Tuesday, March 14…When I Paint My Masterpiece (The Band)

    Last night the sky was cloudy so we started watching a movie.  About a half hour later Kim stepped outside and reported that the sky was clear. We halted the movie so he could finish fine tuning his big scope and I could go to bed early.  We can watch the movie anytime, even when we get home…clear skies need to be taken advantage of when they happen.

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   Had a lazy start to the day and it felt good to just take it slow. The downside of a slow start around here is that the temperature is on a steady rise once that sun comes over the mountains.  Walking is best done early in the day no matter the pace and early didn’t happen for us today.

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   Finally got some javelina action on the Nutt Rd. cam.  The reason we picked that particular spot was the trail of javelina tracks that we has seen.  Put the camera up and suddenly no javelinas. But at 3:10 a.m. yesterday, a whole squadron came sniffing around.  They wandered in and out of camera view but I think I counted five, including a little one.  Mission accomplished!!

   Yesterday a crow showed up on the desert cam. Although we have seen a coyote and a javelina on it, it’s tempting to move it because the activity level has been so low.  However, there was that 8-point mule deer that poked his head in, and it would be so cool to see him again. Kim’s desire is to see him wander through with only one antler still on…catch him in the ‘shedding’ season.

  Had action on the yard cam last night about 2 hours after dark…a cat. One of the neighborhood feral cats came in and stole the ground beef intended for the roadrunners. Ding Dang! We came up with a new strategy.  Since the cats come out at night, we’d put the ‘bait’ out only during the day.  Put some more out this morning and while we were sitting outside watching, the grackles came in and ate it.  So much for that idea.  Rethinking how to use the third camera.

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  One other thing we look for when we get out here, beside the hawk nest and monkey mask, is Sam Elliott, a.k.a. Dean. He rides his bike into town, mostly in the early evening, sometimes during the day; if we were out on Picacho Hwy, he’d stop to talk. Last year he offered to show us a back way into Picacho State Park but we didn’t take him up on it. Anyway, no sign of Sam Elliott this year and we have no idea who in the area would know if he was still around.  I’ve been checking out every bicyclist (a word that only loosely applies to Sam) that we encounter hoping to see him.  It’s kind of like checking on the hawk nest and monkey mask every year…they’ve been part of our Picacho experience and so is Sam.  Finally on Sunday night we saw him heading to Eloy on the frontage road as we were heading back to camp.  I felt relieved…the hawk nest has been destroyed and the monkey mask may be missing but we still have Sam Elliott!

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   I don’t mind just sitting in camp if I’ve accomplished something in my day.  Just sitting doing nothing seems like the reward to activity…it doesn’t work for me as an activity. What started out as a nice slow start to the day was suddenly feeling like time wasted to me.  So we went to Casa Grande to run errands and eventually decided to go to the movies, which is something we try to do at least once every year, depending on what movies are showing. Kim doesn’t really keep in tune with what movies are out there so It was up to me to pick one. Hey, 80 for Brady is showing at 3:15…I saw previews and it looked like it could be good.  Game on!  The thing about the Harkins Theater in Casa Grande is that it is never busy in the afternoons. Bought tickets, bought refreshments and headed to Theater 5.  By the time the movie started, there were only 8 people in a  200+ seat theater and we were all in the upper level. Almost a private showing and yes, while the movie had some good moments, mostly I would say it was an okay movie. By the way, one large popcorn and two large drinks cost twice as much as the two matinee tickets. 

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  Got back to camp just in time to participate in the rock painting activity at the clubhouse. More kids than adults showed up, but it seemed that everyone enjoyed the experience. I brought my paint pens up with me…not necessarily intending to use them but wanted to have them, just in case.  The rocks sucked up the paint, so after painting several coats on just to get some color, I dug out my pens.  The base coats made it easier for the paint pens to do the finer work.  I defaulted to painting a unicorn with a purple background.  I’ll take it home to Shelby.  

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   No imaging tonight because it clouded over.  A lot of cloudy nights this year…not typical at all.

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40 Days of Lent challenge:  Fast from meat today.  Talked about how we could accomplish this and came up with several good ideas.  The reality of it was cereal, cheese quesadillas and popcorn.  Probably not the healthiest of choices but we avoided eating meat.


 

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