A cemetery like I've never seen

There is a very large Catholic cemetery that we pass every time we head into Tucson. Actually there are two cemeteries. One is your standard cemetery--somber and quiet, with rows of beautiful grave markers. The other one, Holy Hope Cemetery of the Diocese of Tucson is like no other cemetery I've seen because it seems so much a part of the lives of families in Tucson.

This place is huge and most of time, the graves have bright, colorful plastic flowers on them. Near Christmas, I noticed a funeral in progress with everyone in black, the long hearse and rows of cars. This somber scene contrasted with the bright and sparkling Christmas decorations on some of the graves.

Then I saw what looked like a demonstration in another part of the cemetery with people marching and carrying signs I couldn't read. A demonstration in a cemetery? I learned that this was a “March for Life” demonstration because it was the 36^th anniversary of Roe v Wade. The cemetery was included in the march.


Then they decorated for Valentine's Day.


I wish I knew more about the role this cemetery plays in the lives of Catholic Tucsonites, but it seems so much an active part of the holidays and maybe daily life.

Sky and clouds

The sky here is a big part of the landscape. It is not subtle. A BIG presence. Big and blue with a hot sun. We haven't seen too much of that because it is wintertime and an especially rainy year. We've gotten to see clouds--amazing clouds.

The sky is still a big presence when it is cloudy, but more like an opera. Big cumulus clouds with white, fluffy tops and dark darks at the bottom. Wisps and curls.


Yesterday we had rain and dramatic clouds--big cumulus clouds dropping a lot of water fast.


Sometimes the clouds are more gentle and the landscape is alive with shadows painted by the sun and clouds.


For you landscape painters working on painting ariel perspective, this is the place.


Almost always the sky is exhilarating--day and night.

Javalinas, ants, and garbage

When we first arrived, we noticed ants showing up to enjoy our kitchen garbage pail. "What about bugs in the garbage bin, since we have to keep it in the garage?" I wondered. I could see a bigger bug problem developing. Bob wandered up to the community office to ask. "It's not bugs you should worry about, it's javalinas. If you don't wrap your garbage, they will smash through your garage door to get to the garbage," they said.

Okaaaay. Ants are one thing, but javalinas are something else. I can just hear the conversation with the property manager. "I'm really sorry about the garage door..." Bob and I ended up with large tweezers fishing garbage out of this large bin, piece by piece. We decided to wrap the garbage, freeze it in our almost empty freezer and take it out on garbage day. That may be way overkill and makes for a really weird looking freezer, but what do we know about javalinas? In Seattle, rats and raccoons are the biggest issues.

These are sculptures of javalinas outside our local Safeway grocery store. Javalinas officially aren't pigs, but they look like small, wild pigs and can be aggressive because they have very poor vision. They have a great sense of smell and love our garbage.

March 15, 2010: First javalinas seen at dawn this morning. I was looking out my dining room window as the sun was just coming up and thought "There's normally not a bush there." Then the bush moved. Then two more "bushes" appeared, ghostly in the dim light. Then a tiny baby "bush." Finally I could see the pig-shaped outlines. Javalinas!

With all the rain, there is lots of green vegetation in the arroyo behind my house and they have arrived for breakfast. They are bigger and tougher than those sculptures made them appear. And they can run fast. I'm told they smell like skunks, but the baby is so cute.

March 27: Javalinas in our yard this morning. We learned that we need to open the front door carefully and look around first before going out. A small one was four feet from the front door and then trotted up on our neighbor's front porch.

Rattlesnakes

My sister, who lives in the mountains of Colorado, says that everyone there has bear stories. Here in the desert everyone has rattlesnake stories except us--yet--but I've been talking with folks and thinking about rattlesnakes.

Actually, I do have a rattlesnake story, but it is from California. While visiting a farm, I was looking up investigating something when I stepped on a rattlesnake. He was in dappled shade and completely blended into the environment. Thank goodness I stepped on his tail. We both went “Eeeek” and headed in opposite directions.

It was a good lesson about adapting to a new environment. In Seattle we can clomp around with our heads in the clouds (sometimes literally). In desert areas, you watch where you put your feet. I think it is called "being present in the moment."

There’s a marvelous snake bench just sitting along a road in our town of Oro Valley. Along that road there are a collection of wonderful sculptures of various animals, but that’s the topic for another time.

Our friends who just built a house in NW Tucson said that construction workers scared up three rattlesnakes. The neighbors in the adjoining lot found 19 rattlesnakes on their property during the construction period. The snakes probably didn’t like the construction noise and vibrations and moved next door.

We heard a story from an Oro Valley neighbor how they left a door open for a half an hour accidentally in December and a hibernating diamondback rattler “unhibernated” itself and wandered in to get warm. It probably spent the night under his bed and he only found it the next day when he almost stepped on it. The fire department came and removed and relocated the snake. Needless to say, we are now verrry careful about closing doors. I'm told that this is a very rare thing to happen.

I asked a native Tucsonite how they raise children in an environment that has so many things that want to bite, sting, or poke you. "It's not that big an issue with most critters because they are more frightened of you than you are of them. The real problem is termites." (I'm currently learning about desert termites and will write about that another day.)

I half-sighted a road runner down our road. We were told that road runners kill rattlesnakes by dancing just inside the snake's strike zone and jumping out of the way when the snake strikes. They do this over and over until the snake is exhausted. Then they grab the snake's head and bash it in. Whoa, some kinda bird.

People here take their dogs to rattlesnake avoidance classes where they teach the dog to run away from rattlesnakes rather than be curious and run up to them. We decided not to bring our enthusiastic, curious Golden Retriever to Arizona until we know more about this environment even though there is now an anti-rattlesnake vaccine for dogs. Vaccinated dogs experience less pain and have a reduced risk of permanent injury from rattlesnake bite.

I’m always interested how the natural environment influences human cities. Some of the sidewalks in our town of Oro Valley undulate like snakes. I’m not sure if that is an influence of being in snake country, but how often do you see snaking sidewalks like these? It’s also very interesting to see who is willing to walk and run following the snaking pattern and who has to walk or run in a straight line. Can you imagine people tolerating curving sidewalks in New York?

For Christmas we bought a relative a rattlesnake mug in the shape of a coiled snake. Not a wimpy cup with a picture on it. A lively discussion took place in the gift shop whether this was an appropriate present or not. My husband was wowed. I was horrified. Gradually everyone in the shop got involved in the debate. The sales clerks were clearly delighted to get that thing out of their gift shop, although they didn’t express it quite that vehemently. The deciding vote was cast by a Tucson geologist doing her Christmas shopping. “I know tons of guys that would adore getting a mug like that.” She and my husband were right. It was a hit.

Heading to Arizona

I'm from Seattle and have lived in the Pacific Northwest most of my adult life. The last two winters had me swearing, "No more winters in Seattle," so now I'm in Tucson, Arizona.

Actually we live about 30 minutes north of Tucson, in a town called Oro Valley, sort of close to the edge of town where it is very quiet and the light is a painter's dream. (I'm a landscape painter, by the way.)

We are in a gated community that is much fancier than our Seattle life and, at first, I thought desert "lite" because hardly a leaf is out of place. Then I looked out of the window to see a coyote strolling across our patio mid-morning and a week later saw a bobcat walking through the backyard on two different occasions. Whoa, not so desert "lite."

Then we were told to wrap our garbage thoroughly so that javalinas (small, wild pigs) won't smash through the garage door to get to the garbage bin inside. Last night the main sound was of a owl hooting. Wow, it was really loud. I didn't know owls could be so loud.

My first reaction to the desert was "No way, alien place, this isn't home." The first couple of weeks were difficult because I knew so little about my environment and lots of that environment wants to poke or sting you. The desert ecology is so different from anything I know, so I decided to write about what I notice and learn about this place and how the desert is gradually unfolding its beauty to me.