Antiques from the Apothocary

Look at the title of that red book -- looks like a first cousin to those questionable health books advertised by email spam nowadays. Yet it was probably a good reference in its time. Scan those brown bottles with their cork stoppers. Or those boxed powders and ointments. Scary, huh?

Yet, guess what -- our grandparents and their parents before them survived. We're here, after all. No need for child-proof lids; the kids back then knew enough not to muck about the medicine cabinet. Not to mention the gawdawful taste of proper medicine; that's a deterrant that's gone by the wayside in our effort to get rid of the yuck factor. Now everything tastes pink. A new sort of yuck, in my opinion.

This wonderful collection from days past catches my attention every time I go into the Goodwin Street Pharmacy. Four cabinets full of yesterdays nostrums -- legit and snake oil alike. It's good to be reminded of how far we've progressed, how protected we are, but most important, we need to be reminded of the shoulders that we stand on.

One thing I really like about independent local businesses: the unexpected, surprising and very individual art work, doodads, antiques selected for display. It might be my doctor with his mother's water colors or the old-fashioned apple-themed collection at the Apple Pan, (where else?) or the celebration of rodeos past at the Waffle Iron. All very ideosyncratic and one-of-a-kind; in the hands of a corporate design consultant, the same material would quickly turn into trashy kitsch.

Snow Is For Tracking

Color me frustrated. I tried several times to photograph this set of tracks -- different angles, different times of day. No luck; it took extreme PhotoShopping to bring out the footprints above. May I describe what I saw? Mystery #1 is that the tracks (which are small) appeared from out of nowhere in the middle of the snow. Mystery #2: the feet were together at the spot where the tracks started and it looked as though whoever/whatever it was had dragged his tail. The closer the tracks came to my pyracantha bush, the more separated the prints from each foot were. My speculation: a robin landed, hopped a bit and then walked to its favorite berry bush. But this is sheer guesswork! (FYI: I have one friend whose resident robin regularly gets drunk on older pyracantha berries that have gone alcoholic.)

Fact is, unless I have wee marsupial-type critters in my yard, I would guess that many of the tracks I saw today were made by birds. Like those above. I didn't see anything that looks like mouse or chipmunk trails and those are the only small mammals hereabouts. A little disappointing. (And yes, I did consult with The Google to back up my theorizing.)

This is another set of tracks, even smaller, looking like a small bird was hopping along.

On the other hand, there's no question about who made these much larger hoof prints: that javelina family of four which seems to have moved into the immediate neighborhood.

But then I didn't need hoof prints to tell me javelina have been around. For your information, the Internet is loaded with pictures and references on animal scat. Even better, you can buy your own replicas for the coffee table at under $10 a pop here.

Note Two Days Later: As the snow has melted (not entirely), it turns out that the set of tracks #1 at the top of this post did not appear out of nowhere, but came from under the car. Now I'm thinking that maybe it was one of the local chipmunks after all.

Two Bonus Inches: Better Than Nothing

As a matter of fact, I was rather amazed to find the pots topped with a bit of snow this morning. The storm that had been hyped happened yesterday, when we also got two inches, but by bedtime, all that snow was gone. Today, after a night of light snow that added up to a seond two inches, the temperature hovered around the freezing point and the snow lasted a little longer.

A snow-whitened roof made a nice backdrop for the small pines across the way...

...and always looks picturesque on the juniper
.
The Max cat couldn't be persuaded that the weather was not fit for GrannyJ nor cat. He just had to get outdoors. Cats have their rights, after all. He didn't last very long; he's a reasonably intelligent cat.

He did leave a couple of neat paw prints in the snow.

Quite as cool: the first car prints coming round the bend. I'm rather amazed at how the camera renders the white snow in so many different colors!

And then there was the assortment of trails made by one of the next door dogs, his master, and a pick-up truck.

We had some melt; it always begins with the rocks, which hold heat.

The snow is always lighter in the shadow of a big tree; the bare spot above appeared early.

And so we got a wee share of the big storm that is now barrelling for the Plains and the Midwest, where they will be hard hit again. I do wish that Prescott had received a few more inches of that moisture!

Three Weird Critters

Partridge Creek is a major water course west of Ash Fork running south into the Big Chino. It was one of my late husband's favorite haunts for petroglyph photography. The creek cuts a winding course through sandstone and basalt, both favored materials for ancient rock art. I've got too many slides to count from our days of exploring the Yavapai outback-- most still unscanned. However, at one of the sites along this creek are three critters that fascinate me -- and I discovered that slides of them had been scanned.

This particular location is a small basalt cliff at a bend in the water course where temporary pools collect in wetter years. It appears to have been a favorite site for pecking rock art for centuries to judge from the varied styles that we found, some of them old enough to have been totally covered by desert varnish.

These Partridge Creek petroglyphs are typical of what we found at many sites in the greater Prescott area.

However, this guy really caught our attention. He's definitely larger than the usual critters one finds. And look at the eyes! I do suspect that someone other than the original artist carefully gouged the eyes deeper to make them pop. No idea of what sort of beast this might represent, if indeed it is representational.

Those eyes again! Yes, he is hanging upside down. And he's big -- about 3 feet from eyeball to tip of tail. Note the long fingers and impressively long tail.

This smaller creature is pecked into the wall a foot or so down from the upside-down fellow above. I'd consider him a possible frog image if there were no tail; the tail is also a tad too long for a horned lizard.

There you have it -- three of my favorite petroglyphs. Ever since I first saw them, I've had this urge to install bright red LEDs in those empty eye sockets. Maybe one of these days when I master PhotoShop....

Sunflower Update

When last we looked at the state of the front porch sunflower, it was Dec. 25 -- Christmas Day. The seedhead somehow looked warmer and more inviting than it did on Jan. 19 (below.) No doubt the angle of the sun. However, the seeds continue to disappear. And I hear periodic shouts from the jays, my main customers. A friend has suggested that a container of water put out daily to avoid freezing wins more bird friends than food this dry winter.

Just for the helluv it I also tried my new, exciting ability to do extreme close-ups.Here's how they render the empty holes (below)...


...and the tightly packed seeds.

Note: in case I've got outlanders worrying about our lack of moisture, this is to let you know we had maybe two big inches of snow all day.

Sycamores in Winter

Ariaona sycamores may well be the most beautiful trees in the state. Their press, though, doesn't compare to, say, cottonwood/willows or aspens or any evergreen. On the other hand, they were well appreciated by earlier Prescott residents and city fathers. Take a look around the Sharlot Hall Museum grounds or Mt. Vernon Street or Park Avenue to see some of the city's wonderful, huge old sycamores. Here's an example, along the street in front of Lincoln School (above.)

Did you notice that the trees still retain some of their rust-colored leaves? That's one distinguishing feature of sycamores in winter. I noticed another on a recent walk -- there were some very white splotches on the trunks, visible roots (above), and limbs (below.)

I suppose that there must have been a lot of peeling bark recently, to produce those white patches. (But I didn't see any bark on the ground -- wonder where it went and when...)

Another distinguishing feature of the winter sycamore: plenty of pom-pom seed balls that resemble Christmas tree ornaments.

Apparently the Lincoln School sycamores have a history. The plaque above is modest in size and easy to miss. However, it suggests a civic battle between the road builders, with visions of widening a major thoroughfare, and neighborhood preservationists, led by one Herschel Linsky. (No, The Google has never heard of Mr. Linsky. I enquired.)

The trees stretch from the south end of the school ground along Park Avenue...

...north to the Beach Street intersection, where the buses load and unload school kids.

This view, looking north, shows how one group of trees was rescued by creating a special lane for what my daughter calls the "Mommy brigade" of cars waiting for children every afternoon. Note the resulting jog in Park Avenue at this point. By the way, I believe that Coronado Street used to go through what is now the middle of the school yard. So: yes, changes are made -- but once in a while, a few handsome trees are saved from the planners' zeal.

Welcome, visitors from the Festival of the Trees. We have some wonderful trees here in the mountains of Arizona; I've written about several of the different kinds at one time and another. For a look, just click on the label "trees" below.

Valentines Yet?

The house of many lights over on Park Avenue is already ready for the next holiday: St. Valentine's. As you may (or may not) recall, the owners celebrate many holidays -- and frankly all this warm red is quite welcome in the midst of the current cold wave. I suspect that the strings of lights that outline the house and fences serve more than one holiday. The red Valentine's lights plus the green St. Pat's lights certainly add up to Christmas colors, for example.

Here are some past displays I've photographed: July 4th Independence Day (plus St. Pat's) ... Halloween. I will try to catch more night pictures as the year's holidays roll across the calendar.

In the past ten or so years, Valentine's Day has caught on in such major non-European cultures as Japan and India. The Japanese celebrate St. Valentine's day in a rather unique fashion. Women give the men gifts of chocolate as well as other gifts. These gifts of chocolate are divided into two types: giri choco (obligatory chocolate) and honmei choco (chocolate for the man the woman is serious about). Giri choco is given by women to their superiors at work as well as to other male co-workers. It is not unusual for a woman to buy 20 to 30 boxes of this type of chocolate for distribution around the office as well as to men that she has regular contact with. But, according to this site, there's a Japanese twist to the celebration -- one month later to the day, Japanese men are expected to give chocolates to the women who previously gifted them.

The Indian version of Valentines Day -- not always pleasant -- is detailed in this article, while thumbnails of other international variations can be found here.

Another Indoor Day: Too Cold for the Cat

But first, a confession. I realize that I am a lousy monkey. A lousy cat. My curiosity gene is crippled. I am an abject acceptor of the status quo. Did I think to go exploring and take a look at the "Applications" list when I first tried out my candy-color loaner Mac? No, indeed. I saw the display of program icons at the bottom of the screen and whined about missing my PhotoShop (among other programs.) Today, I finally did look inside -- and, guess what, yes indeed, there was PhotoShop, along with Word and many other apps. The full drill.

I suppose that if I hadn't been stuck inside because of the cold out there, I wouldn't have bothered to look inside the computer. Yes, it was another cold day in Prescott, hovering around the freezing point though the sun was bright. Even Max Cat thinks twice before he actually goes out the door in this weather. But his memory is very short term. After a period of window watching...

...it's time to plead with me to open the front door. Again. Out he goes. It's cold. He's back at the door, squeaking in his funny little voice to be let back in where it's warm. Sort of.

So the cat is indoors most of the day. When I visit the bathroom, he trots along because any beast with half a brain knows that water fresh from the faucet is better for a cat than stale old water in a dish. Better even than water from my glass.

And he opens the kitchen cabinet doors. Max can't stand closed doors. Once he discovers that a large oblong in a wall is a door that can be opened, he will sit by it, waiting patiently for a people door-opener to do his/her duty for the Cat.

Another excellent indoor activity for a confined cat: leaning on the keyboard while I try to do a little research. Note the papers (left) that he has completely covered with Max.

Did I mention the cat's hang-up on waste baskets? What he really wants to do is curl up inside; in the process of getting there, he spills the dang thing.

Tho I can't blame him for this mess I found on the front porch this afternoon. I had put the black garbage bag outdoors, planning to take it downstairs to the city receptacles. An hour later, I found this. Who? Probably the family of javelinas that's been hanging out in the neighborhood -- two adults and two little guys.