December 2023 Review:

Ho, Ho, Ho and amazingly it is already December and Santa has been to the Arboretum for family photos as well as photos with the puppies. And I believe we have finally reached peak fall colour here in Superior Arizona below are a few of my favorite photos of this fall.

We have met up with Ray & Karen for an early dinner in Mesa, it is always great to catch up with friends, to discuss every ones summer adventures, their summer also involved their sons wedding, along with a bout of covid, the loss of their puppy (Trapper) and of course a years worth of breakdowns of their 5th wheel home. The one thing that is guarantied when you live in a RV home is that there will be breakdowns, and design flaws that only come to light after being dragged down some of the poor highways that every State & Province has. And as our mobile homes age, more and more problems come to light, and the poor workmanship of mass produced RV’s become obvious (like the use of staples instead of screws or plastic instead of metal) and its not just in the construction as RV’s do not have to meet the standards that stick & brick homes do with wiring being one of the most obvious.

Our coach was at it’s time of construction considered a high end coach with hardwood cabinets instead of MDF, and lots of items that are superior to many mass produced units but there are still lots of corners being cut during construction like the connection’s on the electrical circuits just being push connections instead of tightened in place with screws like your home would be. And with regular travel some of those push connections loosen and cause short or open circuits creating issues.

On Friday December the 8th and the Arboretum staged a soiree for volunteers, a year end celebration with food and beverages it was held from 3 to 5 in the demonstration garden at the Arboretum, now Laurie and I had to work till four so after finishing our shift and cashing out, we wandered down the event. We got there just as the awards part of the event was starting so we just slipped into a couple of empty chairs as the speeches were starting. The event was to celebrate some of the accomplishments of the volunteers at the arboretum, there were hours of service, attitude, longevity, consistency. There were also some raffle prizes, we got there too late to tickets for the gifts. Many of these acknowledgments were voted on by both the staff and the volunteers.

A couple of thoughts, while this was a wonderful event, it was poorly attended by the people that it was put on for, there are hundreds of volunteers at the arboretum, and around sixty five had supposedly RSVP’d and annoyingly only around twenty actually showed up. Just for the record let me clarify, there are many different levels of volunteers, we fall into the host volunteer group, so we live on site for a specific time period and in return we work a specific number of hours each week, then there are the docents that have made a commitment and paid from their own pocket to take a training course that qualifies them lead do the guided tours in the arboretum, then there are the real workers, the ones that work with the horticulture staff doing the priceless work like weeding and maintaining the gardens, and then our favorite group of volunteers are the ones that act as ambassadors for the Arboretum, they are the meet and greet people, that try to explain the (horrible) arboretum maps, or help with membership, or help in the parking lot, all those thankless jobs that make the visitors experience so much better.

Laurie & I got acknowledged by the staff for our relentless drive to upgrade visitors into memberships, which is not that difficult task, it’s kind of like asking if they would like fries with that order. The entry fee for two adults to the arboretum is $49.90 while a membership for two adults is only $75. And if that wasn’t an easy enough the arboretum will let them apply their $49.90 admission ticket toward the membership so for the low price of $25.10 more they can enjoy the park for the next twelve months.

Tuesday December the 12th and we have visitors today, Tom, Kathleen and their puppy Lucy are coming for lunch and a visit, darn we miss these people a lot, as we had spent our last two winters in Arizona with them. Although our liquor consumption this year has fallen off drastically without our regular impromptu happy hours. We went for a short walk through the arboretum, and Tom & Kathleen had the chance to catch up with some members of the Arboretum staff from previous years, and observe some of the changes that this year has brought. But as with any ship that doesn’t have a Captain the Arboretum is still floundering. The previous director that did not seem to have a handle on reality threw herself a big going away party and then left the board of directors scrambling to find a replacement, these actions did not come as a surprise to me, because from what we had experienced over the years, the director only had the welfare of one person on her agenda and that was herself.

We spent a wonderful afternoon on the patio, overlooking the Arboretum as well as the views of Picketpost mountain as a back drop, we talked about our upcoming plans, enjoyed fajitas for lunch that Miss Laurie had prepared, along with a couple of beverages and some Christmas cookies prepared by everyone except yours truly. And we promised to get together in the new year, we may even take the coach south to their co-op in the new year to spend a couple of nights, allowing Tom and myself some time to sample some wine and possibly a wee bit of Scotch. We are just trying to make a number of adventures fit into our days off without causing any problems with staffing at the Arboretum.

December the 13th it’s a Wednesday evening and we are having a Mexican potluck dinner with the other volunteers at the park, dinner is scheduled for four o’clock to be followed by a evening of conversation around the propane fire with a couple of beverages of course. There are five couples serving host duties this year, three couples in the education side and only two in the visitor center. We had not had an opportunity to get together for a while, and in my opinion it seemed to be a good get together, there wasn’t the whining of previous years, and everyone seemed to get along well. There was an abundance of food and it was decided that who ever was going to be here for Christmas would get together for for drinks and sweets on Christmas day and January’s pot luck would be Hawaiian themed.

Well we are back to Friday which is like our Monday as we are back to working the weekends again, we love this shift because we work three long days (Friday, Saturday & Sunday) from 8am till 4pm then we have four days off (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday) which allows us lots of time to shop, relax , make repairs & plan adventures. These days are the busiest in the admissions booth which make the days go by so much faster, although by Sunday afternoon we are pretty much peopled out, and ready to kick back with a cocktail. Although this weekend was not as busy as we had anticipated, which makes the days seem longer although does allow me some reading time.

I have been on a reading binge this fall and I have read close to thirty books since we started our fall adventures, that could possibly explain the absence of blog postings. Its not that I have not been writing, it’s just that I haven’t been editing and publishing my work, which is the time consuming tasks like finding and editing photos or the finishing off some of my thoughts that require some research from other sources. I know some of the issue has been our new laptop, that has taken some time to get everything transferred and organized. The blogging program that I use only accepts photos in jpeg format so every other format has to be converted which requires a specific program which takes time to locate, evaluate, purchase, and then learn how to use efficiently, but by the time you will be reading this blog I should be caught up on my publishing and you will be up to date.

We are just a week away from Christmas day and are having to struggling through another warm day near 80ºF (27ºC) here in the Arizona desert, they have set more temperature records this fall than you can imagine. As we look ahead to the next weekend which will take us through till Christmas eve there is a dip in the temperature forecast as well as a weekend of rain, in fact it could be a major rain event of the year, as up to one inch of rain may fall and here in Arizona that is equal to 25% of the yearly accumulation. So while we are hopping for the rain if the forecast is correct there will be a torrent of water flowing in the now dry Queen Creek. We have been here over a month and have only seen ¼” of rain so far, but just like the forecasts for potential winter blizzards a week ahead, there is lots of time for revisions.

For our week ahead we are planning an adventure with Ray & Karen on Wednesday, some needed relaxing time, some blogging to catch up, a badly needed washing of the coach, Miss Laurie has her rock tumbler tumbling some newly found rocks, and hopefully a stroll through the arboretum. I have been reading how to get better night time lapses with our GoPro, so hopefully this week I will see what I can accomplish on that front as the night skies in Arizona are amazing. We have had a few hick-ups with our Wi-Fi service the last couple of weeks so the topic of Star-Link has came up again, it is more money each month but out here in Arizona where cell service can be bad it seems like the logical answer, but is so much more work when moving around to different areas, and not being available on travel days, but maybe using our phones as hot spots might work for that, and one of the big reasons we have not made the investment so far is that the internet at LHR (Lake Huron Resort) in the summer is so much better that trying to find a clear northern sky for Star-Link. But if it buffers tonight during the conclusion of “The Voice” is may be back on the table for further discussion.

Well that’s got December caught up, so now I’m going to see if I can get our “September Update” blog published today.

December 19th and I just published our October Update, after spending three hours uploading a couple of short videos, in fact I have spent the whole day working on blogs as I try to play catch up. We watched “The Voice” last evening with no buffering, and although the internet speed has not been good today I have managed to get a number of photos uploaded to our site. The temperature has hung around the 70ºF temperature mark, there has been some high cloud, as we prepare for some wet weather in our near future. We have a plethora of creatures around our site as Miss Laurie has added a suet feeder to the humming bird feeders and with the birdbath it keeps Mister Sam busy checking all the activity. Chipmunks, squirrels, cardinals, thrashers, Gila woodpeckers, Canyon wrens, cactus wrens, quail, rabbits and a constant buzz of humming birds, make for a very busy day for a old kitty.

We will watch the final of the Voice tonight and maybe catch up on some YouTube videos, tomorrow we are planning a hike to the perlite mine and plan to look for some Apache tears with Ray & Karen, this is a hike that needs to be done before the rains come and make the creek impossible to cross, I have the first week of our fall travel ready to publish and that should happen tomorrow as well.

Well it’s Wednesday and we did not go hunting for Apache tears today, as today ended up being a rain day, making it a bad day for a mile long hike up a ridge to the hunting ground. So we planned a lunch with Ray & Karen at a Chinese restaurant in Gold Canyon, which turned out to be not too bad of restaurant and helped fill that food craving. We are closing in on Christmas and we are hearing of all the crowds at the malls, so sorry we don’t have to do that anymore.

A wet end to the week as the rain has made it to the Arboretum, oh we need the rain here in Arizona and we woke on Friday morning and had to walk to work in the rain under an umbrella. So you may wonder what happens at the Arboretum on a rainy day? Well today not much, we were pretty bored as our admittance today only reached 20 brave soles, I can understand members visiting today but I would personally struggle paying $24.95 to walk around in the rain on muddy trails with some of the mountains that surround us blocked from view by low cloud cover. So as the rain comes to an end Friday afternoon we have received 1¼” of desperately needed rain here in the Arizona desert.

Saturday the admissions made it to 220 visitors and bloomed to 433 on Sunday (Christmas Eve) which while were still terrible numbers for a weekend but were understandable for a cold damp weekend. Christmas day the arboretum will be closed which will give us the opportunity to enjoy the the arboretum all to ourselves. There is a band of coati roaming through the arboretum, so today we are going to spend some time trying to get a photo or two of the creatures. The day has been wonderful as we walked the arboretum with no others, there have been an abundance of creatures in the Arboretum with bobcats and grey fox attracted to the area by abundance of rabbits this year. It’s driven by that whole circle of life thing that Miss Laurie hates to accept, but is just a reality.

So I’m sure some of you are wondering what the hell a coati is? And I have found the easiest description is picture an animal that is the size of a racoon with a tail like a monkey with a long white nose.

Here is how Wikipedia explain the coati:

The white-nosed coati (Nasua narica), also known as the coatimundi, is a species of coati and a member of the family Procyonidae (raccoons and their relatives). Local Spanish names for the species include antoon, gato solo, pizote, and tejón, depending upon the region. It weighs about 4–6 kg (8.8–13.2 lb), and the nose-to-tail length of the species is about 110 cm (3.6 ft) with about half of that being the tail length. However, small females can weigh as little as 3.1 kg (6.8 lb), while large males can weigh as much as 9 kg (20 lb).

The week between Christmas and the New Year is usually a busy week at the Arboretum because of the schools being closed as well as people visiting family in the warm States and by the looks of the parking lot it seems to be busy this year as well. We have a shopping excursion planned with Ray & Karen this week, we are going to visit the Olive Mill in Queen Creek, then visit Total Wine, Trader Joes, Aldi, then have some lunch before finishing off at Costco.

So lets start by meeting Ray & Karen in the Costco parking lot in Queen Creek, where we topped off the toad with fuel for $2.99 per gallon, we then joined the Savino’s for a trip to Total Wine a chain of liquor stores in the western States, Miss Laurie refers to them as adult candy stores. Next was Lunch at a Mexican restaurant, a very good Mexican restaurant not the Tex-Mex that are too common in this area, the food was excellent and now we are walking to Trader Joes here in the same plaza. Back it the truck and off to Aldi’s grocery store in a plaza across from the Costco in Queen Creek, then Costco a stop that we make once a month to restock on many essentials, but today there were no eggs so it sounds like there will be another stop for the Buchanan’s as we say goodbye to the Savino’s until next year.

Our last weekend working in the booth for 2023 and after a busy week at the arboretum with attendance near the 800 mark we are able to boost that to over 1000 on Friday and Saturday, New Years eve we closed at 3pm instead of 5pm which most likely pushed Sundays attendance down but a much better weekend than last weekend with the rain.

After the guests left the Arboretum today we headed into the park for one last walk of 2023, and while there was not a lot of wildlife this afternoon the views were still fantastic so I got a couple of shots to close out this blog and the end of 2023!

Goodbye 2023 bring on 2024

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