During the weekend, one of my neighbors sent me a snippet from our Nature’s Preserve across the street. We are directly north of the preserve, with a street separating us.
I clicked on the link “Living with Mountain Lions” and this is what it said:
Mountain lions are predators capable of seriously injuring or killing humans. The Arizona Game and Fish Department is committed to helping people learn how to behave responsibly and live safely in proximity to mountain lions, and to removing animals that are a potential threat to the public.
The risk of attack by a mountain lion is small, but real; children are most at risk. Mountain lions may return repeatedly if food, water, or shelter are available. If food, water, and shelter are not available, mountain lions generally move on to other areas more quickly. If you live or recreate in mountain lion country, remain aware of your surroundings and minimize risks to yourself, your family, and pets by following the recommendations referenced on this page.
if you encounter a mountain lion
Do not approach the animal. Most mountain lions will try to avoid a confrontation. Give them a way to escape.
Stay calm and speak loudly and firmly.
Do not run from a mountain lion. Running may stimulate a mountain lion’s instinct to chase.
Stand and face the mountain lion. Make eye contact.
Appear larger by raising your arms or opening your jacket if you are wearing one. Throw stones, branches, or whatever you can reach without crouching or turning your back. Wave your arms slowly. The idea is to convince the mountain lion that you are not easy prey and that you may be a danger to it.
Maintain eye contact and slowly back away toward a building, vehicle, or busy area.
Protect small children so they won’t panic and run.
Fight back if attacked. Many potential victims have fought back successfully with rocks, sticks, caps, jackets, garden tools, their bare hands, and even mountain bikes. Since a mountain lion usually tries to bite the head or neck, try to remain standing and face the animal.
Report all mountain lion attacks to 911. All mountain lion encounters and attacks, sightings in urban areas, property damage due to mountain lions or possession of a live mountain lion should also be reported to Arizona Game and Fish Department Dispatch 623 236-7201. Dispatcher is available for your call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
I will confess while I was sitting outside in my backyard, writing my morning pages, I kept looking over my shoulder. I felt a little nervous, knowing that the fence would not keep a mountain lion out.
While I was putting together this post, I got another email. This one from our HOA president, passing on the same info about numerous Mountain Lion sightings. I guess it’s a good thing I’m not able to go for walks right now.
Then, I opened the front door to check for an Amazon package and this guy ran away!
One morning this past week was spectacular because of the sun and clouds. Here are a few views I enjoyed, plus a mule deer in a neighbor’s yard and quail in my backyard. Enjoy!
Have a great week. Are you cooking for Thanksgiving or visiting friends?
My dream home of 28 years in Palm Springs, built in 1937.
I was home caring for my dad, who had shoulder surgery. My daughter and husband were in Los Angeles at a swim meet for the weekend (son in college). I had to pick up my dad’s meds at the pharmacy and I told him not to leave the recliner we had rented for his recovery — placed in front of the TV.
When I returned, he was on the floor. Of course, he didn’t listen to me and didn’t stay put.
“I can’t get my dad off the floor!” I called my husband on his cell. After numerous attempts with Dad, neither one of us made an inch of progress.
In the background, I heard my daughter say “Call Mr. Siffleet!”
Of course, why hadn’t I thought of that? Karl was married to one of my close friends who lived less than a mile away. They had a daughter who went to kindergarten through high school with my daughter. Karl and my husband swam 5:30 a.m. Masters together.
Within minutes, Karl came over, picked my dad up as though he was a bag of potatoes and placed him comfortably in his chair. Thank you, Karl!
I can’t remember all the things Karl did for us during the decades we lived in that home. But what I do remember is going to a post-op appointment after knee surgery about thirty minutes away. I realized I left the stove on for vegetable soup I was cooking.
Yikes! I called Karl and he came over to the house, turned off the stove — and put the burnt pot outside.
Yes, this family had a key to our house. They even took care of Olive the cat while we were on vacation.
Another time, our swim team was hosting a meet at the city pool. We had an extensive set up of pop-up tents constructed from poles and tarps, tables, electronic timing equipment, scoreboard, snack bar, grills, timing chairs, etc. We’d have more than 1,000 people to host at swim meets for a three-day weekend — including swimmers and family members.
One morning, my husband (who was Mr. Meet Manager) arrived at the pool at dawn to find tons of equipment in the pool. We blamed the skaters from the next-door skate park. But it could have been any gang of hoodlums. My husband called (I was comfortably asleep in bed) and asked me to drive our daughter to the pool. Karl also showed up — probably to help with set up — and they dove in and retrieved equipment from the bottom of the deep end, hours before the meet began.
I miss living near Karl and his family. I’m glad we are still in touch, but I really miss a neighbor like Karl who always came to the rescue! He was our local superman.
What have your neighbors done for you when you needed help? Do you play that role with any neighbors?
Waffles, my daughter’s pug, made it on “We Rate Dogs” a popular “pupper” site on Twitter and Instagram. Waffles got 13 out of perfect 10 rating — and more than 75k likes for this photo taken by someone on my daughter’s college team.
The photo above is Waffles the pug. No he doesn’t bite. His snaggle teeth weren’t built to do that. This is a story about another dog from a morning walk last week.
We headed out the door around 5ish a.m. The sun rises after 5:30, but the sky glows pink and gray, waiting for the intense sun to peak over the horizon.
At this early time, we see a few dog walkers in the neighborhood. One is a petite blond lady with a pit bull named Star. We’ve known Star since she was a puppy about a year and a half ago. She’d lay down submissively so we’d come over to her for a pat. Often, she’d roll on her back so she’d get a belly rub from my husband.
I’m not a pit bull fan. As Star grew older, the owner kept to her side of the street. Often Star would lunge, growl and snarl at us. The owner apologized and didn’t know what to make of the new attitude.
I said, “Maybe Star is getting older and more protective?”
Sometimes, she’d say, “Star wants to come say hi.” She’d walk Star over to us with different results. Sometimes Star was good. Other times she’d start sweet and then snap.
From then on (several months ago) we gave up on communicating with Star.
Last week, we spotted the woman across the street. Star laid down. The owner said something to us from across the street. My husband couldn’t hear what she said. I kept walking away from Star at a brisk pace.
My husband walked towards Star and the woman, but stopped six to eight feet away to not invade Star’s space. Star was on a thick leather leash, held by the woman.
The woman was chit chatting about how hot it was and how we have to get out early to walk.
Then Star, without warning or provocation, lunged, snarling from the ground at my husband and bit his hand. The woman didn’t have the strength to pull Star back.
Fortunately, my husband jumped away with only a puncture wound. When he caught up to me his hand was dripping blood. “If I didn’t move away, I would have lost my hand,” he said. “What was really strange is she didn’t say anything to the dog. Not bad dog! or anything!”
I reported the dog bite to the HOA board but didn’t hear back immediately. I wanted to let other families in our neighborhood be aware.
We looked up dog bites on our County website and my husband decided to file a complaint. He had a picture of his hand, the dog bite broke through skin, which were requirements. We don’t want to get the neighbor upset, but we worry about what could happen. Especially because most the people in our neighborhood are older. They might not get away as quickly — or even worse get knocked down.
The dog will be under house arrest for 10 days and tested for rabies. Other than that, I don’t think anything will happen to Star. We may have made an enemy in Star’s owner, but hopefully saved other people. Since reporting, we have heard that someone two houses away from the pit bull was bitten, too.
What would you have done in our place? Would you report the dog and/or ask the HOA board for restriction of some kind? How do you think the owner should corrected Star?
We went to a Fourth of July pool party on Sunday, so today will be a quiet day, me and hubby, going for a walk and grilling burgers.
I spotted two interesting sights during my last walk.
First was this lovely pink blossom in one of our pots in our courtyard. Because our temperatures are well over 100 degrees, most of the blooms have faded away.
Then I saw two desert kingsnakes. They aren’t venomous and they eat rattlesnakes, so I guess that’s a good thing they’re hanging around our neighborhood.
Unfortunately our nest of quail eggs did not hatch. It makes me sad, because I was looking forward to our own hatchlings. We do have a couple families of quail visit our backyard. I also was thrilled to see deer yesterday morning.
I’m not sure what to do with the nest of eggs. I’m leaving it alone for the time being, but think I should throw them away?
I never get tired of the wildlife in our neighborhood. Across the street we have the McDowell Nature Preserve with more than 130 miles of hiking trails. That’s probably why we get deer, coyotes, javelina and bobcats waltzing through our backyards and streets. There’s so much building going on in Arizona, it’s reassuring to know the 30,580 acres of Sonoran Desert across the street will not be developed.
Here is one of the quail families that visit our yard. The babies look like teenagers.
Another deer in a neighbor’s yard.
Here’s a video of a mule deer walking across a neighbor’s driveway.
What is your favorite thing about your neighborhood?
A cup of lemonade I bought on our morning walk. I did take one sip, before I took the photo. I have to say it wasn’t a generous serving!
We have friendly neighbors who apparently have an abundance of fresh lemons. Note to self: I need to plant a lemon tree! In Palm Springs we had 15 citrus trees and we have none here.
On our morning walk, we passed the friendly neighbor’s house spotting a young boy sitting outside, alone at a folding table, with a hand painted sign, “Lemonade.”
We asked how long he’d be there and he said another hour and a half. It was 6:30 a.m. I wonder how early he set up his stand?
“We’ll be back after our walk,” my husband promised.
This is a grandchild of our neighbors. We first met them when their grandkids were visiting at Christmas the year we moved in. They had a lemonade stand then, and we thought it was so sweet. It brought back memories of my childhood when we had a Kool-aid stand.
We haven’t seen these neighbors since December 2020 until sometime in April this year when we were out for a walk. We stopped and talked and talked about our kids, who all live in California. They told us about their grandkids and asked if we wanted to go to church with them. The husband promised us his homemade limoncello.
Again we haven’t seen them around. I believe the husband works a lot throughout the country and is rarely home.
Then last week, the day before we left for Mexico, we saw him in his garage.
He said, “Wait!”
He ran to get us two bottles of limoncello. We declined, but he said, “Please take them. I don’t drink, but I like to make it.”
This morning after our walk, I returned to the lemonade stand.
“You’re certainly out early,” I said.
“I try to do my best,” the young boy answered.
“What are you going to do with all this money?” I asked.
“Half goes to charity. I’m not sure yet what I’ll do with the rest.”
I gave him money for two lemonades. He asked what color cups I wanted and poured me a few inches of lemonade in each cup.
It gave me a bit of joy to see a child working his lemonade stand. It’s a rare sight indeed.
What are your memories of lemonade stands growing up? Do you see them today?
