Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Big Storm!

Yesterday had a large storm cell move through the valley and today another one (and more) came through.
The clouds were moving and massing fairly quickly.
This was about noon - looking WNW from Tovrea's Castle.  The wind was blowing west and the cloud was moving north and east, then the north end started to move more to the east.  In a couple minutes the wind was blowing strongly to the east.

Here's a look toward the WSW of the same clouds.

I'm pretty sure that system is the one that swung around and hammered Mesa pretty hard.

A couple hours later here is another system cutting across and moving to the NW before all of a sudden coming south.

This is looking from the SW corner of Pueblo Grande.  Those are some dark clouds!

 We finally got some decent rain at Papago Park
The washes began to fill and run, but it didn't rain as hard here as it did at South Mountain this time.


South Mountain had golfball-sized hail and some good flooding.

In the west valley, they had huge hail. Our neighbor was driving in it and has a cracked windshield, cracked grill and light cover and hundreds of good sized dents in the hood.  I will see if I can get some pictures of it tomorrow.  News was out in our neighborhood with trees, fences, and power poles down. So basically, lots of damage in certain areas.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Science Camp (1)

We got to the camp on the Mogollon Rim about lunch time. The weather was perfect.

Time for a hike. 
 The kids were to pick up 5 - 10 non-living items found along the trail.
 Then under the huge ramada they gethered for instruction.
 Time to describe their finds with 5 descriptive words to identify each thing's physical properties.
That led to the afternoon's projects identifying various physical properties of different substances.

Hay ride after dinner!

It got a bit chilly overnight, but the kids were up early and in need of a morning hike.

More science projects the next day and a group photo. 
Was that all the kids there were?! I could have sworn there were twice as many!

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

A Couple of Shots

We are still waiting for the heat to step aside and make way for the nicer months of the year.
Caught these clouds near sunset last week.

These prickly pear fruit are backlit by the late evening sun.

The hawk in the upper left of the left tree is resting in the shade of the tree trunk during the morning sun of the third day of record heat.

Here is a close crop of the hawk and its nest.

Tomorrow is supposed to be nicer and stay nice through the weekend.

Like (Grand)Father, Like Son

Gramma was going through boxes and we came across this old photo of Grampa Gronseth when he was maybe 14 or so.  I thought Erik looked a lot like him so I had him hold the photo and smile.  Not exactly a smile, but there are some definite similarities - the chin and eyebrows being most obvious.

Friday, September 17, 2010

Black Widow!

It's been quite a while between blogs. The boys and Karen are all busy with school and I am finishing up odds and ends in the house and finally starting to tackle the backyard.  I had moved a bunch of bricks yesterday and when I picked one up today a large, shiny black spider started walking around like it had just lost its home.
Apparently, it had. It went to check on what appeared to be a large egg sack.
I'm afraid I couldn't let it go and fill every backyard nook and cranny with little widows.
Here's the classic underbelly. Sorry its a bit out of focus.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Blooming Barrels

Two of my barrel cacti are blooming nicely.
Here they are together in the front yard.

Here's the 5 together
(with a little cactus bee in the lowest one).
Four more buds opened the next day.

And the other barrel.

Short Stroll

Took a short walk near sunset the other day before closing a couple parks for the night. Here are some things I noticed...

A rainbow arc against some dark clouds. 

Tree roots exposed along a steep wash.  Must have occurred over time as the tree looks pretty secure yet.

A pretty beat-up saguaro.
(Note I didn't write a pretty, beat-up saguaro).

A saguaro in much better condition, but suffering from numerous rock throws and/or gunshot wounds.
The two large, round holes are more likely from woodpeckers making a home.

A little cottontail hiding under cover.

The other side of the rainbow on the way back.