Rants, Recipes, and Running

If there's one thing I've learned since we moved to the Sonoran Desert, it's that you can garden and eat things from the ground. It just takes some serious labor and love. I cannot just plant tomatoes, water them every other day, and expect fruit. That's just silly and naïve . One must do extensive research! In  fact, I am currently starting my seeds for next years garden. As it takes much love and transitioning to get them ready for Arizona's awful, relentless heat! One thing we've really embraced this year - is making use out of our cacti. We have a beautiful prickly pear cactus in the corner of our yard that bears wonderful fruit! What does prickly pear look like again?   There are 2 distinct parts to the prickly pear. The green paddles (nopales) and the purple prickly pears.   Harvesting these isn't always fun. You will get hairs and thorns impaled into your skin. Unless you were smart and perhaps wore gloves?   The nopales pa...

Ryan and I have been living completely opposite lives lately. But I was able to finagle my work schedule around to get Saturday free, so we could have a day together. And it was worth all the finagling! We took a day trip to Saguaro Lake Ranch to do a kayaking trip on the Salt River. We had 13 miles to kayak, and the river gets very full of tubers during the summer. So we wanted to get an early start. We were on the road by 5:15 am, and on the river by 7:30! This trip made Ryan & I seriously consider buying kayaks. We had so much fun! I'm going to let the pictures do the talking.... We saw a variety of landscapes along the way. We started @ Saguaro Lake Ranch - which historically was the ranch that housed the workers who made the dams on the Salt River to create the various lakes near Phoenix. They provided the kayaks, and picked you up when you finished to bring you back to your vehicle.   Here I am getting the feel for my kaya...