Absolutely Arizona--the Saguaro

 The Saguaro is the state flower of Arizona  and often home to the state bird, the Cactus Wren. The saguaro cactus is definitely an iconic Arizona thing. The only place it grows in the world is in the Sonora Desert which spans the international border from southern Arizona into Mexico. Say Sah-WAR-oh--more or less.One h and the g has the Spanish h sound. I have read it also grows in one small area in southestern California but have not seen that for myself.  It is limited to and the marker plant for the Snora Desert for sure. There are some slightly similar cacti elsewhere but they are not saguaro!!

People do transplant them like into Cochise and Graham counties. That is mostly too high and cold (they do not do well over 3500-4000 feet and are not frost hardy due to being so very wet) but some will survive. A place about half way down I-10 to Benson from my home  had several big ones brought in and planted not long after I got here. So far they seem to be hanging on. I am not a fan of any cacti in my yard because I think they all belong out in the desert or wilder enviornments and worry about them hurtingmy  dogs or visiting kids. I fell into a prickly pear once when I was about thirteen or so. Ouch! Getting those thorns pulled out by pliars from my hip, leg and side was anguishing. Saguaros have fierce thorns too. 

Anyway I guess I first saw the big many armed cacti in about 1949 on a trip we made to near Tucson hunting javelina although I may have on an earlier trip or two to the Phoenix area.  My late hubby,who had grown up in Bisbee, lived in Tucson for several years while attending the UofA and also working on the campus police deaprtment. He was working with the Boy Scouts too and having also lived in Yuma before I knew him was pretty expert on the Arizona deserts. He introduced me to the perfect application of a Saguao rib for a hiking stick. 

To do this find a recently dead one where the outer skin with the thorns is just peeling away to reveal the inner ribs that were akin to blood vessels for the cactus when it lived. At the right stage these will break free easily and can be cut like regular wood to whatever length you want. They are rough though and it takes a lot of careful hand rubbing with oil or very gentle sandpaper to make them smooth and comfortable to the touch. You can also carve or shape them to make a comfortable hand grip. I still have mine that we collected back about 1984 or so. It is light and very strong, a fine 'third leg' for support and balance when hiking. I drilled a small hole near the top and made all little decoration or totem with a leather thong and some beads. BTW, people are not encouraged to prowl around in the desert now to find one but taking a dead plant or part of one is not illegal. 

These cacti live two hundred years or more and start putting on the 'arms"  between 70-90  years. Yes, they do grow slowly and are adapted to survive long spells of drought. Many middle aged ones only have perhaps four or five arms but some just seem to keep adding them until they have ten or twenty and some rarer plants grow a crown shape at the top. I am not sure what causes this, whether it is a genitic thing in a few individuals, an injury or a parasite. 

The Tohono O'odham tribe has a long history of collecting the fruit which grow from the white flowers that cluster at the top of a the cactus (starting around age 60-70)  and sometimes some larger arms in the spring. Like other cactus fruit they are quite sweet although an acquired taste. They do taste "cactusy" but make good jam and jelly. Once you get the thorny skin off, that is.  

 A few odd tidbits--you cannot cut down or remove one even on your property. Call the state to remove it if you must. Yes, you can buy them--several nurserys grow and sell them--from little ones in a box to larger but they can be very pricey!! Remember it may take one ten years to get beyond a few inches high! An arm that is broken off as say in a storm or partly damaged by a fire can root and grow and thus will have a 'jump' on a baby from a seed--but do NOT do this to get one!! Rerooting has been done successfully but as they say, don't try this at home.  These plants are very well protected by law as is only right. 

One little giggle. The saguaro has been featured on several Arizona license plates. My favorite was a few years ago so you do not see many now. It was dark red or maroon with white leters and numerals, letters on the right and numbers on the left, like ABC 123. And in the middle was a likeness of a saguaro--an arm on each side of the taller main trunk, which made it look like it was giving everybody the bad finger! I had one on my red pickup that I had to give up when I moved to New Mexico. It  ended in 666. I think I still have it somewhere! The new ones are not quite like that!

Here are a couple of links to learn more about these unique and Absolutely Arizona plants.

https://www.desertmuseum.org/kids/oz/long-fact-sheets/Saguaro%20Cacthp

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2016/08/04/8-things-you-might-not-know-about-the-saguaro-cactus/87461022/

https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/plant-of-the-week/carnegiea_gigantea.shtml

Near Cascabel, AZ Spring 2020

With Mom & our Jeep in desert near Tucson

 

Red Rocks--Absolutely Arizona

I have to admit there are red rocks in many states, certainly scattered throughout the region generally known as "The Southwest" but there is only one real Red Rocks and it is nearly smack dab in the middle of Arizona. Of course I am speaking of Oak Creek Canyon and the environs of Sedona. I can hardly imagine anyone has not at least heard of this region! 

I have been blessed to grow up almost within sight of that beauty since I was three years old. In Jerome we only had to walk maybe a quarter mile up on Sunshine Hill to see that amazing view. From Clarkdale, you could ride out from the 'hollow' where the lower town sat in any direction and find the view. And while I was in Flagstaff, I made many trips up and down through that canyon.

Over the years I have seen the town of Sedona grow from a tiny village or hamlet to the urban overkill "Mecca" (IMHO!) that it is today. I always knew it was magical but then the New Age folks "discovered" it and now half the wonder is obscured in a plethora of head shops, fortune tellers, snake oil salesmen, those who will conduct sweat lodge cermonies (talk about cultural appropriation!!) and jeep/plane/drone trips to get photos and have alleged adventures. Do I sound cynical? Yes, I expect I do. To me all change is not progress but that is just an old lady's jaundiced eye... I liked the old Sedona much better than what I saw my last few visits. 

 Anyway, those red rocks. I am not a geologist and now wish I had paid much more attention to several scientific subjects when I was getting my schooling. It was foolish and short sighted to shun math and scince as I did and I regret it now. But it is not too late to do some research and seek to learn. So I did some searches on Coconino Sandstone and a few other related topics and learned a lot. 

The exact colors of Oak Creek (and Sycamore Canyon) are really not perfectly matched anywhere else. The iron in the sandstone is the main ingredient but probably a few other trace minerals blend to create that palette. Eons of erosion by wind and water have shaped the ledges, crags and monoliths. However "Coconinio Sandstone" is spread across the Colorado plateau. It appears in many places; there are red bands on Woodchute Mountain on the northwest edge of the Verde Valley and on Black Mountain which forms the lower southwest edge of Sycamore Canyon. It breaks out near Ashfork, a small town on the I-40/Old 66 highway and the former ATSF main line tracks where ledges have long been harvested for the beautiful colors of flagstone used in construction all over the west. Of course it appears in Utah, the Moab area and Bryce and Zion National Parks particularly and in northern New Mexico, poking from the mesas and ridges as you wind down from Glorietta Pass on I-25. And of course the Grand Canyon, a real geological map of the ages where layers of many types of stone and past epochs are spread out to everyone's wonering view. 

Of course the area around Sedona has been photographed to death. It is immortalized in some three quarters of a century of monthly Arizona Highways magazines, appeared in numerous cinema views and captured in a million visitors' stills, videos and cell phone snaps. I really do not have very many photos in my collection; it was almost taken for granted by my dad and later even me because it was always there and at that time I never expected to be very far from it. 

Today I am in far southeastern Arizona and that particular phenomenon is not found here. I do miss it although Cochise County has the rusty red around Bisbee, which is rather similar to some of the hills around Jerome and appears to be a feature of many areas rich in copper--need to research that too! We also have the granite conglomerate in rounded boulders and crags like on the western side of Cochise Stronghold and through Texas Canyon. Oddly this is also found near Prescott on the Granite Dells area. All that being said, Red Rocks is truly Absolutely Arizona and a trait of my adopted home state that I enjoy, cherish and revere. It is unique and amazing but then much in Arizona fills that description!

Photos--first two commercial or not mine. 1) A slice of the Grand Canyon showing layers. 2) Cathedral Rocks, famed Sedona formation. 3) Dad's photo for an article 4) My photo of red bands on Black Mountain from VCRR 5) My photo of bands on Woodchute from above Jerome

Absolutely Arizona--Hummingbird Summer

 I am late this week and apologize. Monday I spent a good part of the day visiting with my longest term old friend. We go back beaucoup years or since I was 11 and she was 9 when we met and hit it off from the first. Oh, we had our spats as kids will but never gave each other up. We drifted off in different directions for a long time but then reconnected, perhaps thru Classmates. Anyway she and her hubby came by from their home farther north and we had a great gab fest. I know him too; he was a high  school classmate. They have been together for I think it is 55 years--how awesome is that?

Anyway, Hummingbirds!! Cochise County, where I have lived a total of about 28 years, is the hummingbird capital of the USA. More species are recorded here than anywhere else north of Mexico and Central/South America. They are a western hemisphere species or family and the most amazing little creatures. They are fearless and fierce, beautiful and amazing in the distances they travel with those tiny wings beating thousands of times a minute.

Back when I lived in Whetstone, a communnity about 25 miles south and slightly east of my present home, I began to feed them my first summer there which was 1984. It took a few years before I began to gather large groups of them and slowly came to know the different ones and be able to identify the regular visitors and a few of the rarer ones.

The most prolific among my guests were the Black Chins. In flat light they are gray with black heads for the males and just gray for the females. But in sunlight the males show a purple on their heads and gorget (neck feathers or 'bib') and both have a pale or near white front. 

The next most common is the Rufous, the only all red hummingbird I know of. The males have a deep red back that is irridescent in the sun, red wings and a lighter red underneath as well as a red head and gorget or throat patch. The females again are mostly gray with a slight redish cast. They are the most aggressive and possessive ones. A male will 'stake out' a feeder and do his best to run all interlopers off.

You seldom see them before mid to late summer because they fly north by a different route--some as far as Alaska. Then they begin a gradual trek south when the first hints of  'winter' (what they call termination dust in AK or the first little skiff of white on the mountains just below glacier level) and end up here between mid August and Labor Day. 

Other types may come and go and pop up suddenly--the White Eared,  Blue Throated, Anna's, Allen's  and Caliope--the smallest one, barely larger than  bumble bee! I cataloged those and a few more a time or two at Whetstone. The Allen's are similar to the Rufous but green backed with deep red in tail and gorget. Males and females of both show the white tipped tail feathers when they fan the tail out as in the aggressive mode. 

I coined the term "Hummingbird Summer" at least two decades ago. I was used to a few Black Chins that stayed all season,  usually about late March until near Thanksgiving. The season seemed to get longer over the years I lived there, from 1984 to 2008, and once or twice I think one Black Chin may have stayed through the winter as I would see him now and then. Either that or he had found shelter like up in Miller Canyon on the Huachucas and made a scouting trip on a warm day. 

Anyway, sometime in August the Rufous and Allens would suddenly show up and the air show was on with squads of them doing all sorts of aerobatics from dawn to dusk, sometimes calling a short truce so several could perch on a feeder at once and tank up. Then by mid September they would begin to slip away until it was back to  just the half dozen or so Black Chin regulars. 

They had a peculair trait which I am waiting to see/hear this year--maybe. They will fill up, perch somewhere and go into a suspended state, almost catatonic or hypnotized, for up to 24 hours, then fill up again and take off. They fly clear across the Gulf of Mexico in some cases or vast distances down across the Sonora and Chihuahua deserts where food and water are very scarce. How they manage I can hardly imagine but they do. And before this they would often perch and 'sing' this odd little slightly musical ratchety 'tune' that I only heard at that time. I said they were going over the route map in their minds or telling themselves, "I think I can, I thnk I can." I missed that for the years I was in NM and Colorado and there were not nearly as many around. There were quite a few in the Silver City, NM area but nothing like here. So I hope to hear some 'going south' songs come about October. We'll see. 

For now I watch the fun and enjoy the busyness of Hummingbird Summer. I'd better put sugar on my shpping list for tomorrow as I will be making lots of 'hummingbird soup' for awhile! I do eight cups of water and two of sugar brought to a strong boil for each batch and fill 2-3 feeders with that mix. Normally they last a week--I empty then if they are not and clean and refill but for a bit it may be every 2-3 days. It's been dry so not many flowers for them to visit. They need the food and have to contend with the bees for it, who are also hungry--or maybe lazy.  For sure, Hummingbird Summer is absolutely Arizona to me since I have not observed the phenomenon anywhere else.  

All photos mine from Whetstone days. 

Anna's female? 

resting Black Chin

Anna's and Black Chin

Annas and Rufous

Absolutely Arizona--Verde Canyon Scenic Railroad

Most of my long time readers know I am a total train buff. That bit of track from Drake, on the old ATSF (now BNSF) mainline across northern Arizona down to Clarkdale is very special to me. Charlie and I both grew our real rail fan outlook watching it. Under many circumstances, that line would have been abandoned as many odd spur lines and service to semi-rural regions have been in the modern merger days. These days it's gotta make a lot of bucks to stay active. But this one was saved. An investor who is also a big rail fan and has acquired a number of small railroads decided he could make it work and work it does. 

This all happened while I was away from the area from 1969 until I finally made a visit back in 2003. I've been back several times since. I still have some of my photos of the old rail yard and depot back in then. circa mid 1960s. At that time the line served chiefly to haul limestone and dry cement to build the Glenn Canyon Dam and to bring a little other freight into the Verde. It was expensive to maintain so there were work crews in almost constantly to clear rock slides, fix bridges and keep the line in service. The area looks far different now and it is a nationally advertised tourist attraction. I do not think there was ever passenger service in the ATSF days but that is now the big winner.

In 2006 I attended a book fair in Prescott and along with a fellow author and her hubby came over to Clarkdale and took a ride! Although I had ridden horse/mule back up about to the SOB Canyon bridge and even pastured some aniamls in a bend between the track and the river,near there I had never been past the old slag dump by railpower.

In short I was mesmerized. The scenery almost defys description and I stood in awe of the engineering feat required to hang a standard gauge track along the sides of a rugged and often narrow canyon--all done in the late 1800s by man and mule power and a few very small primitive machines. That it is safe for a slow speed and not super heavy train today is miraculous but it is. The owners certainly keep a skilled crew to take care of it.

The route winds up under the eastern edge of the craggy white hills that provide limestone for cement even to this day. Then it soon enters the Verde River Box, a narrow basalt walled gorge that carries the river, still a constant flowing stream above ground, a rarity in these dry times. Gradually the track moves past dusty white to tan and then into the beautiful reds for which central Arizona is known, the same colors you could see around Sedona. Sycamore Canyon joins the Verde about 15 miles out. It is a spectacular canyon too, a Grand Canyon in micrcocosm, one could say. Now a wilderness area, it can only be viewd by horse/mule back or on foot but the route shows the mouth and a small bit of it. On you wind, at times looking right down into the river as little as 30 feet below or as much as 200 or so. There are twists and bends and finally a tunnel. Once through it you break out of the canyon and wind up at Perkinsville, where the train stops. That's about twelve miles south frm the Drake junction. This is a pleasant little vale or park like area, once part of a big area ranch with some old corrals and buildings still standing. 

Riders are not encouraged to get off although it is about a half hour stop. The locomotives uncouple from the front of the train and pass on a siding to hook up at the opposite end for the return trip. Is it tiresome to go back the same way? It wasn't to me. The difference in the view from midday to late afternoon sun is incredible. You will see things you missed going out and have another chance to see big hawks and even eagles as well as other animals along the way.  

There are enclosed regular pasenger cars where some visitors elect to stay but each one has its own open air viewing car with awnings to give some shade since it does get hot up in that closed-in canyon. I opted to spend about 95% of the time on the one for my car and loved every minute of it. I could not look enough to see it all!

I made another trip in the fall of 2017 when I had gone over from NM to Arizona for another high school reunion. I had to miss a day at the old high school in Jerome to make the trip but it was worth it. The first time my digital camera zonked on me and my SLR was slow and clumsy. The last trip I had a good digital and used the heck out of it! I think I downloaded some 150 photos. I erased a few but kept many and still enjoy looking them over. I could go back any time and still enjoy the journey.

The depot and gift shops are well worth an hour or two to see everything too and the well-kept outdoor space and yard are neat and comfy. It is still hard for me to mentally merge the old and the new but both are precious to me in different ways. At any rate, the Verde Canyon Scenic Railroad is Absolutely Arizona for sure and a splendid way to spend a day if you are in that area! I will include some photos here and perhaps do a second post just of pictures to share some more. BTW the  date on some of  the color photos is wrong; I had to swap batteries and did not have time to reset the calendar!

depot and yard 1965

depot and yard 2017

Just out of Clarkdale

Verde River Box

Red and green contrast-with blue

Old corral--Perrkinsville

Absolutely Arizona--The Grand Canyon

Mom and me, maybe 1947

  And what can possibly be more iconically Arizona than this incredible  site, clearly visible from space and one of the world's true wonders? I  have been there quite a few times but it never ceases to amaze and awe  me. I really do not remember the first time but it was probably in 1946- 47, maybe our first summer in Arizona. I'm judging by my size in the  photo, sadly black and white.I think right after WWII color film was  hard to come by because I find no color pictures in slide, negative or  print for a time, say about 1942 to1946/7. There are a number of Grand  Canyon shots at the same time as this one but they are all B&W.

The next visits were many and in the summer of 1951 when my parents ran a Forest Service fire lookout in the Kaibab Forest just outside the park on the North Rim. On low fire danger days we made many trips out to remote viewpoints accessible only by dirt tracks in the Jeep. At eight I was too young to fully appreciate what I sw but it was amazing. Sadly, no photos. I am sure Dad must have taken many but in the whole stash of zillions I have not found a one.

My next visit was in the summer of 1970, not long before I completed my education and moved to Sierra Vista to start my first real job at Fort Huachuca. Two roomies and I went in Carol's new blue Maverick and made it to both rims in one day. I took photos but sadly they are all on the dead harddrive and the negatives and prints are long gone. I stil have hopes to regain them someday. 

I know I meant to go again but it was many years before I did. Finally in 2015 I made a pact to join a friend, Mary Frances Clinton, to meet at Williams and take the train out to the South Rim. It was a fantastic trip and we enjoyed every minute of it. The train was fun with cheerful and knowledgable hosts in each car and some entertainers who sang, played an instrument and joked with us. The bus tour to several viewpoints was of course the highlight and this time I did get lots of photos!! They are all safely stored on more than one medium and I plan to keep them always. 

I may go again, once the current muddle is finally sorted out. Who knows? I also collect a few special pictures on line and save for my slide show screen saver or digital stash. I'll share a couple of favorites! At any rate, the Grand Canyon is truly grand in the best sense of that overused word and I cherish the memories of trips and the fact it is part of my heart's home state, absolutely Arizona.

 

These two spectcular shots are not mine but they are fabulous!! The top looks fake 

but I know it is a true view.