Where we are

Our 26.5 acres are located 15 miles from Sanders, AZ. Our "driveway" (how long it takes us to get to paved road) is 3 miles long. We live on a mesa, above some cliffs overlooking the Painted Desert National Park. Our nearest neighbor lives just on the northeast corner above our property. She is a 59 year old lady that lives in a small camper with her two dogs. Our next closest neighbors are an couple in their lower 80's, they live about a mile down the "driveway". We are lucky to have great neighbors! Our area is at an altitude of about 6000 feet, thus we don't have the extreme heat of the lower desert areas, such as Phoenix. Our high temps are said to be 96 or so, for the summer, and nights are below 75, often in the 60s. It is very dry, humidity is usually at less than 15%. The ground consists of a light clay colored sand, very fine and smooth, and gradually the sand turns to clay about 6 to 8 inches down. We don't have a lot of cactus, but there are some, and wild sage. Our trees are junipers, they provide great shade, but aren't close together. Our wildlife consists of coyotes, bunnies (jackrabbits & smaller rabbits), ravens, hawks, golden eagles, lizards and horned toads. I love the horned toads, they are soooo amazing in their natural habitat, for some reason, absolutely adorable. We do, of course, have the undesirable inhabitants of the desert, and I will share some of our experiences with them in my next blog. The coyotes are scary to hear at night at first, but that quickly fades. They are reputed to be quite cowardly. At night, we have a clear view of the sky, and can see stars in all directions. It is like being under a huge bowl filled with lights. We see lots of meteors and falling stars. The only unnatural sounds we normally hear are trains(abundant here, but in the distance, for us), and the jets flying overhead. At night it is extremely quiet. Our days are divided into 4 parts: cool morning, hotter to hot midday, sundown, and evening. Morning work is heavier, we don't do much at midday, and sundown is the time we take a quiet walk and then prepare for bed. By the time night falls, we are usually tucked into our tents, getting a last bit of reading in before we go to sleep. We literally go to bed with the chickens...or would, if we had some. We will, just not yet. I have pictures, but not a way to post them yet. Will work on getting some up as I can. I believe I posted in my last post about the pottery we are finding...research shows some of the pieces date back to 500-700 AD, and later pieces from 900-1700 AD. Amazing! We are working on our cabin, a little wood one to start, to get a shelter over our head. I have learned to hammer and handsaw! I love hammering, sawing is a bit more difficult for me but I am getting there. I can't wait to have a floor and walls and roof again, here it is mostly for shade and to prevent the wind from dusting your food and everything else. May was quite a month, lots of wind, but June is much quieter, it just seems it is unseasonably hot this year (wouldn't you know), and we have already hit 96 degrees. OK, next blog will be the rogues of the desert..stay tuned!

Short blip about Phoenix then on to the high desert...

A few things I noticed about Phoenix...it was green(especially after leaving still-winter Alaska), the people are very friendly (quite sunny, actually :), it was already getting to 90 degrees the first week of April, and driving around the city is hell!! We bought several road maps but all were already outdated. I am thoroughly glad we did not plan on living there! Most of our time there was getting ready to head north (supplies, etc.), so I am going to fast forward to our arrival in the high desert. We drove 240 miles northeast, and arrived at our friend's place. We stayed with her for a week two years ago. She is a very self-sufficient lady (84 years young). Up until 7 months ago she lived mostly alone, but now has a young couple living on her property and helping her with the goat herd and things she needs done. We stayed in a little camper she owns for a couple of weeks, gathering more supplies and learning where to get water, groceries, hay, building supplies, etc. On May 1st, we went to our own property about 18 miles away (but 45 minute drive on "rustic" country lane roads). The horses would arrive on May 2nd, and we needed to be in residence from that point on. Ah, tent camping...not bad, really...we were fairly well set up with a cookstove complete with oven, coolers to hold food and water, pads for underneath the sleeping bags, even a solar shower! It took the wind about 15 minutes to flatten the solar shower. Two days to rip a hole in the tent. Finally, after some major staking(3 foot long stakes), things were pretty stable. We learned what a rogue wind is...a mini-tornado that pops up out of nowhere. Off in the distance, they look like large dust devils...up close you are too busy closing your eyes to see too much. Sometimes we get wind storms, like thunderstorms but without the rain, they sometimes last all day or all night. What is really fun is when the wind scoops up the sand and dumps it down inside the rainfly on your tent, especially at night. Fortunately that doesn't happen too often... We had prepared a pen for the horses, complete with solar electric fence and water trough. They arrived late afternoon with no problem whatsoever, and we were very excited to see them! We got them all settled in their new home, gave them some of the lovely green hay that is available in the area, and settled down for the evening. And that is when the cows arrived...cows that could care less about an electric fence. Arizona is free-range, which means unless you fence out the cows, they can go wherever they please. And so they did... and then so did the horses,(once the fence was down, which took about five minutes). Two days later we went and purchased barbed wire, and put up our first real fence. Barbed wire is the only thing the cows respect. I hate it for horses, but you do what you have to. So far, six weeks later, we have only had one cow invasion, a houdini cow that wiggled through. Charles has become an expert in chasing cows off of our property, and they hardly every appear anymore, thank goodness! It sounds grim, and yes, we are definitely learning to arise to each occasion, but it is a kind of country that grows on you. We have a 240 awesome view from our mesa, of the Painted Desert. There are mountains that are 200 miles in the distance that we can see. We have discovered that there had to have been Navajo and older Indian tribes living on the mesa, we find pottery fragments everywhere. If we walk down the cliffs, we are on the outskirts of the National Park for the Painted Desert, and it is like a different world that we love to explore. Afternoons can get rather warm, but nights are always cool. We always have cover by early morning. More to come..stay tuned!

The Beginning of Our Journey

Our journey from Alaska began on April 2nd, 2012. We had packed as frugally as we could, our household goods narrowed down to 5 large packing boxes (18 x18 x24 inches), two suitcases each, and our dog, two cats and parrot. Our goal that day was to leave in time to have two ours at the Anchorage airport, but as these things often go, we were running late and managed to arrive with one hour to spare. That was just enough to get everything checked in. It is no small thing to have 4 animals checked in at the airport. Each one had their own kennel and health certificates. A paper had to be completed about each one regarding age, breed, instructions, etc. Then each one had to be removed from the kennel so that it could go through security check, and then put back in the kennel. Our hour flew by, and we were so busy neither Charles nor I thought to check in his 22 rifle. BIG MISTAKE! As we started to board, security came up and asked if we knew we had a rifle in our luggage...Charles said yes....off he went with security, and Lisa and I had no choice but to board, as the animals were already on board and the plane was taking off in 10 minutes. Off we flew to Phoenix, without Charles! We had bought a new cell phone, one of the pay-as-you-go types, but hadn't even had time to activate it yet. Luckily, we still each had our iPhones...not active, but they would still work with the airport wifi, so we were able to email each other. Turns out he just had to answer a few questions, and if our plane had taken off 20 minutes later, he would have been able to board! As it was, the next flight available for him was 10:00 am the next day, which would put him in Phoenix around 1pm. So Lisa and I were going to land at the Phoenix airport with 4 animals, 5 large boxes, and no place to go. It was going to be a long night.... We arrived at the Phoenix airport around 7:00pm that evening. I will say, for anyone curious about flying with animals, that Alaska Airlines totally rocks in that department. Upon boarding, I noticed that the cabin was much warmer than I had ever experienced, and I am convinced that it was because of a certain parrot on board...and as soon as we sat down and the cabin door closure announcement was made, a stewardess arrived with four slips of paper, each one saying "I am on board!" What a piece of mind when traveling with a pet! Once we landed in Phoenix, we immediately went to baggage claim and I told the customer service rep our dilemma, that my husband was delayed, we were moving, and we had all these boxes plus 4 vari-kennels of animals...she immediately called for assistance, and all of our "cargo" was unloaded for us, and we were invited to use the nearby chairs for the night. Yes, it was a long night...but we were secure, warm, and safe. Phoenix even has a sanded dog park at the airport! All of our babies behaved so well, only Kego, our tuxedo cat, was traumatized at all, and he spent most of the evening in my lap covered by a light blanket (new meaning for security blanket). Lucy dog got to sleep out on the floor, and Snowflake(cat), and Jessie (parrot), slept covered in their kennels for the most part. The next morning I had everyone covered in their kennel, except Lucy. A lady walked by, and said, "Oh, you have three cats!!). About that time the third "cat" said "Hello!!" quite loudly..talk about someone doing a double-take! Charles arrived at 1:30pm that afternoon and went and got our rental truck. After some very creative packing, we were on our way to our KOA camping cabin, and our first real look at Phoenix.