Do Life Right

It’s officially prickly pear fruit harvesting season here in southern Arizona. Our prickly pears, a.k.a. tuna (Yes, Tuna!), are beautifully ripe. Some are even falling off their pads. We’ve been surprised at the various colors of the fruit - we especially like the bright red ones that look almost like radishes. Today’s [...]

I found myself taking this photograph at 4:30AM this Sunday morning out in the middle of the Sonoran desert on a country dirt road. I was in the middle of taking the photograph when it occurred to me that what I was doing was a completely bizarre thing! My younger daughter and mother [...]

The best gardening I’ve ever done has been the produce that is accidentally popping up around my yard. We’ve been enjoying the saguaro fruit, prickly pear fruit (prickly pear pads can also be eaten), and now pumpkin! In our wash, pumpkins pop up during monsoon season every year. Here’s a picture of [...]

My husband recently came across this giant moth right outside the back door of our house (in Southern Arizona). It was definitely sound asleep since we all hopped around it making quite a racket for a while and it didn’t budge (it did twitch though, so we knew it was alive). It was [...]

This is my third post on this topic. Click here for the first, and here for the second (this one has photos of my older daughter’s hair donations).
Earlier this week my 7.75 year old daughter, Teagan, decided to donate her long hair to Locks of Love. Here are some before and after shots. [...]

Every time I see a little horned lizard on my land, I’m reminded of the Jem’Hadar on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Their head shapes are very similar! I wonder if the Star Trek people used the horned lizard (a.k.a horny toad) as a model?
Yesterday, my daughters discovered a rather large horned lizard [...]

We’ve seen all kinds of animals on our land in Southern Arizona — south of Tucson — including a wide variety of lizards, birds, insects, mammals, tarantulas (we saw a really big black one last night), and snakes. But, we never expected to find frogs. During monsoon season (which is right now) these [...]

Sounds ominous, doesn’t it?
I was hanging out in my older daughter’s room earlier this week and we took a minute to look outside (around 3:00PM local time, for those interested). Immediately, I saw a really long snake crossing our driveway with a little bird trying to catch its tail. We then saw several [...]

We recently checked out the Prehistoric Dig event at the Tucson Botanical Gardens. It is a very nice garden and my family enjoys the different special exhibits the garden displays. Here are a few photographs of our recent visit. Our quick review: It is a very nice (but small) garden and [...]