Muchacho Polaco

Bought some new house plants today. This is the Fiddle leaf fig. Apparently it is picky as a tropical plant and I don’t have a lot of hope it will last long. It’s a tropical plant and requires more humidity than we have. So we will see how long it will last.

This one is a Dragon tree and though also African, should be tolerant of my neglect. I found this online:

Dracaena marginata, more commonly known as a dragon tree, is an attractive plant with green sword-like, red-edged leaves. Native to Madagascar, the eye-catching spiky tree is known as a great entry plant for household gardeners—it’s easy to care for, drought-tolerant, and nearly indestructible.

The border remains open and it continues to be a brief wait for those heading north. We are still not sure why. Even so, it was nice for our friends Orlando and Anna to be able to have come visit us last weekend.

Yet on Saturday we had enchiladas at our house that Orlando had made. Phil and Shelley, Julie, and Roman, were able to join us.

The border has finally opened and we have received our 1st guests. Yun’s parents came up last night to stay for the weekend.

I was working on the backyard yesterday trimming some tree limbs when I came across this odd creature. It looks like a combination of a lizard and caterpillar. Quite big for a caterpillar.

We did our third hike today. Basically we are pro-level. It was somewhere between 5 and 6 miles, with similar incline as our last in Madera Canyon. Although, we both thought it was more difficult for us – so not sure how to interpret that. We both feel stronger on the hikes – but the elevation gain was brutal. Fortunately, it was mostly at the beginning of the journey, so we had the strength to get through it. The exercise has been wonderful.

We hear from neighbors with frequency about the local bobcat population – but I’ve never seen them myself. Usually I am too slow when someone points one out to me. A couple weeks back, Yun came home to one in front of the car port. He didn’t seem too concerned by my presence, so I went to grab a better camera to take his shot.

We are told there have been mountain lions in the neighborhood, but fortunately we’ve seen nothing of that.

We bought the house with two large cypress trees out front. I was never a fan as they seem totally foreign to the area. When the summer heat hit with its fury this year, one of the trees gave up and died. Unlike mesquites (which seem to be able to resurrect), this thing did not come back. That was probably best because it gave us a reason to remove it (and its twin) sooner than later.

I had Osiel over yesterday to remove them. He did it with a pole saw and no straps. Mexican-style (but not Mexican prices!) It took him about 4 hours to completely remove them. I saved the trunks to cut up later for firewood. They smell so nice – cypress has a very unique smell.

Now you can see our house a bit better. We are thinking about doing away with the red brick exterior and stuccoing it and then painting it white. The red brick is fine, but there’s no way I know how to update it so as to match the color when the sun fades it differently in different areas.

There is a house in our neighborhood that has the look we are thinking about.

Hard to appreciate from this photo – but from a distance it looks good. This house also has two cypress trees next to it.

I haven’t been back to Mexico since last New Years. It would be nice if the border would open so people from down south could come up and visit us.

Last weekend we crossed the border to have lunch with Yun’s family at La Roca. To our surprise, her brothers had driven up from HMO to join us. It was her father’s birthday. It was so refreshing to see how cheap food is still there.

The difficulty was we did this after our 6 mile hike (and without a shower!) I can’t say for sure that I smelled pleasant.

We went on another hike with JD this last weekend. It was in Madera Canyon, which is about 40 minutes south of Tucson – 30 minutes of it is east of I-19. There were 11 of us initially, but 3 turned back about the first mile in.

It was a brutal hike at 6 miles, with some pretty steep inclines (steep by our standards). It was absolutely exhausting. Yun didn’t think she would make it and had hurt one of her ankles pretty bad which made it even more difficult for her.

We met some unusually friendly deer.

And we had some pretty spectacular views.

Overall a great hike – but far too long for us in these first few hikes.

Either the one I killed recently has come back to life or we might have a bigger problem. I found this little feller waiting for me at the car this morning.