I’m starting to get the hang of this early rising thing. Alarm goes off at 6:30…put a sweatshirt on over my PJs, grab a lap blanket and quietly head out to watch the birds. Don’t know that this will be sustainable back home, because right now, my getting up at 6:30 in Arizona equates to getting up at 9:30 a.m. in Michigan. That’s a far cry from early. But I’ll deal with that little hiccup when the time
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Simply because I’ve
been taking note of it, I’ve noticed the sun is rising in Picacho a minute
earlier each day; I checked to see how that compared with Charlevoix and it’s closer
to 2 minutes earlier each day back home. Interestingly, Charlevoix’s sunset change
rate appears to be closer to 1 minute later each day. Seems like it should be
the same amount on both ends; however, I have no scientific data to back up
that opinion. Anyway, I had assumed that each state gained back those precious
minutes of daylight at the same rate. Wrong!! So, I did a search and found
that March sees the largest monthly increase in daylight hours, and the exact
amount of increase depends on location. (Daylight Saving Time is not a factor
in this.) This is my summary of what I read in the Farmer’s Almanac: Between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, every
state experiences a daily increase in daylight hours. It’s incremental but it
adds up. Northern states gain an average of 3 minutes per day and southern
states gain an average of 2 minutes a day. The amount of additional daylight has
to do with location as the Northern Hemisphere starts tilting back toward the
sun. Put this under the heading of “learning something new every day”.
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The sparrows beat the actual sunrise time by 4 minutes: A sparrow was on
the suet cake, while others were scouring the ground for seeds at 6:36 a.m. and
sunrise was 6:40 Hummers were close behind the sparrows at 6:37 a.m. It was a calm morning for the hummers, just
the typical “This is my feeder, find your own” type of aggression. The peanut butter crumbs and mealworms were
gone again this morning. Refilled those that feeder before settling in to do
some playing.
I decided to play with my camera and phone. Turn my camera into a
hotspot, put it on the tripod a distance from the feeder but have the lens
zoomed in, and then use my phone as a remote to take pictures. I was sitting
right there; I could have held the camera in my hands to take pictures, but this
seemed more fun. But wouldn’t you know…the hummingbird feeder I had focused the
camera on didn’t get any visitors. The other two feeders were busy, though. Seeing
that my idea wasn’t working out, I decided to read. Then I came inside and
spent some time organizing pictures to send to the WonderKids.
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We’ve been wanting to put another cell camera out by the other one but we
needed a stand for it. Couldn’t find anything in Casa Grande or Coolidge, so
Kim ordered it online. We took a ride down to Nutt Rd. to install it, but the antenna
for the camera broke on the ride through the desert. Luckily, there’s another one in the camera
tote, but that wasn’t going to help us at that moment. Put the equipment back
in the saddlebags and decided to see where a well-traveled ‘road’ through the
desert would lead. It was a straight shot through to Harmon Rd.
Along the way, we encountered maybe eight cow skeletons, in various
stages of being cleaned by animals who do that sort of thing. The first one we
saw, I thought it was accidental…cow is out in the desert, feels sick, lays
down and the rest is history. By the
time we saw three or four, I was over thinking it was an accidental thing.
Back home, beyond Mt. Baldy, there is what my boys named The Valley of the
Dead Cows. When there was a working farm down the road, the cows that died
would be dumped over a hill some distance from the farm. The boys discovered when
we were out cross-country skiing. Pulling on my memory of the Valley of the Dead
Cows, I mentioned that maybe local farmers brought cows that had died out to
the desert and in the process, helped out the local ‘scavengers’. When I said, “But,
man, a dead cow would be pretty heavy to move”, Kim voiced the thought that
maybe the cows had been butchered and the carcasses discarded, similar to what happens
with a deer carcass. It’s a strange sight to come across, for sure. And now
that I think of it, farmers would not purposely encourage the coyotes by
dumping dead animals nearby. It’s a mystery without a clue right now.
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Rode down Harmon Rd. to see if Johnny and June Owl were out…they were
not. We decided to take Sunshine Blvd. back to camp, but when we should have
turned onto E. Peak Lane (frontage road), Kim kept going straight toward Eloy.
He was hungry and wanted to find something to eat. Back at Nico’s for the
second time in 3 days. Getting back on the bikes after 11 miles of hot riding for
another 6 miles of the same was not easy. My shirt was drenched in sweat, my legs
were feeling sunburned and my quads were angry. Only the thought of using Pedal
Assist made it possible to get back on that bike after eating a filling lunch.
That quick run down to Nutt Rd. turned into an 18.2-mile ride during the
hottest hours of the day…an 88o day, I might add. And the cell camera
isn’t any closer to being put out in the field than when we left to do it at 11
o’clock this morning. I told Kim that future bike rides of that length need to
be done earlier in the day. Desert animals know better than to be moving out in
the heat of the day. We need to learn from the animals.
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Got back from the bike ride about 3 o’clock; about 4 o’clock we headed
to Coolidge, where I had to will my legs to walk when we got out of the truck. They
were still a little shell-shocked at what I asked of them today. But the more I
walked, the less they complained. Then it was back to camp, where I basically
didn’t do anything all evening…except yawn. I started yawning early
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The subject of menudo came up about a week ago. “Isn’t that made with
tripe? And tripe is what…pig intestines or some other gross thing?” I looked it up; I was wrong. Menudo isn’t made
with pig intestines; it’s made with ‘some other gross thing’: beef tripe, which
is a fancy word for ‘stomach’. It’s a
traditional Mexican soup made with beef tripe (stomach), beef feet, and hominy
in a red chili-based broth, often seasoned with garlic, onion, and oregano. It's usually served with corn or flour tortillas, instead of crackers. It appears to be labor intensive, taking
4 hours or more to make, so menudo is usually reserved for Mexican celebrations
or holidays. Its origins stem from peasant
food heritage and poverty. Once known as the “soup of the poor,” menudo
is believed to have been invented before the 1910 Mexican Revolution, when food was scarce, to
Today, at lunch, Kim says, “I think it’s time I try menudo.” A bowl of innocent looking red soup, with a side of sliced bread, arrived; the bowl was so
full that it spilled and caused the proprietor to apologize profusely for
spilling it on the tray. Kim said it was very good and offered me a spoonful. Thanks,
but no thanks!!
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Knowing what I now know about menudo, I find it interesting that Ricky
Martin was part of an 80’s Puerto Rican boy band called Menudo. Apparently ‘menudo’ means ‘little’ in Spanish;
the band’s members were young boys aged 12-15, who were frequently replaced
before turning 16.
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Sky is clear and the Dolphin Head Nebula is tonight’s target. Last night was the Horsehead Nebula and it turned out so crisp and clear. Guiding was an issue starting out tonight and took Kim some amount of time to figure out the problem. Everything is currently looking good.
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