Brenda: Season 2013 Wrap Up

Well, sir, just now getting around to wrapping up the posts from Brenda for this season. It was a fairly cool winter but not like the rest of the country and I think we probably had the best weather anywhere in comparison to the rest of the country. can't complain, although we may do so from time to time just to keep it real. For the garden it was a great year. The cactus had a tremendous bloom and the veggie garden produced non stop and without a hint of pests like aphids and the like. The cactus garden is now on weekly watering with our helper, Ellie, and the veggie garden is all closed up for now but ready to begin again in the late fall.

 Everyone got together for a final bite to eat before leaving camp including but not limited to our resident chuck-walla seen here checking out the apple a day scenario.

 We put out dinner of smoked pork butt and the trimmings for the neighbors and had a good odds and ends session in the big tent with the Happy Tuesday gang.

We were afriad that the Argentinian Giant wouldn't bloom before we had to leave but it hurried up and did just that. It's really a pretty special cactus flower to be sure.

Marilyn kept trying to have one last fire in the chiminea and our local dove couple kept trying to lay an egg in the top of it every time the fire went out. The battle was declared a draw when the egg got laid but didn't get cooked...

When we left camp we first headed east to get an oil leak that was persisting fixed up in Mesa. That completed, we returned to spend one more night in camp before heading west into Needles,California on old Route 66. That is where we are as I write this, parked on the Colorado River with all types of boats buzzing by as we sat on the beach at day's end. Earlier in the day, we made a side trip back into Oatman, Arizona, to stalk the wild burros that frequent the town regularly. We got more than we bargained for as you will see in the next post!

This Week In The Desert

Well I had decided how to approach this post and how I wanted to present the slide show.....that was about 5 hours ago when I realized that Picasa Web Albums which I have used to manage both my photo edits as well as select html code for embedding slide show is currently transitioning to the all new (but not as good if you ask me) Google Plus. I might have had some choice in the matter but as they often do, they trick you into something like an update to your profile which automatically "enrolls" you in something new and unfamiliar. To say that annoys me would be an understatement. Slide shows no longer work- at least not yet and not right now. Bummer. Because now I either post a hundred individual slides and take up a lot of space to do it, or lose some of the photos that I thought to be important to the story at hand. Annoyed. Yes, that pretty much says it, especially after 5 hours of trying to figure out how to do something that thus far has not been implemented by Google. Rats!

Any way, the point of the post was to be this: Our garden and our plants are all blooming beautifully. The cactus is starting its annual parade of color in the campground and out on the desert, especially at some elevations, the flowers are out in full force and magnificent to behold. That doesn't mean that life here is easy though and on our last ride we came across the carcass of a cow that had succumbed to the elements out on the open range and was posing as the classic western image of cow skull and loose bones laying in the dust under a hot sun. Then too there were some very unique beetles found- no idea what it was, so if you know please write in.

The slide show which will NOT be seen today as explained was fully captioned so as to provide some info of what you were seeing. Don't know if I will go to the mat on redoing all that or not- maybe just here and there. Pictures R US:

 Beaver tails cactus:

Cow's Tongue:

 Santa Rita:

Squash plants:

yard plants:

salad patch:

summer squash:

desert toll:

 stretching our legs on a 90 mile ride:

Hedgehog in bloom:

Ocotillo in bloom:

 red barrels on the rocks:

 the perfect desert still life:

 out by "Gene Autrey's Hideout":

so bright it looked like night:

The Flintstones Cabin- a "cave" in the boulders:

Wandering Garter Snake's tail end!

 Guzzler- wildlife water collection station:

Tank Pass- 1000 ft drop over a quarter mile, then big boulders to climb at the bottom...

Canal pumping station:

 

 Single barrel blooming on a hilltop:

 the geocache champion of the world:

 caliche collapse:

 soil particles cemented by natural lime and pressure- CALICHE LAYER

 mule deer:

 Tell me what it is- I can't find it anywhere....??? Pretty and ugly at the same time.

Get The Lead Out!

This time we use the "Dutch Oven" with Donnie, not to make dinner, but rather to melt down some lead in order to facilitate part of the "reload and make your own bullets" process. It was fascinating and fun and we were amazed at the process and the color variation of the metal as the melting and skimming and pouring processes take place. Donnie is a treasure trove of information for shooters at all levels and for us pistol packing newbies this was a real eye-opener and learning opportunity. And as it gets harder and harder to get ammunition as our government scarfs it all off the shelves for God knows what reason, this is a skill that will certainly come in handy.

In the first shot here, the bullets of lead and copper covered lead jackets have been crushed so as to "crack" the jacket so the lead can melt out. They are just staring to heat in the pot over a propane burner.

We started out with 52 pounds of "bullets" that Marilyn and I picked up from the back berm at the rifle range. When the process was completed we wound up with 38 pounds of good clean usable lead. Recycling at its finest! Green shooters we are!

 If you look closely, you will see that many of the jackets are now empty, the lead is melting out and "floating" the jackets and other non-lead materials so they can be skimmed off. You might be able to see what looks like melted gold in the pot. Trust me- it isn't. No alchemy here.

As most of the copper was removed from the surface, the lead took on its characteristic blue or purple color for a short while as the impurities burned off.

Donnie demonstrates the safe technique for ladling  molten lead into molds for cooling. From there, they will be re melted in a different machine to be molded into projectiles for the ammunition.

Observatory Trail

I've been busy! This post and these photos have been sitting on the computer just begging for a little attention. What can I say? Too much fun for a writer to pay attention to the craft!

This was another Brenda Gang outing to Harquahala Mountain to "scale" the mountain with our quads and other 4WD vehicles to reach the summit with an amazing view from the spot where the Smithsonian once monitored climatic events from the highest spot in SW Arizona. Remnants of the equipment can still be seen, but rather than being used to "observe" the universe according to the state of Arizona, it now has had its equipment modified so that it controls the extensive canal system that delivers water to various parts of the desert. That in and of itself is pretty interesting, but the views from up there are just magnifico, and the ride up is quite exhilarating as the "road" we travel (more appropriately called a trail- especially in places) rises 4000 feet over the 10 mile length of the trail. It is one of the few rides where going up is actually easier than coming down, as low gears and brakes are the order of the day. Focus! No guard rails up here.

As is often the case AND also the reason we travel in the desert as a group, we had a breakdown three quarters of the way up. Randy's bike started leaking fuel and the carburetor, although the mechanics in the group attempted a "field rebuild" decided that it would agree to go down the hill later but not up the hill now. Shift riders. Up and onward. We'll pick it up on the way down.

Below, Randy owned the breakdown of the week: