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By Mom Unplugged, October 23, 2008 11:13 am

Fall is here in the Arizona mountains. The cool morning air smells faintly of piñon smoke left over from evening fires.

The chili roaster is tumbling down at the little local grocery, producing baskets of lovely, soft charred green chilis.

Ponderosa Pines are beginning to shed some brown needles and fields are brimming with bright yellow wildflowers.

Maximilian Sunflowers line the roadways. They are tall this year which means, according to local legend, that our snow piles will be tall too.

Squirrels are getting busier as they rush off with peanuts and sunflower seeds to hide away for the winter.

The Humming Birds have left, and the Robins. Even the golfers are leaving, along with the thousands of people who spend their summers here in our mountain paradise to escape the scorching desert heat.

Peaceful silence will descend upon our town as we hardy year-round residents retreat from our porches, gardens, and decks and take to our homes in preparation for winter snow.

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By Mom Unplugged, August 13, 2008 7:45 am

Last week I just flew our new plane from Denver to my Arizona hometown and thought I’d share a few photos of the spectacular scenery over the Rockies. Enjoy!

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By Mom Unplugged, May 23, 2008 10:13 am

Yesterday was the last day of school here. Always a sad day for me. This year however, I was distracted from my self-pity-fest by the fact that I was driving my children home on the last day of school…in a snow storm! About four inches so far. More on the way today.

On Tuesday we were sweltering in a record-setting 95 degree heat (35 Celsius). Yesterday it was 35 degrees (1.7 Celsius). A 60 degree drop in two days. Impressive!

My son’s birthday party is today. His real birthday is in about 2 weeks, but this year we are having his party early before people depart on their summer adventures. I guess we won’t be picnicking in the back yard as planned. Will the party be snowed out or will we be having snowball fights?

I told my little boy to take a good look out the window because this might be the only snowy birthday party he has in his life!

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By Mom Unplugged, March 30, 2008 7:29 pm

It has been a week full of rocks during Spring Break at our house in Albuquerque: a trip to Petroglyph National Monument, climbing over big rocks on a mountain hike, choosing pretty tumbled rocks to buy at the Natural History Museum gift shop, collecting rocks in the courtyard.

So, although I didn’t realize that we would be so into rocks this week when I chose the Unplugged Project theme last Sunday, it has been an excellent week for a rock project.

My son was too busy with his new Legos this week to care much about projects, but my oldest daughter wanted to make her own petroglyph. The children have both recently studied petroglyphs at school and I think that Petroglyph National Monument made a big impression on them.

We found what we thought would be a suitable flat rock (note: if you try this, make sure you choose as soft a rock as possible), and used a hammer to break a piece of it off to use as a chisel. We were trying to be authentic!

My daughter drew her design on the rock with a pencil. She was trying to reproduce one that we had seen at the Monument.

She then scraped the rock with the other rock to engrave the design.

Well, this proved to be slow going (the rock was not soft enough), so she got fed up and moved on to authentic Native American method number two: the Dremel Tool! My husband supervised this step and the petroglyph was quickly completed.

In case anyone is interested, here’s another fun rock idea that we once did: cracking open a geode!

Other petroglyph resources:

+ Draw your own rock art printable

+ Hawaiian petroglyphs to print and color

+ Info about petroglyphs: Petroglyphs.us

+ Fun art project: Sandpaper Petroglyphs

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If you joined us for the Unplugged Project this week, please leave a link in Mr. Linky, as well as a comment in case Mr. Linky fails at his job. If you didn’t join in, please consider taking part next week!

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Next week’s Unplugged Project theme will be:

Books

Hope to see you then!

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By Mom Unplugged, March 14, 2008 10:39 am

As I write this, I hear the angry buzzing of a chainsaw and heavy thuds shake the house as huge chunks of tree trunk drop to the ground. A tall Ponderosa Pine growing inches from my house is being cut down to make room for a master bedroom extension that will add some square footage, as well as fix my horrible mystery roof leak.

I am so sad to see this tree go, although it is just one of probably a hundred tall Ponderosa Pines that surround my house. The decision was a difficult one for me, but I know that the even bigger, stronger trees nearby will ultimately benefit from this smaller tree’s removal. They will receive increased nutrients and water, especially important in these drought years. I must say that my views on forest management have changed since my close encounter with a wildfire nearly six years ago. Trees need some space to be healthy and strong.

Because of my mixed feelings, I had planned on being absent during the tree-cutting, but watching the men work on this windy day has actually been quite fascinating. One man climbed the tree and strapped himself to the top. He rocked back and forth precariously in the wind as he cut off all the branches. He clipped the branches to a rope that was held by a second man on the ground, then he sent the branches down the rope, like a zip-line, safely out of the way of the house.

Now he has finished removing all the branches and is slicing off heavy sections of trunk working from the top down. I hope he is careful as to what section he is cutting or he could end up having a one way flight down to the ground.

As you can see from my photos, this is not a job for those who have a mild fear of heights such as myself. Watching this man swaying back and forth in the wind a hundred feet above the ground makes my palms sweat! To give this next photo a sense of scale, that roof on the left is the top of my two story house. The man is hanging off that tree much, much higher than my house!

The tree will not go to waste. The men have brought a chipper and will chop it up into a big pile of wood chips that I will spread on the children’s backyard playground area to control the weeds and protect them from falls. So the tree will live on here in my yard after all, just in a different form.

Taken from my bedroom skylight:

And from the bedroom window: