How Does Your Garden Grow?

I managed to photograph a lot of gardens on our morning walks around town.  The growing climate in Bisbee, located at over 5,000 feet, is much more forgiving for fruits, flowers, and vegetables than the extreme heat of Phoenix.

Mexican birds of paradise.

Gorgeous courtyard.

Garden behind an old iron fence.

Flower garden next door.

A hot pink rose!

A large sunflower.  See the orange Monarch on the orange flower?

Butterfly bush up the lane.  I missed getting a photo of the a yellow butterfly on one of the blooms.

Are these giant dahlia's?

Bathtub planter box.

Cottage planter boxes with geraniums and petunias.

Wild dill grows all over the hills of Bisbee.

I can't show all these gardens without slipping in a bug!  This ornate cicada (locust?) was on the door of one of my favorite shops.  It took me a minute to realize it wasn't fake. 

The secret garden.

 

Lantana growing wild along the side of one of Bisbee's many stairways.

Morning glories behind the house where we stayed.

Get Your Freak On

We leave this morning after eight glorious nights at the fabulous retreat in Bisbee.  We've enjoyed our time tremendously, hiking up and down the hills, shopping the galleries, eating at wonderful local restaurants, marveling at the fantastic monsoonal lightning storms, sleeping with the windows open to let in the cool air, and just relishing in the slower pace of small town life.

And speaking of small town life, at the local cafe yesterday at noon, we listened to the friendly banter between patrons at the counter, something we both miss now in suburbia after having grown up in little towns.  At one point, the owner started reading the local police beat aloud from the weekly Bisbee Observer and we all howled.   I thought I'd share a few of the postings with you.  As one resident at the counter said -- the Bisbee police blotter brings all new meaning to gettin' your freak on.

July 31 -- A resident of Bakerville reported an orange work bucket valued at $7 or $8 was taken from her yard, perhaps by a neighbor.
Aug. 1 -- A skunk attacked a Bisbee resident's dog.
Aug. 4 -- A Bisbee resident called police to report that the microwave oven that her mother had reported stolen about 10 years ago had turned up at her home the previous night.  She wanted an officer to try and get fingerprints from the appliance to determine who took it to begin with.
Aug. 7 -- A man who sleeps on his porch near Lowell School was reported to be naked as he watched school buses pass his house.
Aug. 8 -- A female javelina was angry and having difficulty getting her baby javelina out of a yard in Bisbee.
Assistance was requested for a rattlesnake at a front door.  By the time an officer arrived, the snake was gone.
One yellow lawn chair was stolen from a front porch.  A second identical chair remains on the porch.
Aug. 12 -- A Bisbee woman requested assistance removing a bat from her residence.

I'll leave you with a few photos from our travels around town yesterday.

This staged scene at the side of a large vacant lot brings all new meaning to the term outdoor living room.
 

Who you lookin' at?

Love the colorful decor around this front door.

A man walking a coaster wagon down Main Street.  Coaster races that take place over the 4th of July weekend are a Bisbee tradition.

Bet the H.O.A. would have a heyday if I put this statue in my front courtyard!

This psychedelic peace sign lights up the night on a hill to the east of us.

Junk/art display on High Road.

Thanks to Diane from Bisbee for the explanation on what I thought was a rolling coaster wagon.  It's another form of art!  Here's the video.

Car Art

What can I say!  First there was the Hillary Clinton car.  I posted photos of it last year.  That's something you'd never see in my neighborhood at home because the opposition would set fire to it or shoot holes in it!

Now there's this.  Maybe we should have a Name that Van contest?

I'm having a hard time categorizing this piece of art.  The sides have a tropical theme brewing with palm trees, fruit, and colorful forms of sea life.

Then an odd conglomeration of gnomes, angels, Santa Claus, Frosty, virgins, owls,  cartoon characters, and other assorted objects march across the roof.  Things we worship? 

The Carmen Miranda rear view mirror?

There's a new piece of quirky around every corner!

Red Alert and Wall Mosaics

Red alert at summer camp!  First, it was the spotted lizard lurking in the front hall.  I'm absolutely terrified of spiders, large insects, and snakes . . . .   As a child, I couldn't look at those pictures in the encyclopedia, and I'd cower in a different room if I saw a bug or spider on the wall when no one else was home to get rid of it.  Lizards are cute, especially when they're on the patio or backyard walls, but evidently they're not as attractive to me inside the house.  I screamed and Craig came running.  The thing clamped onto his finger, but fortunately didn't break skin.

We had a whopper of a thunderstorm last night with amazing thunder, lightning, wind, and drenching rain that lasted for hours.  Saby and I both could have used thunder shirts.  We're still looking for whatever made the loud crashing sound (like a tree going down) in the neighborhood.  Finally after three hours of watching the show from the living room, we decided to go to bed around 11:00 p.m.

The scorpion on the bedroom wall was the final straw.  Craig killed it and that bedroom was quickly abandoned.  I'm not a rational person when it comes to creepy crawly creatures, so there would be no sleep for me in that room that night!  And I know -- Craig kept telling me it's no different than a wasp sting.  Would I abandon a room because I saw a wasp on the wall?  But fears aren't rational.

Let's just say I've been lucky because it was my first scorpion sighting ever.  We stayed in an open air palapa in Yelapa where I slept with one eye open because that destination is notorious for large scorpions.  I've heard about them on Isla, but never seen one in all my trips.  And in six years of living in the desert -- nada.  I'm vacuuming and looking in every cranny this morning, and I'll be shaking out shoes and every article of clothing.  Shudder!

Open air living at summer camp just ended.  We'll keep these beautiful glass doors closed for the rest of the trip and hope the damn thing's family isn't lurking under the bed.  And yes, I'm high maintenance and my idea of camping is a gorgeous cabin like this where the living room doors fold open to make an open air living space.

Enough of that.  On one of our morning hikes this week up Brewery Gulch, we happened upon this mosaic wall embedded with collectible glass pieces.  Glasses, bottles, goblets, vases, figurines, globes -- a lot of pieces I've noticed in antique stores over the years!   I take a camera with me everywhere I go here in Bisbee because there's an amazing find around every corner.

Late breaking news:  Craig just admitted he killed a scorpion in the other bedroom the second day we were here.  I'm not sure I wanted to know that?  (Did I bring those sleeping pills with me?)

Runnin' in a Pink Desoto

As everywhere, political campaigns are in full swing around here. But some of the advertising's Bisbee-style.  Quirky!

Put your seat belts on kids!  Mom's running for City Council.  It's gonna be a bumpy ride!

Seeing Red

Just some red photos from our morning walks around town.  We're eagerly awaiting the return of the monsoon later today that's supposed to bring thunderstorms and cooler temps.  Weather.com predicts this event will take place at 1:45 p.m., but I'm not opening the umbrella until I hear rain on the tin roof!

Red's a natural in Bisbee since a lot of the old historic buildings are red brick.

The oldest still-operating bar in Arizona.

The Morning Routine

We're falling into a pattern here at our little summer camp.  We wake up with the sunrise to throw open all the doors and windows to cool off the house.

Once Saby's had her walk, we take a long tramp up and down the narrow streets and steps, wandering through the hills around the town.  We see the most amazing things on our morning walks.  The entire town is filled with art, whether in the form of wall murals and graffiti, mosaics, sculptures, art galleries, etc. . . .  

Here are some photos I took in one short alleyway in the downtown area this morning.

Pinch me because I'm not sure I'm still in Arizona!

After our morning walk, we stopped by the local coffee shop and purchased a chocolate croissant to split.  Next time I buy one of those, I'm not sharing!