The monsoon season started in Tucson and dumped record rainfall there, but here in Portal we got off to a slow start.  Once it started raining around mid July, we ended up getting about 4 inches at our house and the creek was running and everything was green! Along with the monsoons came critters!  We had nectar bats, skunks, deer, bears, raccoons and snakes, as well as insects of all types. Ants, beetles, caterpillars, moths, butterflies, mosquitos, no- see-ums, chiggers, kissing bugs and ticks!

I especially despise the ticks, but the no-see-ums are pretty nasty too. Oh, and the chiggers! If you get into the high grass, the chiggers will eat you up!  The native grasses grew like crazy and the trails nearly disappeared in the grass. Makes one a little apprehensive about walking through the grass and possibly meeting up with a snake.  We were lucky.  Only saw one rattler while walking and it was stretched out in the shade on Cave Creek Road near the Visitor's Center.  

August rainfall at our house was just 1.4 inches and so far this month, just .09. So things are drying up, the hills are browning and the grasses are going to seed.  The creek is still running a little by us, but is dry at the Portal Road bridge.

June was so hot that most of our fruit trees didn't produce much fruit this summer.  We got a good crop of apricots and a few pears, but no apples and there are only 4 persimmons on the tree!  The pomegranates always seem to do well, but we don't eat them much.  Bud does juice them and that's good.

Our peach tree died.  One of our apple trees apparently succumbed to the fire in June.  It looks pretty much dead. We are encouraged by our little fig tree we started from a cutting last year.  It's looking pretty good, but is small and seems to grow slowly.  We're going to try to start some peach trees from seeds, here pretty soon.  Oh, and I have a tomato plant I started from a seed from a store bought tomato and it has about a dozen tomatoes on it.  I ate one yesterday, but it wasn't as tasty as the ones my neighbor grows.  I'll have to save some seeds from his tomatoes for next year.

It is now September and soon the winter residents will be back in Portal and we'll be busier than we have been through the summer.  It seems there is always something going on here.  Just Friday we had a birthday party for Bob Addison who turned 100!  He's a neat guy and doesn't look a day over 80! Heritage Days was this weekend and we enjoyed a number of interesting talks and a field trip to the Cienega Ranch.

We've been trying to go Jeeping at least once a week and we've explored some really neat areas in Cochise County and in the boot heel of New Mexico.  There is so much history here and we love reading about the early days of the Apache and the white settlers that toughed it out here.

We haven't been to Tucson more than once a month all summer and that's fine with us.  The traffic and noise is stressful after the quiet of the Chiricahuas.

Last night was quite unusual for us, even though we have a lot of wildlife in our yard and community, it seemed that everyone decided to meet in our yard!  Yesterday morning our neighbor, Laura Mullen called to tell me there was a bear in her cypress tree after her dogs scared it up there during the night.  Bud and I walked down and got some great photos and he was up there all day.  

Around 7:30 last night we were bringing in our feeders and a little skunk was under one of our windows and ran around the corner of the house as Bud took down the feeder.  As soon as Bud stepped back, the little skunk came back under the window and picked up a dead bird that was laying there and took it around to the front of the house under the wisteria arbor and began to eat the bird.  I took a couple of pics and he didn’t seem to mind.  As I watched the little skunk, I heard shuffling and breathing out on the road that was bigger than a skunk, so I thought the bear might be out there.  I got Bud to come out with me to check and there were 3 beautiful black cows eating in the Waser’s yard!  This is open range, so the cattle can go wherever they want.  It is individual property owner's responsibility to fence their property if they don't want cows in their yard.  We are fenced, but our neighbors across the road had their fences along the creek washed away in the flood a few years ago and never replaced them, so the cows come up the creek into their yard.

Well, about 8pm we heard a couple of skunks having a hissy fit outside and the argument moved from under the arbor to under the wood cover on our house water filter.  There was a lot of squealing and thumping in the wood box and then the parfume de’ skunk permeated the air.  Wow!  was it strong just outside the door!  Bud went out the carport door to walk around and see if he could figure out what the skunks were doing in there and we figured there was a trespasser in the box. Apparently one of the young skunks from our neighbor's den had set up housekeeping in our filter box and another skunk wanted to move in.  :)

​As Bud came around the house, he heard rustling in one of our trees and then huffing and when he looked up, the bear was in our tree!  We told the bear it was okay and we came into the house to allow him to come down and leave, but apparently he had other plans.

About 15 minutes later, we heard a loud sound of metal being rolled around, so I looked out the carport door window, thinking the bear was after our garbage can.  There was no bear, but a diamondback rattlesnake was making his way across the edge of the cement of the carport floor!  We hadn’t seen a rattler all summer in our yard.  I couldn’t believe all the activity that was going on.  I went into the back room and shined my flashlight out the patio door towards our gang box where we keep the birdseed and sure ‘nuf there was mr. bear wrestling with the gang box.  We didn’t figure he could get it open because we had it locked and a 3/8” cable through it and around a large tree.  So we both went out to chase him off and he ran up the tree instead of out of the yard!  He must've been the same bear that was in Laura’s tree during the day.  He huffed and moaned at us so we went back in the house and then about 15 minutes later he was really making a lot of noise, and when I looked out the back door at him, he’d somehow broken the cable loose from around the tree and flipped the gang box over!  It didn’t spill a lot of seeds, but enough for him to keep wrestling with the box to shake out more.  The lid stayed closed, but was lose enough to spill the small niger and millet seeds, we hoped he would get enough from what spilled out to not make noise all night because every time he made any noise the dogs started barking!

He ended up being quiet the rest of the night and we didn’t hear any more from him, but he’ll probably come back tonight since he did get a reward for his efforts.  I’m afraid this bear will be killed by fish and game, because he has lost his fear of humans pretty much.  He used to go over the fence right away, when he saw us, but last night he just climbed the tree and huffed and snorted until we went inside and then he continued what he was doing.  I heard that yesterday in the middle of the day, the same bear was outside the cafe eating birdseed as people were eating in the patio area just a few feet away.  If that happens too often, someone will eventually get too close and get hurt and then the bear will be destroyed.  He’s a male, so his chances of survival are looking pretty dismal.  Sure makes for an exciting weekend though!

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Yesterday was July 4th and we were participants in the annual 4th of July Parade in Rodeo, New Mexico which is just 7 miles from our Portal home.
I designed a float for our clinic with our theme being Three Gals & a Syringe. Our banner said "Stick with us for all your medical needs".  I made a giant syringe and some of our actual patients participated.
We had the waiting room in the back of our pickup.  I had some syringe type water shooters and sprayed the people along the parade route and we threw candy and beads to the spectators.  Our giant syringe was just for show.  Maybe next year we'll spray the spectators with a giant syringe!
After the parade we had a pulled pork barbeque at the community center where winners of the parade catagories were announced.
We won the "Most Comical" Float award!  Following the dinner there was a dance and fireworks, but we didn't stick around for that, it was passed our bedtime. :) 

 Living in Portal Arizona is a dream come true for Bud and me.  In all my adult life I have never developed such a close relationship with so many people in the community where I lived. The closest I got was when I volunteered at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum and felt like part of a family with the other volunteers I worked with, both as a Docent and as a Raptor Free Flight volunteer.  

The Portal/Rodeo community is made up of people I proudly count as true friends from many different circles and backgrounds. Though we don't agree on some topics, we do love and respect this beautiful community and the mountains.  

The Chiricahua/Peloncillo historical society sponsors field trips each month to learn the history of ranches and mines in the area.

On Labor day a group of co-workers got together for a picnic and swim at the Grills ranch.  They have a nice new beautiful pond to swim in.  It was great!
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There are lots of community activities that bring us together in different venues.   We had a 99th birthday party for Bob Addison in September.  His 100th birthday party is already being planned!

Portal Irish Week is an Irish music workshop held in downtown Portal each year and the instructors treat the community to a concert on the Saturday afternoon.  Susan and Burt, the Gypsy Carpenters, are the organizers.  

Oktoberfest is a fund raising event for our Portal Rescue EMTs and Firefighters. The Banjo Blasters came to Portal and played a benefit concert for the Sew What? Club's Scholarship Fund after the Oktoberfest activities.  

At Christmas I once again taught a wreath making class at the library and next Christmas we may have to move it from the library to the Portal Rescue Classroom so everyone has room to work on their projects.  

Of course birding is a big thing here and even those who aren't birders are interested in new or unusual sightings. This winter there has been a Streak-backed Oriole in the Rodrigues yard since November and apparently will be here until Spring.  Beautiful bird from Mexico.  We've seen Sandhill Cranes and a few Snow Geese and wintering owls in the Cienega north of Portal.  

This year was the first time we attended the community Christmas Dinner in the Rodeo Community Center.  A great dinner provided by local business owners and served by volunteers. Christmas Caroling followed afterward.  It was really nice. 

Our population increases in the winter and on Fridays a couple times a month we have forums hosted by the Sew What? woman's organization.  The speakers range from scientists talking about their studies to travelogues of adventures around the world, to authors talking about their books.  Always interesting.  Snacks served afterward are provided by local ladies and donations benefit the Scholarship Fund.

We've been burning up firewood in our woodstove instead of using our furnace and this week, the temperatures have reached the high 60s during the day, and above freezing overnight.  Spring is coming!

I'm sure we'll have another cold spell before winter is over, but the longer days are sure nice!

It's February 4, 2017 and we have been enjoying our Portal Community, but not spending much time blogging about it.  We had a warm fall and early winter and now in February it's beginning to feel like spring after some really cold nights and days in January.

I'm working 3 days a week now in the Portal Clinic and still go to the Circuit Writers Group on Wednesdays.  My book was rejected from Simon and Schuster, but I've submitted it to an educational publisher in hopes that they will see the value in my natural history of Harris' Hawks.

​We go to Tucson once a month to see the grandkids.  Greg just turned 3 and Wesley is 5.  They are sweet little boys and growing too quickly, but we have fun when they visit us or we visit them.  We aren't playing with the Banjo Blasters too often since I'm working 3 days a week now, but we have a couple of good gigs in April that we'll be going to Tucson for.  When we do play with the Blasters we have lots of fun, but it's a long way to go for an hour of fun. :)

We've had some good snowfall in the mountains and rain in the valleys, so it may be a good spring for wildflowers.  The creek has been running since new years and the last two weeks were rather cold, so the snow is remaining on the mountains.

We bought a 2017 Jeep Wrangler in December and have designated Mondays as Jeep Day.  We've been exploring many of the dirt roads in the Peloncillos and Chiricahua Mountains.  Seeing wildlife and old mining and historic sites.  Southeast Arizona and the boot heel of New Mexico are rich in history and we're enjoying learning about the early settlers, Indian wars and mining booms and busts.  Seems that nothing has really changed much when you look at history.  Mining is not sustainable and the damage to the natural environment seems rather costly for the amount of ore that is produced.  Don't worry, I'm not going to get on my soapbox.  I'm working through phone calls and letters to make my voice heard, but will not talk politics otherwise.

I hope that this year is good for everyone and that our beautiful blue skies and clear water can survive the overhauls of the organizations that protect them.

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August is half over and I'm once again playing catch up with my blog.  We've been enjoying an active monsoon, but the rain hasn't been falling in the mountains where it can replenish the springs and streams.  Cave Creek has run a few times, but is quite dry in South Fork and through Portal.  

The grass is growing like, you guessed it, weeds.  The hills and mountains are green and full of bugs, critters and now migrating birds.  Our yard is a constant surprise.  We never know what we may see or hear out our windows.  Could be a Northern Beardless Tyrannulet or a Thick billed Kingbird.  How about a Montezuma Quail?  We've had a pair of them feeding in our yard daily for the past month.  They either come at 8am or 5pm.  Haven't figured out their timing, but maybe they are in the Vincas all the time, but just happen to come out at 8am and 5pm and we see them because we are in the kitchen at that time.

Matty is all healed up after her close encounter with a Western Diamondback on July 6th.  She has a cute scar above her left eye, but no other ill effects.  

We had Barney remove another rattler from our yard on July 19th, making 3 for the summer so far.......We hope that's all we'll see.  When you feed birds you attract rodents and rodents attract snakes, so it's not a surprise to see snakes, but it is unnerving to have rattlers so close to the house.

Brother Skip & Nona spent a couple of days with us when they sold their house in Tucson.  Sadly it didn't work out for them to move to Arizona.  We did take a little hike up Cima Creek along Herb Martyr road and found a nice little waterfall that Skip just about ended up in when his handhold didn't hold!

Frances and Peter Grill are going to be giving a talk at a Camel Conference in October and Peter will be talking about his book.  They showed the book to Jericho, one of their camels, and he seemed quite interested.

We aren't going to Tucson very often this time of year.  We went in to play with the Banjo Blasters at the Community Center on Mt. Lemmon last month.  That was fun and afterward we jammed at Jerry & Connie Taylors cabin in Summerhaven.  Last week we went to Wesleys 5th birthday party.  I can't believe he's 5 years old.  He's big for his age and can carry on a conversation like a much older kid, but he's still just a little kid.  He and Greg are both going to school now....they aren't babies any more.

We have skunks and raccoons in the yard every night and our friend Gloria has a bear visiting again.  Hope he stays upcanyon.  Nectar feeding bats are feeding from our hummer feeders at night now too so we only leave one or two up overnight.

I was watching from the porch as our sweet little Matty was exploring the yard the other day, sniffing along the fence by our front gate where a couple of neighbor dogs had just left their marks. All of a sudden Matty jumped back and I immediately heard the telltale rattle of a snake!  I called her and she came to me obediently as the snake continued to rattle. Mr. Brown started to investigate from the other side of the big Arizona Cypress tree and after my third panicked yell for him to come, he finally came to me and I got the dogs safely in the house.  I called to Bud to "check Matty, I think she's been snake bit".  I grabbed the phone and my camera and returned to the yard to keep an eye on the snake as I called Barney, the local snake wrangler and he arrived within 10 minutes to capture the snake and remove it from our yard.  Barney collects rattlesnakes through the summer and then sells them to a company in Salt Lake City that milks the snakes to make antivenin.  It's sure nice to have him around.

I took a few pictures of the snake while waiting for Barney and it was pretty agitated, so I kept my distance.  I didn't want it to move because it was in a good spot for Barney to recover it.  It was between the fence and one of the big Arizona Cypress trees that run across the front of our property.  After the snake was secured, we checked Matty again and a blood spot was evident on the top of her head.  It looked like just one puncture wound at first.  We took pictures of the progression of swelling and bleeding.  A second puncture became evident after an hour and a half.  Snake venom is an anticoagulant and Matty began to drip blood from both punctures within 3 hours of the bite as her head began to swell.  

The swelling above her eye closed the eye and started down her neck before bedtime.  We obviously didn't sleep well that first night and neither did Matty.  She couldn't get comfortable and the watery blood dripped all night on her bed, on the floor, on the rug she ended up sleeping on.  In the morning, the floor looked like a crime scene with blood spots all around the rug on Bud's side of the bed.

The swelling was the worst after about 36 hours, then we started to notice it going down a little every day.  Matty hasn't been a very active dog for the last couple years since going blind, but she has been even less active since her snake bite.  We are able to get her up to pee and drink water, but she wasn't interested in eating until Saturday.......3 days after the bite.  Each day, the swelling was less and she was more interested in food.  On Monday, day 5, she looks almost normal except for a little fluid still hanging in her neck.  The spot above her eye where she was bitten is a scab about the size of  an Oreo cookie.  It looks awful, but doesn't seem to bother her too much and her eye is now partially open.

Though it is a frightening experience to see your dog get snake bit and get so sick, within a couple days a dog recovers pretty well and though she'll probably have a scar, her life won't be much different. I am a little more attentive to Matty's movements around the yard now.  She likes to walk in the vincas and that has me a little worried.
 I just hope she doesn't run into another snake on the property.  We've had two Western Diamondbacks in the last month........both have been removed, so hopefully we won't have any new ones moving in for a while.  Wish we had a nice king snake move in.  That would be grand.....not a threat to the dogs, but a good deterrent to the rattlesnakes.


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Birds, butterflies, bees, snakes and toads.....it must be summer!  We have beautiful butterflies and carpenter bees visiting our flowers along with the hummingbirds.  The nectar feeding bats were here in May, but have moved out into the valley to dine on the blooming yucca flower nectar now.

​We were in Tucson for a few days over the Memorial Day weekend and finally got to see our torch cactus bloom!  It's been three years since we were there at the right time to see the beautiful red flowers on our torch cactus.  We'd always arrive a day late or we'd leave a day or two too early.  They are lovely red flowers and the cactus is putting out another appendage at the base.  

We had a not so fun plumbing project that involved 6 trips to the Animas Mercantile for parts, but we finally got her done.  The frost proof water hydrants at the back and side of our house had not been installed correctly, years ago, so when they drained, the water just sat in the dirt and rusted away the pipes connected to the main water line.  We fixed the first one that had broken all the way through and we could here water running underground and then decided we'd better check the other one that was leaning quite a bit too.  We dug out that one and it appeared to be stable, but leaning, so we gave it a little twist and put a support post next to it, filled in the hole with rocks as directed and it worked fine for about two days. :)  Evidently the little twist to straighten it out, put too much pressure on a pvc joint and it broke too.  So we dug it up again and redid the entire pipe mess that was in that hole!   Shortened and cleaned up, this should last the rest of our lives.  We hope!

In digging this hole, we unearthed three spadefoot toads in estivation, a state of animal dormancy, similar to hibernation, characterized by inactivity and a lowered metabolic rate, that is entered in response to high temperatures and arid conditions..  They burrow into the ground and stay there until the monsoon rains soften up the soil and leave rain pools were the toads  mate, lay eggs and eat before returning to the underground.  Amazing creatures, their development from egg to toad can be as quick as 8 -10 days and one meal will hold them for months in estivation.

We've had a couple of snake encounters so far.  The tiny blind snake was inside the back door and it is so small it was hard to get a grip on it to move it back outside.  It was about 6 inches long and about as big in diameter as an earthworm.  Not as big as a night crawler!  Just last week a beautiful diamondback rattler was outside our kitchen window coiled along a rodent trail waiting for a mouse or chipmunk to come by.  Since it was so close to the house, we called the local snake wrangler Barney, and he took it away.  We usually don't worry about snakes if they are out away from the house, but this one was a little too close to our doorways for me to be comfortable.

We had very little winter rain this year, so it's very dry and we've had quite a few lightning and human caused fires around the state so far, but the wildfire crews have been able to keep them contained.  One fire on the east side of the Chiricahuas below Portal Peak a week ago got within a mile of some homes, but thanks to a windless night the fire crews and airplanes were able to wrap it up in a little over 24 hours.

We're helping with hummingbird banding again at the George Walker House and we enjoy the opportunity to make a contribution to human understanding of these amazing little birds migration habits.  It's so amazing to hold these tiny birds and feel their little heartbeats before giving them a drink of sugar water and sending them on their way.

There's still lots going on in the Portal area, even now that it's the hottest time of year.  Those of us who live here year 'round keep busy no matter what time of year it is.  Still travel to Tucson once or twice a month to play with the Banjo Blasters and see Melody and family, but we love Portal and are so happy to be able to live here.
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April and May are the prime birding months here in Cave Creek Canyon and Portal. We've noticed the increase in walkers on our dirt road and have to be mindful when we go outside not to spook the birds that birders are watching in our yard. It was a slim winter for bird variety all around Portal and the migration has seemed slow to start, but this week we're seeing more and more of the summer nesters and migrants heading farther north.

The biggest thrill was a Black Crowned Night Heron in our yard in late March.  It was in one of our tall Arizona Cypress trees and was being mobbed by the Acorn Woodpeckers and Mexican Jays.  It was the same kind of racket they make when the Great Horned Owl is in our trees, so I was quite surprised to see a Heron.  There had been high winds the days before this sighting so we figured this bird got carried off course and was resting before heading out again.

A couple weeks later our neighbor Laura Mullen called to say there was a big bird that looked like a heron in their tree, so I went over and sure enough, a Black Crowned Night Heron was resting in their Chinese Elm.  Could it be the same bird or another that got blown in on another day of high winds?  This one seemed less tolerant of people, so I'm guessing it's a different bird.  Last we saw it was in one of our big trees heading up canyon.

On a sad note, The earlier high winds we had in March, with gusts over 50 mph snapped off the top of the old Sycamore tree that housed the Great Horned Owl nest that we've been watching since moving into this neighborhood.  The nest was in a large cavity in the main trunk and the mama owl was sitting on eggs that were about a week from hatching.  Sadly, the tree snapped at the weekened spot where the nest cavity was and the eggs were crushed when they fell to the ground. :(  The mother sat near the rubble on the ground for a while, but soon flew off into the trees across the creek.  It was a sad event for the locals who have watched this nest since 1988!  The adult owls are still in the neighborhood and are dueting nightly and hanging around, so we're hopeful that next year they will nest nearby once again.  Our local owl expert, Helen Snyder is working toward putting a nest platform up on the stump that remains and hoping they'll return to their old tree next year.  

​Elf owls and Western Screech owls are courting and starting to nest now, so we still have them to watch, but it's not going to be the same without our Great Horned Owls to watch.

Now that it's May, it is peak birding here in Portal and Cave Creek Canyon.  Every day there are birding groups looking into our yard at our beautiful colorful springtime birds.....orioles, tanagers, buntings, grosbeaks, warblers, flycatchers & hummingbirds.....lots of blues, yellows and reds!

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