The Old Lady and the Shoe

I'm going to share an experience I had recently. It's just another one of those, "I live in the mountains again and this is the way of life" experiences that I have encountered in the past year, ever since I left the big city behind and opted for life in rural Arizona.

As you may have read in a previous post, we have a river running through our 'back yard', in the BLM acreage just a hop, skip and a jump away from our house. When the weather is nice, I enjoy taking the dogs for a walk there and watching them frolic and play in the water.

Unfortunately, it is usually quite muddy. I have a pair of hiking shoes I wear. When I return home, I leave them outside on the back porch so I don't get mud inside the house.

The shoes had been sitting there a couple weeks because I was too lazy to clean them up. One day I decided it was time to quit using the back porch as my shoe closet. I picked them up, dismayed to find that a spider had woven a web across the opening in one.

Being used to running across spiders on a daily basis (both inside and out) and not afraid of them, I took a stick and poked around inside the shoe to get rid of the web. I held the shoes upside down and banged them against each other to try and get the mud out of the dried lug soles.

All I've got to say is thank goodness that I decided to do a good job of cleaning them up. After banging them together for a couple minutes, out popped the spider which had taken up residence inside. No ordinary spider, this. Oh no. The spider living in my shoe was a black widow which had just laid eggs. I smashed her into the dirt.

So I know the black widow is now gone. But I still haven't been able to wear those shoes again. The moral of the story? Always check inside your shoes before putting them on. And that's just life here in the White Mountains.

A River Runs Through It

Although the calendar says it is still winter, the temperatures are indicating an early start to spring. With the weather being so beautiful this past weekend, I decided to go on a hike and check out the Indian ruins again in the forest land behind my house. Imagine my surprise when I found a river running through it!

Since we moved up here to the White Mountains in June of last year, I’ve spent some time toodling up around on the mountain and below the rim which is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from my house. But I’ve never seen water, outside of rain water that accumulates in the wash.

Apparently the runoff from the mountains is already melting and it has formed a nicely moving river that is pretty wide in spots. The dogs loved it! Even Colby Jack, who has never been much of a water dog, had a great time. When he and Yogi were done frolicking in the water, they came back up on shore and shook off in the snow.

It’s nice to have discovered just one more thing that I absolutely adore about the place that I live!

I've Been Tagged By Ciara Gold

My dear fellow Champagne Books and Eppie-award winning author, Ciara Gold, tagged me. The idea is to list 6 things that make me happy. I am happy to oblige, so here goes:

6 Things That Make Me Happy

1) Taking care of other people (that's always why I enjoyed work in the hotel industry and wanted to buy and run my own bed & breakfast)
2) Having company, especially my son, whom I don't see enough of anymore now that he is an adult.
3) Playing with my dogs, Colby Jack and Yogi.
4) Cooking (goes along with #1 - no one leaves my house hungry)
5) Writing (guess that's a good thing since it's what I do for a living!)
6) Watching the sun rise on another day and the pine trees and lakes of the gorgeous White Mountains

So, the rules state I now must tag another 6 people to do the same thing...hmmm...I'm going to go with:
1. Kimber Chin
2. Karen Babcock
3. Phyllis Campbell
4. Linda Laroque
5. Allison Knight
6. Rose Lerma

Additional Rules: Link to the person who tagged you (http://www.candacemorehouse.blogspot.com/)Write down six things that make you happy. Post these rules. Tag six others. Notify me that you've tagged six others--or not.

Candace Morehouse

No More Mosquitoes? Must Be Autumn

It is autumn here in the White Mountains.
The top ten reasons I know this:

10. Elks are bugling in the wilderness beyond my back yard, mingling with the plaintive cries of coyotes

9. The hummingbirds are all going south – my feeder has been full for two weeks now, unheard of in summer when the greedy little bastards fought over sugar water tinted red

8. Nights are down into the 40 degrees and sometimes we have to turn on the pellet stove in the early morning hours

7. The dogs are shedding less and thickening their coats (hallelujah, I’m sick of vacuuming)

6. The mosquitoes have all but disappeared (another hallelujah, sick of buying mosquito pads for my Off candle)

5. It’s dark at six o’clock (not particularly good when you want to enjoy the great outdoors and read a book at the same time, my favorite hobby)

4. High school football games are on the local radio station every Friday night

3. NFL football games are on every Sunday and Monday

2. Outdoor plants are starting to go dormant and trees aren’t producing any more leaves

And the number one reason I know it’s fall in the White Mountains? * Drum roll *

1. I keep a sweater at the ready for cool temperatures – like when I step out of the shower all damp. Like seven o’clock in the morning when the sun fully rises and the temperature is actually coldest…Brrr…

And to think a year ago I was in Mesa (Phoenix) and sweltering. Yeah, I’ll take sweaters over triple digits right now any day.

The entire reason this post came to my mind was because I was doing a Google search on wild violets. Apparently, folks back east categorize wild violets in their yard as an invasive weed.

Me – I’ve got them all over my front yard. And I love ‘em. I think they’re beautiful. In fact, when I weed eat, I cut a wide swatch around ‘em. I’d love to grow them indoors. My one attempt at doing this was pitiful so if you’ve got any advice for me, feel free to advise away in your comments. I really want to save my wild violets before they die from frostbite.

Ramblings from Arizona's White Mountains,
Candace