The summer is getting away from me. I haven’t been up to posting lately. No motivation. We had three housesits so far, I don’t think I mentioned the last two. One was in Prescott, only about five minutes from downtown. It was a large house in a gated community situated on a steep, rocky hillside with pine trees, overlooking a driving range near the golf course clubhouse.

I brought my AT115EDT telescope and Losmandy mount along with all of the associated equipment, only to find the terrain was too steep and sightlines were blocked by trees and the house anyway. So, that was out.

The house had two levels – the main floor and a finished walk-out basement floor. On the main floor the master bedroom and bath were on one end and a guest room and bath on the opposite end. What I found to be a little unusual was the basement floor – it was an exact replica of the guest wing – same layout and same bed and furniture, just one level below.

The owners had two dogs and one cat. It was an easy housesit. We watched Wimbledon on the tennis channel every day. And our visit coincided with the Prescott Frontier Days – an annual rodeo that’s been taking place since 1888, making it the oldest annual rodeo in the world. It was hot – the temperature was in the 90s, but we enjoyed the final day of the event.

It was a fairly uneventful housesit. I brought my terrestial camera equipment with the hopes of capturing some wildlife images, but that was a failure too. The birds seemed to stay away from the back deck – most were in trees too far away to photograph. One day a coyote trotted along the woodline on the far side of the driving range – again too far away. I managed to get a couple of shots of a hummingbird that came to the deck.

The hummingbird flew into a bush. I approached slowly and could see it well hidden inside the bush. I focused on the bird, shooting between branches. It resulted in a natural vignette, with the branches in the foreground well out of focus.

With no wildlife to point my camera toward, I focused on a flower instead. Look closely and you’ll see an ant inside the flower.

Our next housesit was a four-day sit about 10 days later. We came back to the house near Prescott Valley in an area called Williamson. We had a housesit on this rural property around the same time last year. Again, it was a large, beautiful home on acreage. Last year, I captured images of the Dumbbell Nebula and the Fireworks Galaxy from this property.

This year I was out of luck again. The weather pattern had thunderstorms forming every afternoon with gusty wind and passing showers. The skies were cloudy by late afternoon and into the night every day.

I had better luck finding things to photograph in the mornings here – namely birds and lizards.

One afternoon we took a drive over to Chino Valley, about 15 miles away. We were looking for a Thai restaurant for lunch, but when we found it, it was closed for a few weeks. There was a Mexican Restaurant nearby, but when we entered to check it out, it was more of a fast food type outfit and Donna didn’t like the vibe there.

She found another Mexican restaurant that was off the beaten path. We followed the directions from her smart phone and I was getting a little pessimistic about finding anything good as we were on the outskirts of the small town, well away from highway 89. We eventually found El Charro Norte and had a wonderful lunch there. Great food, good service. We would go back next time we’re in the area.

The weather has been hot – what else would you expect in central Arizona in the summer? We’ve been getting out of bed early to play tennis three days per week. We play from 6:30am to 8am. We usually have a group ranging from four to eight players and we enjoy it. After nine years of pickleball, I felt like my playing had reached a plateau and no longer improved. With tennis, I have a potential upside and I’m enjoying the challenge of learning the finer points of the game.

Earlier this month, Donna made a scheduled visit with her parents in Vermont. Her father was in the Vermont Veterans Home – a skilled nursing facility in Bennington. Her mom is currently in Brookdale Assisted Living, also in Bennington. Her father’s health took a turn for the worse – he was in the end stages of Parkinson’s disease and kidney failure. Unfortunately, her father, Duke Connor passed in the early morning hours of Monday, August 19th – just two days after Donna returned from Vermont. Rest in peace, Duke.

We have a lot on our plate right now. We’re having a small addition built on our house – it’ll be a laundry room and 1/2 bath. The contractor has the crew scheduled to start on Monday, August 26th. While Ron, the owner of Paragon Home Services, Inc was here to make an estimate, he found we had gray polybutylene pipes in our plumbing. This was bad news. This product has been banned since 1998. It corrodes from the inside out – the outward appearance may look fine while the pipes are about to burst.

We had Paragon immediately replace all of the gray polybutylene water supply lines in our place with Pex lines. Meanwhile I’ve purchased a new LG washer/dryer, sink, bathroom cabinet and toilet for the room addition.

Timing is everything, right? We have a housesit scheduled for the 27th through September 5th. The room addition will take about a week to complete and we’ll only be here for the first day. Donna sees this as a blessing in disguise. We trust Ron and will leave him a house key. We won’t have to be living in the house while the construction crew sets to work and tears out part of the Arizona room wall. Also, Ozark the cat will be staying with our neighbor during this time, so there’s no worry about her getting out while they’re working.

The housesit is near Alpine, California – east of San Diego, on the western side of the Laguna Mountains. It’s a 90-acre ranch with 13 sheep, five border collies and a cat. The border collies are trained to herd the sheep out of their pen and into a pasture for the day. In the evening they will herd the sheep back to the pen. It’ll be something different for us, that’s for sure.

Speaking of something different – here is dinner plate Donna made. Crawfish Scampi with cheesy grits and green beans.

When we return from California, we’ll have three weeks at home before we leave again. We have a two-week vacation in Japan coming up.

With Japan on our minds, Donna made an entree of Japanese chicken curry.

Triple digits are forcasted for the remainder of the month – nothing unusual about that. What has been unusual is this year’s monsoon season. We usually have several thunderstorms and downpours of rain at this time of year. Thunderstorms and damaging wind have occurred in the area, just not here in Mesa so much. We can see thunderheads and rainfall around us in the Superstition Mountains to the east, up near Fountain Hills to the north and the San Tan valley to the south, but we’ve only had passing showers. Alpine, California should have daily highs of 80-90 degrees and nighttime temps in the 60s. We can live with that.