Well, its not so much a ranch, but we are definitely back in the US. We are doing US things, like going to Costco, going to Home Depot and ordering things from Amazon. Very domestic. When I say "we go to home depot", I mean we've been going there about 3 times a day. We've been taking advantage of this extended visit to make some major updates to our home in Arizona that take a bit longer to complete than a typical 1 week stay.
We've been working 10-12 hour days, waking up at 5 am to get as much done outside before noon. We spend a few hours in the pool, then head outside again at 4 or 5 to finish things up. Temperatures have been over 100 every day for the last week at least. It's expected to be this way now through till monsoon season (Tucson has 5 seasons -- dry summer which is now--and wet summer when the monsoons come usually in September. Today's forecast is 106.
One of the things we love about our Tucson house is that this neighborhood is 'wild'. While Dan was doing some painting on one side of the house, 3 big Javelinas happily wandered across the driveway, came right up next to me, poked their nose in the dumpster briefly and then I shooed them away. There have been three baby wrens that were hatched and flew out of the nest today (Despite all the ruckus we were making in the front yard).
There is a family of quail, with 8 or so babies that come to feed at our watering hole. And to top it all off tonight, I had to stop typing this blog post to watch a bobcat pass by the kitchen window. He/She strolled along side the pool and crossed over the wash in the backyard. He was big, standing about 2' tall. Dan tried to get a photo, but as they say in the movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, "If I like a moment, I mean me, personally... i don't like to have the distraction of the camera. I just want to stay in it. Right there... Right here". It was SUPER cool. I've never seen a wild cat in the 'wild', let alone one walk 2' away from the kitchen window. Good thing Leia was taking a nap in the other room.
I'm thankful that the snakes have been keeping to themselves as we've been rummaging through the yard and turning over rocks.
We haven't seen any yet this trip but I'm very confidently not putting my hand down in any hole around here. Gila woodpeckers are appreciating our landscaping, hummingbirds enjoying the remaining flowering cactus, cotton tail rabbits scurrying around and the lizards just keep doing their pushups every morning as the sun pokes above the mountains. All this has occurred despite our pressure washing, sanding, staining, varnishing and painting.
So far we've put on a new cabana deck surface, given the exterior a new coat of paint, refinished the one-of-kind custom door and fixed a bunch of random other things. We even got our car swapped out from Carvana (this car starts!). We are excited to have friends and family joining us starting this weekend through til July so everything is pretty much ship shape. Note, that we'll be posting more sporadically between now the end of September. If you are ever in Tucson and need a place to stay, you can book your own visit to "Casa Amorcito" on Vacasa or VRBO it is now available for short term rentals when we are not using.
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