20 years in AZ, I have never seen anything like this so I just had to show you the
latest creature we found...
We live next to desert wash which is a great place to find dead fibery plants papermaking. However, living in the desert can involve interesting creatures occasionally wandering into our house. Gary called me over and asked me what kind of bug I thought this was. I counted the legs (8) and decided it was a spider. It looked rather dead so I told him to put it in a jar so I could get better look at it. He slid a card under it and then I saw a leg move....EEK!
After it was in the jar it started moving around like crazy! (thus the blurry photo) But yikes, I thought...it could have jumped on Gary's hand.
This creature has the same coloring as a scorpion so I looked it up online. Per
wikipedia, this is a camel spider or wind scorpion.
Solifugae is an
order of
Arachnida, containing more than 1,000 described
species in about 140
genera. The name derives from
Latin, and means those that flee from the sun. The order is also known by the names
Solpugida,
Solpugides,
Solpugae,
Galeodea and
Mycetophorae.
Solifugae are not true spiders, which are from a different order,
Araneae. Like
scorpions and
harvestmen, they belong to a distinct arachnid order.
Notice the suction cups under its body--helps him climb! It is a really interesting creature and it eats a lot of annoying things like termites and scorpions.
I released it in the desert wash--back to the wild (albeit--much farther away from our house). I read that they actually avoid the sun and that seemed to be true because it traversed over lots of rocks and sticks for quite a ways before heading into a shady thicket of brush and disappearing.
There will also be an artists' lecture on 9/30 at 7:00 pm.
A few months ago Lisa Takata and I set off on a creative adventure at The Paper Studio to use the Power of the Press in every imaginable dimension. We collected piles of colorful recyclable materials including bubble wrap, candy wrappers, mesh vegetable bags, plastic shopping bags, used sewing patterns, tissue paper and overhead transparencies. Using a heat press, we morphed the structure, texture and form of these materials by melting them together at high temperatures to create translucent, multi-layered surfaces for printmaking. We letterpress printed everything--from the tissue patterns to the melted plastic all of which were hand-cut or die-cut into a series of repeating forms. Each component piece was hand printed, varnished, pressed, melted, folded, ironed, and heat pressed numerous times. Although the resulting work incorporates familiar shapes, colors and text, the ingredients we started with are hardly recognizable. Here's some quick pics of the collaborative pieces--Swarm Pattern and Daily Candy. Also, Lisa and I each did two pieces in response to this work. I'll post them and more details later!
Swarm Pattern
(detail)
Daily Candy
(detail)
(detail)
The image on the front of the article are plates I made with lace and a dryer sheet--mostly for background texture.
They even posted an online article with one of samples of "hammer printing" where you can make simple nature prints with out using ink and just a few bangs with a hammer. You can see this online technique at: 
While we wouldn't trade our 
The Power of the Press:Shared Visions 
The duo presented cooking demonstrations featuring local ingredients from the farmer's market. We got to see our fave from last 
It was fun hearing the scoop about how the show runs. Plus, they made a delicious food for us!
Now, this is my kind of bookstore--one with cats in residence. Nikko, the really big kitty.
Harriet the little 12 year old kitty. So nice! Check out 
The fun just never ends in this magazine! The front inside cover had a fold-y thing and the back inside cover has a thematic music CD--this month it's Good News. I got a kick out of hearing all the selections.
We need to let them dry out before we let them 
Pineapple tops make the most lovely golden and somewhat 
Stay tuned to see the results!
At the risk of sounding like Marlon Perkins of Wild Kingdom (a 70's show)I had to do one more post of stuff I've been seeing in our back yard. Half the time I see the creatures when I'm in the shower--our house has a large window in the the shower that over looks the back yard. (Thankfully it is at head level--lest the neighbors have some interesting visuals ;) I usually have to grab a towel and run to get my camera. These are some of the creatures we've seen lately.
This is a female red-tail hawk. I was trying to photograph her for months but I never seem to have my camera when she was here. I hadn't seen her in months. Once she was here with a male and he was HUGE. When she is in the yard, no other creatures are stirring or they would be lunch~
This made me laugh. I looked up and there was this little guy hanging out. The lizard that was sitting outside on the window sill of the shower. He's really small so I got our cat Emma (she loves lizards) in the next shot. You could see her gray paw and see how small the lizard is. Lots of baby lizards this time of year. We hope they stay out of the house--the kitties play way to rough with them.
There are two pretty large lizards that tool around in the yard but I haven't been to photograph them...yet...stay tuned.
This guy was on the patio. It's a Palo Verde Beetle. (Yeech!) They are humongous--about the size of a Buick! To show scale, I carefully placed the dollar bill by the beetle (using grill tongs for fear the beetle might accidentally jump on me). Gary said he should have taken a picture of me doing that since I looked bit ridiculous using the grill tongs. But obviously--he didn't volunteer to put it by the beetle! We only see one of these beetles about one time per year and then it's gone.
When I got to the window Gary was looking out--I couldn't believe it but there was a coyote walking along the top of our six-foot fence! It was a surreal sight. Then it jumped off the fence and into our yard. Once I came to my senses, I went running for the camera. As long as we've lived here we've never seen a coyote in the yard. 
The coyote started walking towards the grassy area and once up there, it started jumping around--pouncing on something. Then I saw quails madly swooping down from the tree basically dive-bombing the coyote around the head. I realized there must be chicks in the grass. (you can barely see the coyote in the grass--that wily coyote...)
When I opened the back door, the coyote jumped up and over the fence in a single bound. I understand all about survival of the fittest and all but I was relieved I didn't see the coyote get the quail chicks. There have been six little chicks and their parents tooling about our yard for a few weeks... Here are the parents back at their posts after all the commotion.
The dad quail.
