Let it snow

The poor little birds are having a hard time of it in the cold wind and snow. They're looking for protected places to huddle and stay warm. I put out fresh warm sugar water for the hummingbirds this morning but it's looking pretty chunky now. Here are a few more pictures from our little blizzard.

Icicles! 

A snow snail on the window

Snow stopped about 3pm but cold is holding. More pictures:

New Years Eve Day

We woke to snow and a cold north wind. What a way to end the year. It's really coming down as I write.

A cold wind blows at Hooper

Dog Diary: Ending out the year

Hooper had a blood draw yesterday to check kidney function and results were perfect! I don't know if we are out of the woods on this kidney issue but her blood levels have been stable for about a year. Biggest problem for this dog now is loss of hearing.

Tux seems to be doing well on the new meds. In fact, she chased three coyotes up to the ridge one morning, something she hasn't done in a very long time. She's playful, eating well, but still has one migrating lesion on her front paw. The sore needs time to heal so to keep her from continually licking it I apply antibiotic cream with pain meds to the spot and then have to stop her from licking that off before it can sooth the irritation. 

Tag is doing well but walks slowly, needs help with getting up on furniture, etc., and sometimes seems a bit senile. But he's still the Big Dog around the house. 

People Diary

After surviving his bout with pneumonia this fall Bob is ending the year in much pain with torn muscles and tendons in his shoulder. He was gung-ho with various house projects and must have overdone something to cause the damage. He has an appointment with a surgeon next month unless they get an opening sooner.

As for me, my only complaint is creaky old knees but I'm still getting around OK.

Update: Noonish

Still coming down...

A chilly Christmas day

Elephant's Tooth and the mountains above Oatman glowed red in the sunset last night. 

An interesting plant

Desert mistletoe, Phorodendron californicum, a common hemiparasite around here is the main source of food for Phainopepla nitens in winter. (I'm not aware of a common name for the Phainopepla.) A single bird is said to eat over 1,100 berries a day (Cornell Lab of Ornithology) and helps spread mistletoe seeds through its droppings. Phorodendron californicum evolved to co-exist with its host trees and shrubs in the Mojave and Sonora deserts and can live on a host plant 60 to 70 years extracting the water and nutrients it needs in addition to what food it can produce through photosynthesis in its own green stems. Leaves of Phorodendron have been reduced to scales that cover the brittle jointed stems and the surprisingly fragrant tiny flowers have no petals in bloom. Berries produced on mistletoe that grow on mesquite, acacia and ironwood were eaten by indigenous peoples, but those growing on Palo Verde and desert buckthorn were considered bitter and inedible.

Phorodendron californicum

A flash of color

Bluebirds are back!

Walking pictures

Day breaking

Trouble times three

My favorite morning viewpoint

Hawk on the ridge

Bobcat and sheep country

Hoop looking intense

A photo test

Not sure what these little birds are... Bell's vireo maybe... but I'm very happy with the quality of the photos from my new camera. The birds were almost too far away to see and the camera is hand held, but the focus is still decent. I was able to crop out a lot of surrounding stuff and still have some sharpness in the subject area. 

The Tux/Valley Fever Diary

Note: yesterday, small amount of very bloody mucus and water discharged in afternoon. Ate only half breakfast portion this morning. She is at week two of Fluconazole and week one of Terbinafine. Just when I think she is doing well on the medication something not-so-good happens.

Too Warm for December

Evening walk in the canyon. Burros blocked the high trail we initially wanted to walk so we altered the plan for Tux's sake. It is still t-shirt weather and I don't recall it being so warm at this time of year. Not surprisingly, we encountered a rattlesnake. Hoop walked by, Tag walked by, I walked by, and Bob finally saw it when he followed and boy did he jump. I thought he'd been stuck by the graythorn bush growing over the trail but he was gasping something about snake and told me to circle round to get a picture. Sure enough, there was a nice diamondback coiled up in the shade, and too cool to move. This used to be the time of year we could let our guard down and relax while walking, but not any longer.

Find the rattlesnake 

Dog Diaries - Tag

It was just Hoop and Tux with me this morning. Tag chose not to walk. The first time ever. Maybe he was confused. I left the gate open for him to follow if he changed his mind but found him waiting at the workshop door when I got back.  I suppose he thought I went there. He gets confused sometimes and I need to keep a close eye on him so he doesn't take a wrong turn. Poor old guy is getting kind of dotty.

Here he is tucked into the cubby under my desk where I've folded a cushy yoga mat in half for his comfort. This is his private spot.

Walking

The burro battles begin. This wild Jack has wounds on his chest and neck. 

The Tux/Valley Fever Diary

I should have started a diary from the start but who would have thought we'd still be deep into this thing a year later. Oh well, better late than never. I'm afraid we have years more ahead of us.

We started up with 300 mg Fluconazole again and the first week went well. No diarrhea or vomiting and her appetite was good until day five. I got the "I'm not sure I want to eat" look, but she has to eat to take the pills so I real quick popped a Mirtazapine down her throat and within fifteen minutes she was crazy ravenous. In fact, she was like that for several days, so I'm not going to give her those pills on a regular basis.

Monday we added the Terbinafine (otherwise known as Lamisil but in a pill form) and so far she's OK. It's only a tiny amount of the anti-fungal in an Angus beef flavored liquid but she apparently doesn't appreciate the flavor - or maybe she doesn't like having it squirted into her mouth. Her appetite is holding but she is no longer eager to eat in the morning. She is back to waiting for me to bring the food and place it between her legs. She may be eating just to please me but she does eat, so no more Mirtazapine until there is a real problem.

An odd reaction that I believe is related to the Fluconazole is anxiety. She is afraid to  go for walks if she catches the scent of burros, and that is impossible to avoid in these here parts. It happened the first go round but I didn't attribute it to the drug. We would take the Rhino out to the washes and she wouldn't leave it. When we switched to Itraconazole she was back to enjoying the walks. I thought it was because she was feeling better with the big drop in her titer, but since it has started up again with the reintroduction of Fluconazole I have to think that is the cause. I guess that's easier to deal with than the skin lesions she got from Itraconazole. It's always something.
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Working with Clay

I bought fifty pounds of clay expecting to stay busy sculpting this winter but all my sculpting tools are in Washington! I'm trying to make do with forks, knives, a few home made tools, and anything that looks useful but it is very frustrating. I will probably have to pick up a few basic tools or just forget about this and spend my time planning next years garden.

More work with Pixelmator

A much needed rain fell and gave us a day of dramatic low lying clouds. Below is a shot that was "enhanced" in Pixelmator (oddly becoming black and white). Second pic, the same shot enhanced in Preview  (standard Mac app) brought out some color which is what I would expect from the enhance function. Kind of odd that Pixelmator eliminated color. The original shot (not shown) was kind of a misty gray with very subtle color and both apps reduced the foreground mist. Third pic is just a shot of neat clouds.

Our Desert Yard

We've been taking advantage of mild weather to work around the house. Bob is painting exterior trim and woodwork while I have been working in the yard. The pool garden survived my absence but next year we're going to be gone much longer and the plants need to be watered once a week. I'm not sure yet how we're going to manage that.

The three Palo Verde stick trees we planted last year are starting to look like real trees. One of them was stunting in a bad location so I moved it down to the pool area and will have to keep my fingers crossed that it survives.

With such tiny leaves and a stick-like trunk it is kind of hard to pick out the replanted tree. It's actually easier to see the stake next to it. Anyway, the three new trees are blue Palo Verde. In the picture directly above, the tree in the upper background is a seven (?) year old yellow Palo Verde (variety Desert Museum). The Desert Museum's bark is green and it blooms more heavily and for a longer time than the blues eventually will. In the picture below are the two other blues in the back yard. They are the same age but quite a bit bigger than the one now in the pool.

This is where the moved tree spent it's first year (below). You can see there is little here but rock. I'm pulling aloe from other areas of the yard and planting it here. Aloe isn't my favorite plant but it is tough as nails and nothing eats it.

Here is a cactus variety I found growing at a little higher elevation. It's doing well here. Got to watch those nasty glochids but something occasionally will feed on these cactus.

Here is a shot of the pool garden from the deck. The shrubs grew a bit, the grass a lot, and I finally put the potted cactus into the ground at the corner of the pool since the last pictures.

Image Editor

My sole Black Friday purchase was an image editing app called Pixelmator. I've been waiting for the update for Yosemite before purchasing and was delighted to find the latest version half price online. Now I'm going through tutorials learning how to use it.

Sharpen and Blur

Here is a before and after photo of the Mojave Patchnose we saw the other day where I've sharpened around the eye and nose and increased the blur around the photo edges. Once you learn what all the tool icons mean (and there are dozens of them) so you can select the appropriate tool, using it is pretty easy.

Before

After

Salvia mohavensis

I'm using a new Canon digital super zoom camera and need to get familiar with it. It's similar to my old Canon but with lots more functions. The macro flower shot is Salvia mohavensis, best I can ID it. Mohave sage. There were just a few fading flowers this time of year but it is a gorgeous burst of blue in full bloom.

Salvia mohavensis

Black Mesa

A Warm November Day

We're saving a turkey and having pot roast for Thanksgiving dinner.

It was warm enough to bring out the reptiles today. This is a Mojave Patchnose. The second picture shows the flattened enlarged scale on the end of the nose that identifies the snake.

Dog Issues

Valley Fever

Tux's titer came in at 164, unchanged from the last test, so we are starting up with Fluconazole, 140mg 2x a day with the addition of a small amount (20-40mg) of turbinafine. Both work by inhibiting the synthesis of ergosterol in the cell membrane of fungi. Itraconazole inhibits synthesis of ergosterol too, but in a different way. Why one antifungal works for a dog but not another probably has something to do with an animal's genetic makeup. It's far beyond my understanding. Anyway, the small amount of turbinafine apparently gives fluconazole a boost in effectiveness that we hope will make this round of treatment more effective that the first. We are keeping our fingers crossed that the medication won't throw her off food again reversing her much needed weight gain.

Sore Feet

Tag is having such a hard time walking I was thinking about leaving him home, but if you know border collies you understand that he would rather die than be left behind. So today I put the old dog boots on him and Hooper, (she's been hurting too, though not as much) thinking the sharp rocks here in Oatman could be causing the problem. It was unbelievably cute to watch them high stepping and stumbling in the odd footwear, but once they adjusted Tag was actually trotting again so I'm happy to report we are back to enjoying our walks.

Tag, closing the gate in his Ruffwear boots