Not open for business on Gurley

OK, it makes sense -- somebody is finally living in one of those second floor spaces that downtown is full of. For a long time, this door appeared to be of little use. Perhaps the talk about $million condos or lofts for city living prompted other landlords to reconsider their empty upstairs quarters.

So, that's one non-business door taken care of. Now here's another, right next the ATM of the bank on the corner of Gurley and Cortez. The bank has big elegant, polished brass doors for customers. I wonder where this door leads.

Strangest of all is the red door next to the Lone Spur. It does not appear to be related to either of the businesses that abut. Does it get used? If so, I repeat -- where does it lead. There's something very strange about mysterious, unidentified doors on major business streets.

The roots of Prescott

Though I cursed whoever was to blame for cutting down this beautiful old sycamore at the corner of McCormick and Gurley, I understand the reason. Take a look at the bit of sidewalk to the right and note the crack; just the sort of sight to give the city's attorney visions of lawsuits.

The fact is that the Arizona sycamore may be a lovely streetside tree. BUT. Our native sycamore is given to shallow and surface roots, which play havoc with sidewalks, streets and other manmade constructs. Note how far the roots of this big tree spread; if you look carefully at this Sharlot Hall lawn, you will see barren spots beneath which more roots are growing.

Nor are sycamores the only trees to spread out their roots. The specimen above and below is in the small park at the junction of Gurley and Sheldon.

Here's another tree in the same park with a good supply of surface anchors. I wonder the reason: maybe something to do with our rocky subsurface or the necessity of soaking up every little bit of rainfall that happens?

Even our towering Ponderosa pines grow a shallow root system, plus a deep tap root. You can see the obstacles that a pine must overcome below.

A street cut through our local granite revealed this root about a foot below the surface. It probably belongs to a nearby scrub oak.

For picture purposes, creekside trees are perhaps the most interesting. I thank my dotter for thinking to take these images on the February afternoon we spent out at Lynx Lake.

Is this how the trees just grow naturally -- or are we witness to many years of erosion by seasons of heavy run-off?

Tulip time

If you wander over to Karoliina's Photos from Prescott, you will surely enjoy her series of individual tulip flower pix. I wouldn't try to compete, so here are masses of blossoms from a neighborhood garden. The gardener in question is a youngish male, so when it was suggested that he plant tulips in clumps, he did it guy-style -- he planted groups of 12-15-20 bulbs in a big hole, not the 3 to 5 that is more usual. Maybe more folks should follow his example; the garden is brilliant this early spring.

One spring, while he was away, his electric fence failed and the javelina had not one but several great feasts. However, enough bulbs had been planted that many survived and others were scattered to spread the color.

I confess to a fancy for the little wild tulips as they come from the Mediterranean and Middle East; the flower above is a native of Crete. Of course, just because they're wild and from far away doesn't make these tulips any less appealing to the javelina; I've lost most of mine, not having an electric fence.

No, I am quite aware that this is no tulip but it is blooming at the same time. The stock-model purple iris has naturalized to Prescott so completely that a large garden-sized bed of purple iris in an otherwise empty field can be a clue that long ago a house stood near by. Our little pigs? No, they don't touch the iris. Nor daffodils, which are quite poisonous to man and beast.

Courtyards rock!

If you walk from the downtown library to the downtown post office, you'll pass this lovely little building every time. Moniker? The Courtyard Building. What else?

I've always been entranced by courtyards. How to describe them? Cool. Sensuous. Private. Secure. Up-scale. Ultra suitable for warm climates.

I've long had my own couryard dream. Somehow acquire four out of service railroad box cars, the longer the better. Reefers*, of course -- this is Arizona. Next, you somehow scoogie them into a box of box cars, with an atrium in the center, all on your 10 or 20 acre parcel. At this point, let your imagination do the rest of the architecture.

Dreams aside, if I needed a classy downtown office, here's where I'd locate if at all possible.

Pleasant plantings and a fountain.

Nice heavy Spanish style doors plus plenty of wrought iron window guards, just in case.

No idea how old The Courtyard Building is -- or its history; to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places, a building should be at least 50 years old, meaning I lived in a lot of "historic" places in my younger years. I spent over 30 minutes chasing down various lists of Historic Places in Prescott and Arizona and nowhere did I find a listing for The Courtyard Building. But then the name may have been changed or possibly the building is included in the general listing of the Courthouse Plaza Historic District. What I did discover in consulting The Google is that we have between 525 and 700+ official historic places in Prescott; here's a bobtailed listing of Yavapai County historic places.

*refrigerator car -- well insulated for hot summers, cold winters.

Linkage: A great site if you track pop culture is Carl Zimmer's Science Tattoo Emporium; he features some fantastic body art! Another set of pictures you will enjoy: Touch Wind down in the desert has photographed the first cactus blossoms of the season. And welcome a couple of new Prescott bloggers: Lemegeton and Rick & Debbie's Place.

Findings Found

And all of them priced under $1! In my sewing drawer which I open maybe once or twice a year. Because I happened to be looking for pins, I pulled out these assorted findings. Isn't that an interesting word? No idea where it came from, but it is the term used in the garment trade for those gizmos necessary to finish a piece of clothing.

49 cents max!!! To tell the truth, I'm not sure that I bought these cards individually; I vaguely recall buying a box of sewing Stuff at the annual Lab School rummage sale down at the University of Chicago long, long ago. I suspect that the dime cards predate my adulthood, though the grippers and velcro are post WWII. BTW, the elastic cord (which I threw out) still had a bit of stretch left in it.

Woolworth. Anybody reading this remember the five and dime stores? S.H. Kress, Kresge, Woolworth -- and Ben Franklin stores in small towns. I believe that Kresge morphed into K-Mart, but the others are but hazy memories of cheaper days (and cheaper wages, too). Oh, yes, there was Barbara Hutton, the Poor Little Rich Girl, heiress to one of the dime store fortunes; she was the 40s equivalent to whatsername Hilton, with a lot more style. Married more often, too, as I recall.

This card hid a small needle kit; I included it to show that Lileks is not the only blogger who features commercial art of bygone times. Of course, it reminds me of the time I allowed an acquaintance to waste a good hour of my time practicing his Filter Queen spiel; it was agony for me and horribly demeaning for the guy making the pitch.

Squirrel Link: I've mentioned German red squirrel several times; now Alone on a Limb writes that he has been adopted by an adolescent squirrel.

Next Day Update/Woolworth: OMG -- Woolworth does live on -- not only in the UK, but in Germany, Austria and Cyprus, where one-time subsidiaries maintain a separate existence. Foot Locker is the old Woolworth group in a new guise and in Australia, a totally unrelated Woolworth is the biggest retailer. All this according to Wikipedia.

There it was, lying on the ground...

I see all sorts of odds and ends left behind beside the road or next the sidewalk. While the owner of that bike might have climbed down to the creek bed, which is just out of the picture to the left, I really doubt that he was down there trying to catch crawdads. More likely someone lifted that bike and left it behind when he got where he was going.

I see dead signs of various sorts when I go walking. If on the ground, they're likely to be advertising a candidate or a yard sale; on a telephone pole, lost dogs and cats. This particular sign was more unusual.

One can imagine a variety of reasons that someone might cast aside a book whose cover proclaims it is all about understanding feminine psychology. A break-up, maybe ... or the wrong slant on feminism ...

...or maybe the owner of the book simply lost his glasses.

Now, if I want to scrounge a suitcase, I wouldn't normally go walking down Park Avenue. But there it was the other day.

Complete with a discarded CD. Wonder what that back story is.

I'll end these musings with this pretty plaque that was just lying in a neighbor's yard. Let's hope that it is mounted one of these days in a spot where passers-by can admire it.

A Link & a Note: My SIL finds obscure & curious sites, such as Strange Maps. where you can find out the GNP equivalent between each of the 50 states and a foreign country or that infamous Absolut ad. And, as a former Chicagoan, I must comment on the lion shooting in My Fair Former City. The town is abuzz -- and it should be. The location where the cougar met his end was not the Loop, but it was pretty doggone far into the older city neighborhoods. Apparently people have been reporting sightings for some little time and been pooh-poohed. Sound familiar?

Girls on the bench

If you walk along our streets, one of these days you'll come across this pensive little girl sitting on an elegant old bench. Both look to be out of another, earlier age, plopped down in a shady spot in twenty-first century Prescott.

I would say that the first little girl has a bonnier spot for reading; the recent bronze in the public library's garden has to enjoy her book in the direct glare of the Arizona sun -- a great way to display the sculpture but one helluva way to relax with a book! However, this girl has a great advantage; she is protected by that wonderful life size cougar who always sits up on the brick wall behind her.

Linkages: First to Brittany to view tiny tadpoles still in the egg, but almost ready to emerge thanks to excellent photography by Box Elder. Next, zoom down to Tucson to see the many murals that adorn walls there. While in the south of Arizona, stop by Firefly Forest for a remarkable pair of pictures of yellow warbler males duking it out. And, as ever, enjoy!

Bird amenities

Surely ours isn't the only small city that can support a shop strictly for bird watchers -- or a column in the local paper all about birds. But we do indeed have such a store, Jay's Bird Barn, over by the north Safeway; furthermore, the proprietor, Eric Moore, writes a weekly article for the Courier. But I shouldn't be surprised. I've been collecting pictures of bird feeders and bird houses and bird baths all over the area. There are ever so many. In fact, a US Fish & Wildlife Service survey revealed that over 50 million Americans spend some time watching wild birds. No reason that Prescottonians should be any different.

Many people buy bird houses for their yards; some even build them, tho I've never before seen such an extravaganza as this homemade residence on sale at Batterman's. I wonder if a bird ever alighted on the structure; my suspicion is that the architect probably kept thinking of new improvements to add and just never got around to mounting it. Besides, I doubt if any birds would bother to unhook those latches.

On the other hand, here are a couple of handmade homes situated high enough that they just might entice a small bird couple.

This bird abode was too far away for me to decide whether it was homemade or store-bought. Also I'm not sure whether it is really suitable for live-in birds or is merely yard decor, like far too many of the houses that I've seen.

Most often, the cute would-be nests are located within arm's reach; if I were a self-respecting bird, I'd stick to the trees for safety's sake.

I wonder if the apartment building above has ever had tenants. The unit below may have -- it was very high up on a pole.

Again, I suspect that some feeders are decorative rather than utilitarian.

But, again, locate the house (above) or feeder (below) high enough and customers should show up. Note that there are ropes so that the little nesting box may be cleaned out periodically. As for the feeder below, I walk under it every so often; it's so high up that a ladder is in order.

Some straight-forward feeding stations (above, below).

Of course, in our dry climate, water is a necessity for the birds, tho I don't see nearly as many bird baths. Probably because it's a lot more work to keep them filled -- and clean.

Then there is the cat problem....

Linkage: There's this big picture of me over at Pictures and More plus a song about Never Been to Prescott; what can I say, Steve, except thank you!