Cactus Kate

At the end of May, I decided I needed a career change.  I quit Chile Pepper Bike Shop, and took my friends Fred and Susan up on their offer to work at Paradox Pizza (their new Pizza place).

Paradox Pizza opened June 1st, 2009.  They have *delicious* east coast-style pizza - thin crust, not too much cheese.  The yummy kind of pizza that you get by the BIG slice, and have to fold in half to eat it properly.  This seems like a dangerous place to work, if one is trying NOT to gain a thousand pounds, but I can withstand the temptation.  I hope.

Paradox is the first place in Moab to sell pizza by the slice, and this was a much-needed yet untapped market.  The slices range from $2.50 (for plain cheese) to $3.50 (for super-fancy lots of toppings slices).  It’s really a great deal, and you can get a cheese slice and a PBR (or a soda) for under $5.00.  A great lunch deal, or mid afternoon snack.

People can call up and order over the phone (435-259-9999), or they can go to the Paradox Pizza website, and place an online order.  They also deliver (but only after 4:00pm).  This is a really smart thing, as the only other place in Moab that delivers is Domino’s, and yeah….YUCK.

So far, this job has been great.  I love it.  I can’t believe I actually missed working in food service, but I did.  I am one of the counter service people.  I get to wear a Paradox Pizza baseball cap, and T-shirt.  Here are some photos, so you can check it all out!

Here is Susan decorating a pepperoni pie, Allen holding a pie, that pie by itself, and Elizabeth preparing to deliver the Extra-Vegan-Za:

Two views from the inside, the menu, and the dessert / appetizer / salad case:

Fresh toppings, sauce & cheese, Luis in action, and the soup board:

Beer cooler (I forgot to take a picture of the Coke cooler!), Paradox from the outside, the delivery car, and a dinner salad:

If any of you are in Moab, please come in and visit me at work, and try some delicious pizza!

There are lots of things blooming now in my yard, none of which are succulents.  The first is a Mullein, which I have been making great efforts to save from Rich, and his weed-whacking, and lawn-mowing activities.  There were actually 5 or 6 of these, but he only agreed to save ONE.  In any case, it has finally reached maturity, and is blooming.

I also have some lovely weeds blooming in the lawn.  There is bindweed (which is CRAZY-difficult to get rid of, but has very nice flowers), some sort of wild geranium (?), and a common (but sunny and pretty) dandelion.

I have ONE daylily blooming right now.  I did have more, but I neglected to take pictures of them.  Now I wish I had.  Here is my one lily today:

Finally, I have flowers in the garden, which will eventually equal FRUIT in the garden (I hope).  I planted about 200 tomato seeds this year, just to see how they would do from seed.  Well, I have about 200 little tomato plants, which are all of 2 inches tall each.  I had purchased a ‘patio tomato’ plant at a garden center, too, and am now thoroughly glad that I did.  Its label said ‘for container garden’, so I put it in a pot.  When I got it, it was a scraggly little thing.  Now - it is COVERED with tomatoes, and lots more flowers!  I am not bothering with seeds next year.

For some reason, I have had MUCH better luck with things in pots this spring.  The first photo is of my one surviving cucumber planted in the actual garden, and in the second and third photos, you’ll see my cucumber plants that are in pots.  They are from the same batch of seeds, have been watered and fed the same, and well…you see the results.  The ones in the pot are HUGE in comparison.

P.S.  I lied - I found a succulent blooming in my collection.  Aloe ‘Lizard Lips’ is about to bloom.

Summer officially begins in 4 days!  YEA!  Happy summer, everyone!  How are YOUR gardens doing?

Rich and I were dropped off at **a road** (a ‘concerned citizen’ has asked that I change names of places) at about 7:30 in the morning yesterday, and hiked home.  It was a long day, involving a few twisted ankles, a scraped shin, a little sunburn, some hot and tired paws, and a great time!  Below is a view from the top, looking down toward **our town** from the top of the canyon we hiked.  **Our town** rim is the highest thing on the right-side horizon.

We saw lots of lizards (but nothing exciting like a collared lizard), lots of birds, a cute little toad (which I think is a Great Basin Spadefoot toad), but no furry wildlife.  Also, there was lots of evidence of others who had been there.

The wildflowers are still beautiful out there in the desert.  Below are a Sand Verbena (Abronia fragrans), some yellow beeplants (Cleome lutea) with globe mallows (Sphaeralcea coccinea), an unidentified purple flower (in the hope that someone out there will know what it is…sorry for the bad photo!), and Anderson’s larkspur (Delphinium andersonii) with a Yucca.

Some Yellow Salsify (Tragopogon dubius), Sand Dock (Rumex something), and a Penstemon I can’t identify.  The Penstemon was the most true shade of blue you can imagine!:

A woolly locoweed (Astragalus mollissimus), and some Skyrockets (Gilia aggregata):

Opuntia erinacea v. ursina times 2, and I am embarrassed to admit how bad I am with the names of our native Opuntias, but here is one with a Silvery Townsendia (Townsendia incana):

These are painted milk vetch (Astragalus ceramicus) pods.  The plants themselves aren’t much to look at, but the pods are spectacular!

Here’s some of the MASS of poison ivy (Toxicodendron rydbergii) we walked through (without any casualties, mind you):

Mindy did very well, for someone with legs only 8 inches long.  If we walked 10 miles, I can’t even imagine what that equals for 8″ legs.  She loves the water, and gets in at every possible chance.  In the end, Rich ended up carrying her for about the last 3/4 of a mile home.

I love the view from above the canyon.  Any way you look, it’s beautiful!  I particularly liked this view, because if you look closely, you’ll see a nice big patch of Opuntia (prickly pears) hanging over the sandy edge of the wash in the foreground:

Here are some more views from the hike:

Down in the canyon is beautiful, too.

Well, that’s about all for this hike report.

P.S.  Did you all enjoy the action shot of Mindy shaking the water off after her swim?  A whirl of black fur!

P.P.S.  Oh, and the name ‘Toxicodendron‘ for poison ivy makes me laugh!  Not to be confused with a Rhododendron, this is a TOXICodendron!

Last fall just before the first hard freeze, Rich and I received 6 trees.  These trees were payment for a website that Rich had made for a local nursery.  Ahhh - rural living…where one can trade goods for services.  In any case, these trees were labeled $156 each, so I guess we got our money’s worth.  We got 4 Yellow Buckeyes (Aesculus octandra), and 2 Horsechestnuts (Aesculus hippocastanum).  We planted them so late in the season, we weren’t sure they were going to make it through the winter.  They all surprised us.  They came through with flying colors, and all have leaves and are blooming right now.  Here they are:

Yellow Buckeyes don’t have the nice flowers the Horsechestnuts have.  Here are pictures from the time their first leaves opened to the flowers now open:

Below is MY little Horsechestnut tree.  Rich let me put it near my greenhouse, and call it my own.  YEA!  I like its leaves, and the flowers are almost spectacular.

You might remember that I had planted some Caesalpinia gilliesii plants last fall (what, you DON’T remember?).  Well, remember or not, I did, and I just moved one of the 2 surviving plants into its own 6-inch pot.  The other one is going to go into the ground when I choose the right place.  You might also remember that around the same time, I planted some mesquite trees.  I put one of the 2 surviving mesquites into its own pot, also.  Here they are (sorry, the pictures make it hard to see the plants), but you get the idea…)

There have been a few other things that bloomed recently.  First is my horse crippler (Echinocactus texensis).  The plant itself is in an 8″ pot, and in this photo, it has not been watered at all for about 5 months, so it is very shrunken.  It will be put into a 10″ pot after its first watering of the season.  Notice how feathery and delicate the flowers are:

Right now in the garden, there is an Allium (I have NO idea what kind.  My mom planted it when she lived here) blooming.  There are 2 others thinking about blooming, but this one beat them to it.

Rich and I went for a short hike recently from our house, and I took some pictures of Moab from above:

I will leave you all with this little gem - another photo from our little hike.  Yep - you’re right.  It IS a trailer made out of the ass end of a Geo Metro.  I don’t know what to say about it either.

I know, I know.  I am late posting this.  We returned from our trip to Arizona last Wednesday, and it has taken me this long to sort through all the photos, and choose a reasonable number to share with you all.  Yikes.  What a job!

The purpose of our trip to Arizona was to see the Chihuly exhibit at Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix.  We went on Tuesday (May 31).  The exhibit was amazing.  I loved it!  It was incredibly impressive to see all that glass among the desert plants!  Here are some photos of the glass installations:

We saw more than just the glass - there were lots of wildflowers, birds, and blooming cactus to enjoy!  The verdin and the phainopepla were new additions to my ‘life bird list’!

On the way down into Arizona, we stopped at the Sunset Crater Volcano Nat’l Monument, and had lunch.  We had to eat in the car, because it was so incredibly windy.  There were a BUNCH of Steller’s Jays vieing for food people tossed out of cars for them.  I had to get in on the action, and I sat for a while in the wind, and tossed out a few crackers.  I guess that’s like a bribe to get them to hold still for a split second while you take a picture.  Here is the best one I got, cracker still in his little birdie lips:

Part of these trips with my mom is always about food.  We went to Red Lobster in Phoenix, and also Cafe Istanbul.  That place has some GREAT food (this was our second visit)!  This time we tried some babaganoush.  This is a dip made with roasted eggplant, garlic, lemon, and olive oil.  It was fantastic on the pitas!

I guess that about covers everything.  Thanks for reading!

My mom and I drove to Tucson Sunday, March 29th.  It’s a little more than 8 hours driving here from Moab.  We came to Tucson to visit the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, which we both like a lot.

Yesterday we visited the museum.  As always, it was amazing.  We met up with some people from the cactus & succulent forum that I post on (The Garden Forums).  I got to meet ArizonaEd, and JohnnyD.  It was great to meet them, and also ArizonaEd’s wife (who was very sweet).  None of them turned out to be an axe murderer, as Rich so frequently predicts. I have had good luck in that so far - none of the people I have met from the forum seem harmful.  Heh heh heh.  Below is a photo of me, Ed, and Johnny:

It’s the perfect time of year to visit the desert.  Everything is in bloom!  Here are a few plants from the museum grounds:

I guess the Desert Museum has some sort of ‘raptor rehabilitation’ program.  They had docents out yesterday holding onto several different raptors (which were tightly chained with little leg irons to heavy-duty leather gloves).  There was a Harris’s Hawk, an American Kestrel, a very drowsy-looking Barn Owl, and a cute tiny Western Screech Owl.  I included the picture of the screech owl’s docent, because I wanted you all to see how TINY he was!

In addition to the raptors attached to the docents, there were lots of wild birds flapping around the museum grounds.  There is a little hummingbird house there, and I took some great photos of a little Calliope Hummingbird (I think) sitting on her nest.  There were lots of Cactus Wrens around.  There is a photo of a cactus wren coming out of her nest, and another cactus wren standing on the top of (you guessed it) a cactus.  I can’t imagine how they do this, but they seem no worse for the wear afterward.

It was a great day!

P.S.  Here are a couple other photos I liked.

Howdy, all.

My mom and I have a trip to Tucson and Phoenix planned for March 29 through April 1.

We will be driving to Tucson from Moab on March 29.

March 30 will be a long day.  We will visit the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, and hopefully meet one of my online friends from the The Garden Forums cactus & succulent forum.  After all the Tucson excitement dies down, we will drive back up to Phoenix, and spend the night there.

On March 31, we will visit Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix.  There is a GREAT exhibit going on there right now - Dale Chihuly (the glass blower) has an installation in the gardens, and that’s what we really planned this trip for.  I can’t wait!

April 1 we will be driving back to Moab, possibly by way of some undecided national parks/monuments/tourist areas.  The drive to Moab from Phoenix is about 6 1/2 hours, and we have a whole day to do it, so we have plenty of extra time to tourist around.

I am very excited about this whole trip.  I love spending time with my mom, and trips like this mean new sights, and usually GOOD FOOD.  MMMM!!

To see the details of our trip to Phoenix last April, CLICK HERE.  Beware:  My ‘blog is messed up for some strange reason on this individual post, and I have NO idea how to fix it. 

Thanks for stopping by!

SPRINGINESS…Is that a word?  I’m pretty sure it’s not.

Spring is busting out all over.  I love it!  Soon, it will be time to plant my garden, and start tending outdoor plants.  The chives in my garden from last year made it through the winter, and are looking spectacular - nice dark green, and LOTS of them.

My bluebells look good, too.  They won’t bloom for a while still, but they are poking up their leaves to soak up some sun.

I have more flowers now, too.  I have lots of daffodils, lots and LOTS of grape hyacinths, and some new ones.  I had one tiny little red tulip (my finger is in the picture for scale).  I also have some real hyacinth buds.  They are about 3 days away from blooming, though.

Here is my abundance of grape hyacinths.  Many more than last year.  I offer an artsy photo of them, taken by Rich on March 14th:

Last week, I did a BUNCH of re-potting.  Lots of my plants were more than ready for bigger pots, and a lot were ready for fresh dirt, after years of living in the same dirt.  Here are some of the plants I transplanted.

Aloe ‘Lizard Lips’, and Aloe ‘Pepe’. ‘Pepe’ isn’t looking very good.  I am a little worried about it.  It is a strange orangey-brown color in the middle of its rosette.

My two Fockea edulis plants.  The first of the two I have had for about 8 years.  It is far smaller than it probably should be for that length of time, but I don’t mind.  It is very healthy, just a bit stunted.  It got a bigger pot.  It’s now up to a 7 1/2 inch pot.  The second I have had about 3 years.  It is still fine in the pot it’s in - just needed some new dirt.

My only Adenium obesum got a new pot.  I won this plant in a drawing at the San Diego Cactus & Succulent Society meeting last August.  It seems healthy, but definitely needed a new pot!  I am sure it is grateful.

This is Ferocactus gracilis.  I got it at a cactus ranch in SoCal last August.  It was crammed into a teeny pot, and was almost literally screaming for a new one.  Now it is in a reasonably-sized pot, and hopefully will do lots of growing this season!

Thanks, everyone, for stopping by and sharing in my spring happiness!

P.S.  Here’s another bird for your enjoyment…an adult male white-crowned sparrow:

I have been birding half-heartedly for years.  However, this year, I am more interested (for whatever reason), and am excited about the wild birds that come to my feeders and yard.  I am not sure why, but whatever the reason, I am seeing lots of birds!

My ‘lifetime bird list’ is at 96 different species.  You can only add a bird to your list if you haven’t seen it before.  I have heard of people adding birds if they see the same type of bird with ‘winter plumage’, or if the bird is a different sex from the original bird they saw, or if it is a young bird.  I am sticking with the original ‘rules’ - If I see it, I am adding it, and seeing the other sex later will not add another bird to the list…although it may become a note in the margin.  I added one new bird to it today.  A Townsend’s Solitaire. He was sitting in my backyard tree, where he was chattering away.  I took an okay picture of him, and then got help identifying him at a bird forum I have joined online…BIRDFORUM.NET.  Below is my Townsend’s Solitaire:

I have taken a slough of photos of the birds that frequent my parents’ bird feeders.  The most interesting things there lately have been a pair of Lesser Goldfinches a couple of weeks ago, a Western Scrub Jay (he’s a regular - been visiting for years), and a Juniper Titmouse (well, a bunch of those really - Titmice?).  Below are some pictures of Titmice, some dark-eyed Juncos, and one of the Scrub Jays:

Yesterday (Saturday, Mar. 7) while I was at work, Rich took some pictures of some birds that showed up to eat the seeds I put outside on the ground.  He happened to get this shot, in which there are some of our regulars, Pine Siskins, and a bird I had to look up.  It turns out to be a female American Goldfinch in ‘winter plumage’.  It’s a cute bird!  (The two in front are the Pine Siskins).

That’s really just about all that’s going on around here.  I am enjoying birding a lot.  Today, I got on ebay, and ordered a couple of new bird books (as mine is almost as old as I am, and is falling apart).  Hope they get here soon! 

Yesterday was the first.  One daffodil opened, bright and sunny and beautiful.  Today, a few more daffodils, and some grape hyacinths.

Grape hyacinths are some of my favorite little flowers.  They have a lovely color, nice form, and hey - how can you not like a flower that looks like tiny individual leg parts from old-time bloomers hanging from a green post?!  LOVE them!

I think spring might actually be here!!  AMAZING!!

I am off to Cedar City tomorrow morning for the weekend.  Janet is getting married in May, and we are having a bachelorette party for her.  Should be fun!  I haven’t seen some of these people in several years!  WOO HOO!