Tucson is not a brown paper bag

I'm staying with my terrific brother and his wife; my mom has been here with them so we're all enjoying a few days together. And now, I'm sorry I'm already heading back to Virginia. It's been a great stay. 

My brother has a great sense of humor- dry and ironic but rarely, no- almost never, sarcastic. My sister and I have that vice in spades. Jim is just a funny, gentle man with a refreshing sense of wonder at the world. Love you, brother.  ( Sorry for exposing you, Janet....now the world knows)

And Jim and his wife, Brenda, like Tucson. It's their home and they enjoy the sunshine, don't mind the heat or at least have learned how to deal with it and love the mountain view off their patio.  So he has teased me about my comment that Arizona is like driving through a brown paper bag. 

Which the road between north Tucson and Oracle is. Sorry, Jim. 

But that's the beauty of the west.  On the east coast, Piedmont drifts into coastal or gradually climbs into  mountains.  And it's all covered with greens or the wild colors of fall. Beauty of it's own.  But in the west you can be in the Tucson valley surrounded by mountains, when suddenly you are in the flat paper bag of the desert all the way north to Phoenix. It's that quick change that I love. 

So here are some more pictures of Tucson- south through the Tucson Mountains over Grants Pass to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. Lovely drive.  From suburbs to mountains to desert in forty five minutes.

Tucson Mountain Park- thank you Civilian Conservation Corps

Prickly pear cacti against the sky

Jim on a trail from the stone picnic shelter

Saguaro cactus- pronounced sa-war- o

Trail to.... more cacti

We arrived at the desert museum, an amazing place- here's a lovely description lifted right off their site-

In a nutshell
The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is a world-renowned zoo, natural history museum and botanical garden, all in one place! Exhibits re-create the natural landscape of the Sonoran Desert Region so realistically you find yourself eye-to-eye with mountain lions, prairie dogs, Gila monsters, and more. Within the Museum grounds, you will see more than 300 animal species and 1,200 kinds of plants. There are almost 2 miles of paths traversing 21 acres of beautiful desert.


http://www.desertmuseum.org/

Yep, the desert is beginning to bloom- at least in the controlled environment of the desert museum.  I expected or wanted to see vast swaths of desert poppies or the cacti pop their crazy blooms. That requires a rain so it's like taking a trip to Alaska and hoping to see the Northern Lights- it requires incredible timing, dumb luck or lots of time.  I'll have to be content with the blooms I'm seeing.


But the lesson I'm learning is really captured in these images.  Nests in the cactus.

A big cholla showing a high nest

Nest tucked into a prickly pear cactus

Close up- you take the risks of painful splinters to get these photos!

So, here in the Desert Museum in the midst of pockets of lush, beautiful flowers, the birds chose unlikely places to build their nests.  How do they bring the initial building materials into the spaces between the spines and the stickers of the prickly environment that surrounds their chosen home?  I'd pick a prettier place, maybe up a nice... well, no deciduous trees around but surely there are more attractive places to raise a family. 

But probably not a safer one. When our homes are surrounded by things that prick and sting us, we can be tempted to move.  Sometime the only place we find to raise our families requires us to be diligent to the dangers in a seeming hostile environment.  Or maybe what appears to be hostile, is the exact environment for safety and security. 

And sometimes, the desert experience that pokes me and pricks me and requires me to chose with care where I place my feet and what I do with my hands is also the safest place for me to be. Not the most beautiful or lush or comfortable.  But the place that pricks my heart back to the Maker who provides a safe nest for the birds of the desert.  A nest in a cactus. 

Cholla cactus- pronounced choy-a -
cradles a nest

This is a series of amazing closeups of quail and their adorable babies.

Fishhook cactus in the back ground

 Yes, they just froze for me... well, at least they didn't move. OK, they are metal sculptures. And I'll probably never be so close to ones who could run away! You take what you can get....

Beauty in the desert,
Blooming where you are planted.

Finding time, finding place

Sometimes you just need to get away and soak up some atmosphere to turn on your inner muse. 

This was the place for me.

These were the casitas where we stayed on the writer's retreat.


A quaint street always intrigues me.

Or you could find a chair

A wooden corral to contain....


 random thougths,
flirts of ideas, glimpses of truth-
where's the gate?


Capture them quick!

Tred softly and watch carefully.... thoughts emerging....

Nothing like a leather chair in front of a fire,
 a cup of tea  and a fresh journal

Capture the color

These times, these places always lead to something new.

Thank you- I feel right at home

I just finished a Write it Real workshop with Sheila Bender, Meg Files and Jack Heffron.
http://writingitreal.com/writers-conferences/oracle-arizona.  The images are from the COD Ranch and resort in Oracle, Arizona.  The images I can't capture with a iPhone are the circles of support, the encouraging words around the campfire, the sharing around the dining room tables.  Those are my images to treasure and to mine for their riches.



Fabulous writing exercises, fabulous people who are also writers - we had a great time learning, laughing, eating, writing; a little wine, a bonfire, a little hot tub time. More eating, more writing. Ah... my idea of a piece of heaven on earth.

A pine cone full of seeds. My head  full of ideas. 


Life everywhere! 

The Trip to Oracle

As I drive through road construction, north Tucson shows few signs of a lagging economy. Contemporary houses sprout in the desert and a  classy Walmart anchors a hopeful new, shopping center.  An international pharmaceutical firm built their low slung stone and glass  research and development complex near the cancer diagnostic firm, both near a fairly new hospital. Clearly health or the lack thereof is big business in Tucson.

But I left the predictable suburbs behind and traveled north on the road to Oracle and Globe. Stone pillars or cast iron gates announced the newest golf communities and resorts along the way.  After passing several large, modern churches with steeples extending from dusty brown desert to brilliant blue sky, the road narrowed and the wealth receded.

Catalina Mountains in the distance

I’ve always wanted to see the desert bloom.  People say it’s spectacular, a “not be be missed” experience but I always manage to miss it. “You should have been here last year.”  “Oh, that will be next month.”  Must be fabulous or why else would anyone live here in this land of brown and tan and rust and khaki and brown, “Oh, said that one already”.  But for the blue sky, I could be inside a brown paper bag.

Brown tree

More brown tree

There are the Catalina Mountains on my right so it could be worse. It could be flat.

Oh, it does get worse.

But the turn to Oracle comes up and I’m careful not to miss the turn, who knows when the next cross road will appear?  And my heart sinks as I drive dusty streets past trailers and junk cars. There’s a Circle K, which turns out to be the only grocery store in town. Unless you count the Dollar Tree where I get two gallons of spring water and a bag of tropical mix to munch.

But the road continues and I pass some interesting adobe houses and wind upwards,  my heart drawn up with each curve.


This is getting interesting.  There’s the entrance to a state park, that’s promising.


 Suddenly a turn in the road reveals reddish rock piles, boulders windblown into curvy, smooth ochre snowmen, round stacked on round.

stacked rocks

Arrived!

Suddenly there was my sign- COD Ranch.  Missing it, I immediately pull off to a convenient turn-around  to the side of the road. Clearly, I’m not the first to miss that almost hidden driveway.  Wow- my road drops into a whole new world. Windmills, dirt roads, a fancy metal fence closes off a residence,  a distant vista of mountains.  Rescued from my vivid imagination of a weekend in a dusty trailer park!

Now I’m in my snug casita- fabrics with colorful stripes hang from cast iron rods and cover windows in white adobe walls.  Above the windows, southwest murals are painted on the white.  The doors and furniture is pale, rustic pine and my tin corrugated roof promises a dancing symphony if it happens to rain.  Maybe then….the desert would bloom!

Meanwhile, I’ll meet my fellow writers, enjoy some fun with words, eat some great fajitas and snuggle under soft down, encased in soft suede coverlet (brown, of course). I’m just grateful for the heater.

A Garden in the Desert

It's beautiful in the desert. 

Prickly pear with poppies

Poppies with more poppies

Yet another.... poppy

 The roads even in suburban Oro Valley where my brother lives are planted with wildflowers. The brown and tans of the native desert are mimicked by most of the buildings. It's a very harmonious setting. And then along come these outrageous flowers. God's fingerprints of beauty.

My brother and his wife have a peaceful view of Mt? across the park like wash behind their home. Her petunias are in full glory. It's winter here and they aren't consumed by the coming heat. 

It's spectacular in the setting sun but I forgot last night and now... I'm off to my own garden to cultivate some blooms.

Jasmine

The promise of orange blossoms to open

More potential oranges

Vegtables!

Kale! Glorious kale!

Carrots and spinach

Sorry, Jim, I pulled a little one... but it was delecious! 

Blooms in the desert

I'm in the deserts of Arizona.  And my brother and his wife have created a place of beauty and feasting- she has flowers in pots and up patio supports, along the back fence, in more pots in the front.  She has created beauty.   He has planted a winter garden and they feast on their own produce.  Tender, baby kale and spinach. Real carrots as sweet as sugar.  Basil and tomatos returning from a previous garden.

I'm here in the desert of Arizona to write. I leave soon to drive to the COD ranch http://www.codranch.com/ for a weekend writer's retreat.   I have my essays to work on, my work to be critiqued. I'm nervous. 

I'm here in the desert to create beauty with my words, to culivate a winsome message to whoever needs to hear it.  My flowers are words intended to encourage and to reveal Jesus in one woman's life. 

I'm here to produce- like a garden.  I find seeds of ideas, water them with the Word, soak them in thought and sometimes, in tears.   At times ideas and thoughts lay dormant but like all good seeds, they do come to the surface and produce a harvest.  All thoughts, good, bad and the ugly, produce a harvest. 

 I'm here to hone my craft of writing, to meet with other writers for feedback, to write uninterrupted.

What I need to do is examine my thoughts and line them up with the Word I claim to guide my life. A garden can only produce what is sown. 

Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. Ephesians 4:29

So here I go.  God knows what the desert will have for me this week.  He brings the earthly desert to beautiful bloom.  He provides vegetables in a dry land.  He can bring words to my soul.

Create in Me a Clean Heart, O God 1 Have mercy on me,a O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. 5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. 6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. 7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a rightb spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. 14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. 15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. 16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. 18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem; 19 then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.