Granny's easy roses

I am quite the opposite of the rose garden fetishist; I believe in the easiest roses possible. Especially when you consider that my "soil" consists three or four inches of decayed granite on top of more or less solid rock on a hillside. So I make do with pots. And not those big, beautiful, pricey pots, either, but pots of a modest size.

Nor do I buy my roses at the nursery. No, I buy around Mother's Day or some other sentimental holiday at the local supermarket. You know, those little containers with miniature roses that make such thoughtful gifts that usually dry up to be thrown away. But put the plants in an eight or ten inch, three gallon pot and they'll grow into a modestly sized bush, rewarding you with flowers throughout the warm months.

They're not those big, lush roses that fanciers prefer but instead pretty little blossoms, like my yellow and pink above.

Another solution is an Arizona wild rose. Next my front landing, which is one flight up the hill, I've a lusty bush growing in the hillside soil quite happily; I just make sure it gets a bit more water than would happen naturally. It rewards me with simple 5-petaled pale pink flowers in late spring.

You do have to be careful, of course; wild roses specialize in nasty little thorns.

At this time of year, the wild roses are spent, leaving me with a fine crop of rose hips. There's only one slightly domesticated rose that might survive, possibly prosper on my land -- those wonderful yellow Henderson roses (below) brought to Prescott by the pioneers. They border the Sharlot Hall Museum grounds on Gurley Street and I've seen them here and there in town. Unfortunately, they multiply only by sending out runners. No seeds or I could easily start a plant as I did the wild rose.

The nurseries do not carry these old fashioned favorites, as they are in demand only during that brief two or three week window when they bloom at Sharlot Hall. But they are survivors -- I recall two huge bushes along Iron Springs Road in Skull Valley that had been neglected for years, but they thrived. My kind of plant!

Things from simpler times

Or: what we saw inside the old store at Cordes: oodles of stuff from the 20s & 30s, including my childhood days. (You may recall that I visited the place with my lady friends last Sunday.)

The kind of skate that I rolled around on. You needed a paved surface for sure; you'd barely move on any other type of surface. Not at all like today's slick roller blades.

And who doesn't remember the mighty Wurlitzer? Even though the songs are from a much later slice of time...

My kind of radios, at least if I'm going to listen to the Lone Ranger or Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre. They wouldn't do for my NPR classics from KNAU today.

Soda pop bottles from the days of glass. Evidently not collected on the desert surrounding Cordes -- they'd be purple in that case.

The thrifty housewife can't have enough meat grinders. Or (below) cast iron pots, pans and ovenwear.

A well equipped tool box for the man of the house.

A hiccup in the above time line: three humming bird nests collected in and around Cordes. The Cordes Station Store holds a humming bird festival in April.

And this is an antique that's for looking only -- it belonged to Proprietor Cathy Cordes' great-grandfather and she intends to keep it in the family.

Here she wraps up a sale to my travelling companions.

HOT!!!

I haven't the energy for a more elaborate post. I'd like to join the cat (below).

Our summer temps up in the Arizona mountains tend to be somewhat weird during our monsoon weather. This year, the mornings are blazing hot. Not, to be sure, Phoenix-style deadly hot, but in the upper 90s. Hot enough that the Max cat has given up patrolling the neighborhood and instead stretches out on the floor near my computer chair.

Our rain storms, which we've now had four days in a row, come in the late afternoon or early evening. One day I caught this brilliant sunset to the east (the only direction my windows face.) And then the temps drop forty degrees for a pleasant sleep.

I guess the moisture has brought out one of the new neighborhood frogs. Neighbor, in whose pond we parked the metamorphosing tadpoles, says he searched a week to locate one of the little fellows, found him on the side of his house. Presumably near the pond. Note the suction pads on the critter's feet; he's an Arizona canyon tree frog.

Greater Cordes, pop. 11

Continuing our ladies' outing adventure on Monday: here is Cordes, Arizona, established as a stage stop in 1883 by John and Lizzie Cordes -- today, the Cordes Station store is owned and operated by their great-great-granddaughter, serving up snacks, drinks, antiques and collecibles.

Cordes is located on the old Black Canyon Highway in lower (and hotter) desert country than I-17; the shotest route is via Duffer Road in Spring Valley.

Note the power lines. Things are actually quite up to date in Cordes -- including internet reception. And, speaking of the internet, there's a cool interview of Cathy, who runs the store, at YouTube.

The old gas pump still stands.

Here is the store (above) and a ranch house (below). (Note: the picture of the store was borrowed from the Cordes Station web site.)

Another group of buildings is hidden behind this big old barn. And that's about it, as far as I could see the other day. BTW: there's a rumor going about that ADOT is seriously considering a new, improved super-duper version of I-17, but set down in the lowlands where Cordes, Bumblebee, and Cleator are located. That would be a real pity; why can't they leave well enough alone?

Which Cordes has the antiquery?

We had a ladies' outing today, we did. The goal: around the Bradshaws and down the hill on SR 69 to locate an antique shop somewhere in Cordes. Georgene had read about it in the AAA travel magazine recently. She didn't recall which particular Cordes, of which there are three. There's the Junction, the Lakes and the original. And so the four of us (G., plus Patty, a grandchild and myself) started out at the most accessible, Cordes Lakes, which sits cheek by jowl next to Cordes Junction. Just incidentally, do take note of the Black Mountains to the east, barely visible through the smokey haze drifting down from forest fires near Flagstaff.

I was last in Cordes Lakes in the early 90s. Actually, just through it on the way to the confluence of Big Bug Creek and the Agua Fria River, a beautiful riparian spot in the high desert. At that time, Cordes Lakes struck me as a somewhat seedy little post-WW2 settlement with no history for retirees who had just enough money for a single- or double-wide and who wanted to get to "higher, cooler" country than Phoenix. We never saw any "lakes' which were probably some real estate man's short-lived pond or two.

Maybe this was one of the "lakes" -- a reservoir near the creek. My, how the hamlet had changed! The real estate bust caught the area in mid-regeneration, with new streets and a surprising number of new pricier, stick-built houses but also a lot of undeveloped land. Several of the homes were quite elaborate. We speculated that Cordes Lakes had become commuter turf, figuring that the lots were not nearly as costly as developments closer to Phoenix.

It was a strange mix: abandoned houses, neglected but lived-in buildings, modest but tidy properties and the aforementioned nearly-McMansions. Not at all your usual Arizona 2000s from-scratch, boom-town development. Anthem it's definitely not. Now for a few sights we saw...

Somebody in Cordes Lakes has a big distributorship -- bandanas for the motorcycle, ATV and snow board crowd.

And somebody else in Cordes Lakes saw those wonderful metal beasts imported from Mexico and had to have a few: two bulls and three giraffes. Giraffe #3 is a youngster reaching up to munch out on tree leaves, below. (BTW, I am told that the Iron Corral down by Anthem where the big beasties, real and mythological, were sold is no more. Too bad.)

Spotted this Chinese-style frog/toad at one of the more thoroughly landscaped houses, while the two-dimensional saguaro with shades below was at a motel in Cordes Junction.

We actually spent a good amount of time wandering Cordes Lakes, exploring as we looked for the antique shop. But we were in the wrong Cordes. Our goal, it turns out, was in the original Cordes, a place full of history, down on the Old Black Canyon Highway, pop. 11. Coming up next.

R.E.D. rides

Posting problem: how to differentiate yet another auto show from the previous one? Solution: focus entirely on the R.E.D. rides, in this case street rods. There were certainly plenty of arrest-me-red vehicles at the Middle School sports field over the Tsunami weekend.
Styles and ages varied all over the lot. This handsome pair (above, below) from before the first days of streamlining.

A bright R.E.D. pick-up with two more R.E.D. cars in the background. Below -- with its hood down as far as possible, this sporty auto looks like a clean version of those upended machines at the Cadillac Ranch outside Lubbock.

The weird beak (above) is open to display pristine innards (below).

And a new Govt. Motors moment -- a vintage Fiat, front and rear/

Anybody out there remember when two-tone cars were all the rage? And did any single one of you ever see a two-toner with R.E.D. as one of its elements (even the plum red, below)? I thought not -- no driver in his right mind back then would own a ride that garish.

A vision in plum red and chrome!

Bright R.E.D. trim is another current fashion. Above, wheels; below, motor parts and the running board (remember those?)

Finishing touches for the roadster above (and for this post!)