, the endless sky, the sound of coyotes...and even as far back as the third grade--those first few months away from these mountains, those first weeks of the school-year when I couldn't understand my teacher's Southern accent--I knew I'd eventually move back out west.

...

A couple of weeks ago, I came across an essay that articulates some of my feelings about "The West;"

below is a link to it.

East to the West

A writer contemplates where the West begins, both in the landscape and in his life.
http://www.hcn.org/issues/42.5/east-to-the-west

...after the rains: Eschscholzia mexicana...

...This winter's desert rains came at the right time--we have poppies! Although there are at least some wildflowers every spring, carpets of Mexican gold poppies aren't an annual guarantee in Tucson...

So, a nice treat this year:

...desert lupine almost always seems to grow along with the poppies--a natural pairing of orange and puprle...

...the taller stems with the purple 'balls' are chia (a variety of salvia)...

...I took these photos at Catalina State Park,

NW of Tucson; I drove there after work last Thursday evening...

...closer to home--along a creekside trail in Sabino canyon, hikers' cairns and a shrub of 'desert rockpea:'

...yellow fiddleneck:

...layered daisy...(aka 'spreading fleabane'):

...don't know what this non-flowering plant this is,

 but these tiny hole-edged leaves caught my eye:

...but the poppies do steal the spring show, eh?

So. Spring in the Sonoran desert. Enjoying it while it lasts...the 90-degree days aren't far off. My in-laws are flying into town later this week from WA--good timing...

evening run, breathing in the medicinal air...

...almost a month has passed since the last posting...Spring is here--we've already had a few runs of sunny 80-degree days, but today was not one of them--we woke up to showers and it was grey all day; we've had more than twice the average winter rainfall here in Tucson, and the seasonal streams and washes are still flowing. Lupine, heliotrope, globemallow and desert chicory are blooming...while not plentiful, I've even spotted a few stands of Mexican gold poppies on the lesser-used trails near Sabino Canyon...

So, today, after work, it was raining, so I thought I'd wait til tomorrow to go for a run--but about an hour before sunset, the rain stopped and the sun came out, so I put on my shoes and went out the door...HUMIDITY! Such a rare occasion to run in a humid desert...and with everything still dripping with rain, the smell of wet creosote (click here) was intense--not unpleasant, but almost medicinal...

Wet creosote--the trademark smell of the desert southwest after a rainstorm...
Appropriate scent--medicinal, therapeutic--for a run--I was thinking of some recent ads I've seen for ASICS running shoes--click here to see one--yeah yeah, I know it's an ad campaign, but these ads have caught my eye because they ring true. Clever: words, water, running...almost poetic, even...

Some people have specific 'soundtracks' for their runs--their playlists on their I-pods...So, what would the olfactory equivalent be?--a 'smelltrack?'...'fragrantrack?' Proustian.

Alas...S. continues with her unemployment. My job is not 'out of the woods' either. AZ schools had to cut 14% from their budgets last year...and this year, another 10%! Almost a quarter of the working budget in just a two-year period! Amazing. I should know in a week or so if my position will still exist for the upcoming school year. These past two springs have felt more like being on 'Survivor' than teaching in a collegial school atmosphere...

...and so the need for 'medicinal air' to accompany evening runs...
oxygen + movement + desert mountain scenery = sanity

watching Vancouver wrap up...cooking Nicaraguan food

...in the background, the TV is on--NBC wrapping up its coverage of the Vancouver Winter Olympics. (Although we are not hockey fans--we did happen to catch the overtime-end of the Canada/USA hockey match: exciting!)

...in the kitchen, S. is cooking something from our days of living in Nicaragua: salsa jalapeña, to go with pan-grilled chicken breasts.

The major thing missing from the recipes below, however, is "chiltoma"--we can't find it here,
but 'chiltoma' is a pepper halfway between a sweet pepper and a bell pepper--S. is substituting small sweet peppers, cut into long strips--adding it to the sauce, along with the onion and jalapeños...

...a photo of some chiltomas, in our pila in our Nicaraguan kitchen:

(note the ridges in the smooth concrete basin--this pila is also where we did our laundry...and the chiltomas are soaking in water with a few drops of bleach...ahh, the realities of la vida tropical...)

Nicaraguan food is not so spicy--so even though this common Nicaraguan sauce has 'jalapeño' in its name, don't expect anything muy muy picante, ok? But it's good...

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Salsa Jalapeña

Nicaraguan Cream Sauce for Chicken, Seafood, or Beef
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes

Ingredients
• 1 cup of crema (substitute heavy cream if you can't find the jar of Mexican or Salvadoran crema)
• 1/2 cup milk (you may not need the full amount)
• 2 medium onions, sliced thin
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 8 jalapeños, sliced length-wise (remove seeds for a milder sauce, or use substitute for spicier versions)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

1. In a medium sauce pan, saute the onions, peppers, and garlic for about 5 minutes over medium heat until they soften.

2. Add the crema and stir to incorporate all the ingredients.

3. Add half of the milk to loosen the sauce. Allow to simmer over low heat for 10 minutes. If the sauce thickens too much, add more milk. Be careful not to cook over too high a heat otherwise the milk could either boil over or scald. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve over fried or grilled chicken fillets or thighs, grilled steak, or grilled jumbo shrimp with a side of rice and a slice of avocado.

(click here for the original source)
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 and here's another version, in Spanish:

Vancouver to Seoul; 'flowers of geography'...

...a couple more days and the Winter Olympics will be over...S. & I, although by no means 'sports fans,' do enjoy watching the winter games, and with NBC scheduling to air its events for maximum viewership,
we've been staying up late almost every night....So, sleep-deprivation is almost at an end...


Seeing all the shots of Vancouver--aerials, panoramas--has made us somewhat nostalgic for the Pacific NW...inevitable, I guess...So I was looking through some old photos...


Vancouver is one of the most perfectly-situated (and youngest--founded only the 1880's) cities in the world: water and snow-capped forested mountains surrounding a forest of glass towers--on a human scale, though, unlike Manhattan where the 'tyranny of the vertical' can be de-humanizing; it's enough to make even Seattle, one of the novelist Henry James' "flowers of geography" (see below), envious...


But going back through some of the photos, one that truly struck me was one of my first impressions from my first time there--a daytrip, right after I'd moved to Seattle in the fall of 1997:

...a bakery window display in Vancouver's Chinatown. 'Mom and kids?'

BBQ-buns that honestly show what's inside?

Truth in food-advertising:

only in a Chinatown, eh?

(This photo was publixhed in today's local paper, by the way!)

...from that same trip, a faint rainbow over the city,

looking north from Queen Elizabeth Park:

...and a winter view (early 1998), of one of the lighthouses along Stanley Park, looking across the cold cold waters toward the mountains where many of the Olympic venues are located:

...and an 'official' aerial shot, from vancouver.ca:

(click on these for larger views)

...below, from thebeautifulbritishcolumbia.com

So, a bit of "BC-dreaming" on a winter's day, down here in Tucson...our local mountains are snowcapped, too, right now, with skiers on Mt. Lemmon, even! No ocean, though...no cosmopolitan pedestrian-friendly live/work/play skyscrapered neighborhoods here...

During the years we lived in Seattle, we always considered Vancouver like a more sophisticated older cousin--close enough to go for day-trips, but different enough to truly feel 'foreign.' As cool as it was, we did take a bit for granted, though--it's right there, we can go whenever we want...Now that we're in the Desert SW, a trip to Vancouver would be a major and expensive undertaking...Alas...

So, tomorrow, for a day-trip, we'll go visit some friends and a museum in...

(drumroll)...Phoenix.

Woohoo.

Yes, it is the nation's 'fifth-largest city' on paper.

Okay...and?...?

Incidentally, Henry James' 'flowers of geography' were: Naples, Capetown, Sydney, Seattle, San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro--all set in geographical settings that seem to have been made for future post-card-perfect cityscapes. When he traveled, Vancouver was not yet really an established 'city'--surely it would have been included in Mr. James' list...Here's a link to an essay by writer Jonathan Raban that appeared in the Seattle Times years ago; this is where I first came across Henry James' description.

So, readers/travelers out there--

what are your 'flowers of geography?'

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In some ways, on my trips to Vancouver, I was reminded of Seoul--the high-rise residential living, the mountains always in view, the many Korean restaurants, even the language overheard on the sidewalks of downtown--although Chinese make up th majority of the city's east-Asian population, Koreans are not far behind...

...a few photos, then, of a city that's one of my 'flowers of geography:'

Seoul, the capital city of South Korea, framed by mountains and a river...

I say it not just because I was born there, but because of all the cities I've visited, its combination of ancient and post-modern, ultra-urban and mountain scenery is one of the best. Yes, it's densely populated, yes it has air-pollution, yes it's one of the largest urban conglomerations on the planet (perhaps even monstrously so)...but the compelling history of the place, along with the ever-present mountains make it a heady mix of non-stop human activity and timeless forested crags...along with the serene, wide Han river curving through it all.

(These photosare from www.skyscrapercity.com:)

(and the following photo is courtesy of this website)

--this is the courtyard of the Throne Hall of Kyongbok Palace,

in downtown Seoul; a smaller version of The Forbidden City in Beijing...

...and from National Geographic, the following photos:

another of downtown Seoul's royal palaces, Tok-su-gung:

...the bustling Nam-dae-mun market--one of the city's centers of commerce since medieval times, now tucked into alleyways behind skyscrapers:

...from silk handkerchiefs to 'exotic' edibles:

...a Samsung electric car in front of one of the city's downtown hotels:

...the old East Gate of the city, dating from the 1390's:

(Yes, I have a bit of free time this morning
to be posting all these images:

a bit of armchair travel via the Internet...

It's a school-holiday in Tucson:
Rodeo weekend,
a world away...)

Monday surprise...

One of my colleagues at work has kindly made a point of noticing when my photographs get published in the local paper; this morning she said she enjoyed seeing 'another one' of my photos published a couple of days ago...I didn't know what she was referring to--I hadn't seen it! ...She said it was in last Thursday's paper, so I was able to track it down:

reflection in Sabino Canyon from last winter

(click here for the newspaper site)

Another cheap published thrill!

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Right now, my wife and I are on the Internet (me: laptop, her: netbook), 'working' during the TV commercial breaks while watching the Winter Olympics. Downhill skiing!! Pairs figure-skating finals!! Quite a bit of Pacific-NW nostalgia, as we see the Vancouver panoramas in between the sporting events...

(Wait--does this sound 'dysfunctional'--that we're both on line, but separately? AND that we're watching TV too?...We are talking...we went for a lovely late-afternoon walk in Sabino Canyon...had home-made food for dinner...Speaking of 'home-made'--lots of that in our lives right now; no restaurant-outings, as Sara was laid off just over a week ago. Yep--with one-day's notice, the clinic where she was working closed! Fun times. So, new adventures for her--applying for unemployment for the first time...At least we have good winter weather to go with her job-hunting, eh?)

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Not surprising perhaps, but so many of my students know so little about the Winter Olympics. This IS Tucson, I suppose, but still...

Today I heard, "So, are the Winter Olympics always held in Vancouver?"

And: "How often do they have the Olympics?"

And, most did not know that the modern Olympics are exactly that--'modern,' 

 as in a revival of the ancient Greek games.

 'They had Olympics in ancient Greece?'

Wow.

Popular-culture 'trivia' that I take for granted

as 'general knowledge'...not so 'general,' it appears.

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A few more Sabino canyon reflections, from recent walks:

...and an afternoon panorama:

...with this morning's coffee...


With morning coffee, this week's "Reader's Photo of the Week" in the Tucson paper:

...a reminiscence of early spring in Paris...from eleven (!) years ago...
For the 'published' source: click here.
(...and from a couple of weeks ago, and a week before that...)