Sabino Canyon

Sabino Canyon in a national forest park that is about 1/2 mile from our house.  We went up this afternoon to check out some of the hiking trails and wildflowers.

We've had about 3x as much rain as normal this winter in Tucson, so all of the creeks in Sabino canyon are actually flowing with water:

We also managed to spot some interesting wildlife on our hike.  Cardinals were everywhere.

Also the desert types of squirels - no bushy tails, and they live underground and don't climb trees.  This little guy was completely unafraid of us - he was posing for pictures.

Spring in Arizona

Spring is defnintely here in Tucson - it is in the mid-70s on most days now.  We have new plantings out in our earth boxes:

We've planted two tomato plants (on the right) and 6 different types of peppers (on the left).  David also made a stand for the earth boxes.  Hopefully this will prevent our problems of last year when the wind blew the boxes over and the plants all died.

We also have some new animal friends around the house:

 

The rabbit babies are living under the huge prickly pear in our front yard.

We've also gotten the hammock put up - very comfortable on a spring afternoon.

Balloon!

For the past few weeks I've been joined on my way to work by hot air balloons.  Today I finally saw why - apparently they are using a vacant lot near our house (during Christmas it was a Christmas tree lot) as a landing pad.  It's a fun way to start the day.  :)