1295 Raindagger Drive
Prescott AZ 86301
Dear Family and Friends,
This letter follows the pattern I’ve used before. I’ve embedded various photos in the text, so
you will be able to better understand what I’m describing. I have added
headings to the letter below, so you can skip the parts you are not interested
in (or flip through the photos). It’s
been a quiet year, so the letter is shorter than usual. I’m sorry that I’m sending this so close to
Christmas – the main reason for my tardiness is explained under LOCAL NEWSPAPER
at the end.
NEW HOUSE
Our house is no longer so new as we’ve lived here now for almost two
years. However, it still seems new to
us, especially for me when I can’t find something. I know exactly where it was at the old house,
but where is it now? Did I throw it
away, or is it still in one of those boxes that I have yet to unpack? Anyway, we really do like our new house with
its wonderful views, no stairs and a smaller number of rooms to keep clean
(that’s mostly for Donna).
The first photo shows our entrance way, decked out a little for Christmas, with the wreath above and the three small Christmas trees to the right of the door. There are no strings of lights – the roof line at the front of the house is too high to safely reach and also my lack of time has precluded me from doing much.
We had some more bushes planted in the front of our house in June, so it’s not looking so new. We chose bushes that need little maintenance – I only wanted to do minimal cutting and trimming. I did do the irrigation piping myself to these bushes, which involved temporarily moving the weed cloth and gravel. Not having a lawn is great – no lawn mower or weeds to worry about!
The photo on the right was a friendly guest that
visited us in June – a harmless gopher snake about 3 foot long, against our
front wall. His head on the left was
moving, so out of focus. We also
occasionally see coyotes and deer from our windows, but many fewer than at our
old house. Coveys of quail are common
and sometimes at night we hear the gentle hoot of two owls, perched on our roof
while hunting.
Round the back of the house I store all my firewood (see photo) – just oak and juniper, both of which burn well. The oak I got last year from the forest
behind the house of a hiking friend. I
was also able to find a large alligator juniper not far from our house that had
been killed by a small wildfire years ago.
(It’s called an alligator juniper because its bark looks like an
alligator’s skin). We now have more than
enough wood to last this winter and next!
The nights are getting cooler in December, some below freezing – we have
had a number of fires already.
The weather in Prescott might be considered boring by some, mainly clear blue
skies with little rain. This autumn, the
temperatures have been above average, with no rain for over four months, so of
course no snow. In 2016, we had over 12“
on Christmas day, as the black and white photo
on our deck (veranda) shows.
NIGEL & DONNA
We are not getting any younger, so health becomes more important. I am very fortunate that I have no
significant problems at age 75. I was
diagnosed with sleep apnea a few years ago but that is under control, so only a
minor inconvenience at night. I can do
pretty much all the things I like to do, or need to do for the house, but I
have less stamina and do things more slowly.
I continue to volunteer every Tuesday doing maps at the County. Often these
maps are for the annual Hiking Spree, organized by a local nature center. We select twelve different trails each autumn
and I pretty much choose them on my own now. Last year I mentioned the popular booklet I wrote on the Circle Trail. It includes detailed maps plus descriptive text for each of the 11 trail segments (points of interest and history). The
trail is about 55 miles long and goes all around Prescott, in the woods and by
various lakes. Since finishing this
booklet in a commercial format back in 2015, I have sold almost 2000 copies and
they are still selling. I update it each
time a significant change is made to the trail.
Donna’s multiple myeloma, diagnosed in 2013, has been essentially dormant
since then, thankfully, but her health has started to cause some concerns in
the last month – she is working with her doctors to better understand what’s
going on, and why. She’s still very
involved with her church on various activities.
Her main hobby now is handcrafting cards (birthdays, anniversary, etc.),
which she does with a few lady friends.
Every couple of months they give classes to other ladies who want to
learn new techniques. The
osteo-arthritis in her joints is bad but that doesn’t stop her from doing the things
she wants to do. She also plays Mah
Jongg with a different group of friends every week.
CHILDREN &
GRANDCHILDERN
Recently, Stephen stopped working as a mechanic at local bikes shops but
still enjoys the challenge of mountain biking – see more under Local Newspaper
at the end of this letter. Many years ago, Stephen worked for
a builder named Lazok, who has been very successful in his career. Stephen met up with him again recently through
a mountain biking friend, and is now working for him at a much improved wage –
a bike mechanic is poorly paid. He is
still unmarried but enjoys spending time with his girlfriend, Peg, who we all
like (not that our opinion matters).
Becky is doing fine too, as are our
grandchildren Abby (14½) and Andrew (12½). Abby started at high school this year and has
good grades – actually she’s a member of the National Honors Society with an
invitation to attend a meeting with a consortium of various large universities
even though that’s four years in the future.
She also enjoys sports and her friends. The same is true of Andrew but
he doesn’t try as hard as he could with subjects that don’t interest him. Becky travels a lot with her job, working for
one of the top gun lawyers in the US.
It’s not a large company (about a dozen employees) but she is now the
Chief Operating Officer (COO). She was
in New Zealand a few weeks ago for a conference, and was able to extend her
time there for some pleasure. Her boy
friend Rick is the leader of an organization that writes gun laws and contracts
– he was at the conference too. He has
taught her fly-fishing, something she had never done before but now really
enjoys.
TRIPS
We drove up to Moses Lake in
Washington State in October to visit Michael & Liz and the boys. We decided to take our trailer (caravan) for
a number of reasons. Our cat, Lucy, is
now 16 so leaving her alone wouldn’t have been good. (Sadly, our other cat Molly died earlier this
year). We spent three days with Michael
and three days with Liz, parked on their respective driveways. That sleeping arrangement didn’t disrupt the
two households and gave us a chance to relax on our own in the evenings. Michael has been living with his girlfriend
Kelli in a rental house for a couple of years.
She is good for him and they help each other. She has a daughter a year older than Thomas,
plus there’s a dog and two cats. It can
be pandemonium at times, but everyone gets on well together.
I also stopped in Moses Lake back
in April when I drove to Castlegar in British Columbia to visit my sister
Stella – it was only a few miles out of the way. I drove there on my own – about 1500 miles each
way. I did the journey in 2½ days – my
average driving speed not including stops was 70mph – open roads in Nevada and
otherwise on interstates (motorways).
Stella had smoked all of her life and was dying of lung cancer. It was a good visit – her three children were
there too. The photo shows April and Galiena but without Julian. I hadn’t seen Stella for a
couple of years – and we all knew this would be the last time. She died in August – it was a blessing as she
was in lots of pain and was ready to go.
In mid-December I took a two-day trip to Marble Canyon, which is the
beginning of the Grand Canyon. This was
organized by Rick, who is part of my hiking group. The plan was to drive the 200 miles there on
one day, and hike down a small canyon, called Soap Creek, to the Colorado River
the next morning. I had learned about
Soap Creek many years ago but had never had an opportunity to do it. The trip entailed me sleeping out in my tent
overnight, with Rick sleeping in his car.
I knew it was going to be cold, so I was prepared with a good sleeping
bag, an old eiderdown, a blanket and lots of warm clothes (including a woolen
hat and a scarf). That night, the
temperature dropped to about 20ºF (-10ºC), which was OK – I managed to keep
warm. The worst part was getting up in
the middle of the night to pee outside, and the limited space inside the
tent. Now that I’m 75, my limbs are much
less flexible. I’ve decided that I won’t
be tent camping again.
The hike inside the winding canyon was scenic, dropping down layer by layer
through the limestone until the walls on each side were over 100 foot high. At one point, the need to clamber over scores
of huge rough boulders deposited by a massive rock fall (see photo on right) made it quite a challenge – that required more strength
and flexibility than I really had.
Fortunately my two friends were very patient and helpful but I knew I
was slowing them down, and reaching the river would take too long.
After a couple of hours and only 2 miles from
the start, I told them to go ahead without me.
If you look carefully, the photo on the left shows tiny two figures in the middle – this gives
you some idea of the scale of the canyon.
Even at their faster speed, it took them over three hours to return to
where I was anxiously waiting. The return hike back to the trailhead went better – there is no trail down most of the canyon,
just cairns now and again left by previous hikers where the route isn’t obvious. Sometimes there were cairns on both sides of the
canyon at the same point, so the cairns were not much help.
That hike was my second learning lesson on the trip – at my age I need to stick to
less challenging hikes.
LOCAL NEWSPAPER
Our local newspaper here in Prescott is the Daily Courier – it’s a small
newspaper as the combined population in the Prescott area is only about 100,000
people. Stephen started writing a
biweekly column for the sports section back in June, called Switchback and
about mountain biking. Prescott has
become a very popular place for mountain bikers, both locally and from much
farther afield – because of the large number of trails and the variety of
scenery. Some are in the forest while some
in open areas passing by various lakes; some are straight and easy while others
are steep, winding and quite technical. His
column was well received by mountain bikers but one column especially was of interest
to other readers – about his close encounter with a mountain lion. Rather than me paraphrase his article, you
can read his own words in the PDF at the end of this letter. He wrote another article related to the Prescott
Circle Trail (mentioned above). A couple
of months ago, he decided that riding around this 55-mile long trail twice in
one day was too easy, so he went for a “triple”. That’s around 170 miles, all on winding dirt
trails, mainly through the woods with lots of ups and downs. Adding all of the climbs together, that was a total of about 18,000 feet
of climbing! He started at 2am in the
morning (he wears a powerful light on his helmet) and finished at 8pm in the
evening – probably a record that will stand for a while.
In August, I also started writing a biweekly column for the Courier – the editor had no idea we were related. Mine was called “Amazing Places” and was in the main section. I have done lots of exploring in this area since we moved here 20 years ago – some hiking, some mountain biking and some driving my 4WD Toyota Landcruiser (it now has done about 210,000 miles and still runs very well). Before I talked to the editor, I had compiled a list of about 40 places in the area that I thought were “Amazing” and that would be unknown to most of the readers. I have now expanded that list to over 50 places. The photos below are of a few of the ten Amazing Places published so far. The history of most of these places is under 150 years old – Prescott wasn’t founded until 1864 – so all quite recent by European standards. However, that makes them more digestible because it’s easier to understand how and why they were built.
I won’t go into any details because
that’s only of interest to locals who could visit these places themselves. If you really want to read any of my articles,
or Stephen’s articles, you can go online to dcourier.com and enter either “Nigel Reynolds” or “Steve Reynolds” in the
search bar at top right of the home page.
Then scroll down to see a list of our articles.
The charcoal kiln (photo on the right) dates back to the 1880s when charcoal was an important
fuel used for many purposes. The kiln
allowed the wood stacked inside it to burn very slowly. The way it was built resulted in a very
strong structure, and it’s still in great condition – no cement to hold it
together. The hole at the top is where
they finished loading the wood for burning.
The lime kiln (photo on the left) is perhaps ten years younger, but starting to fall apart – built from red sandstone not granite like the charcoal kiln. The baulk of timber and the cable at the top was an attempt to hold the structure together but time has taken its toll. The kiln has a double wall and the heat from the fire at the bottom reduced the limestone (from a nearby quarry) that was loaded into the central column. The quicklime produced was used for plaster, cement and concrete.
The log cabin on the right is probably less than a hundred years old. This one had a stove – you can see the pipe
sticking out of the corrugated iron roof. The mud chinking between the logs prevented the wind from blowing through the cracks.
Most log cabins had a fireplace with a chimney, built from the local
stone – that’s the only remnant left after the cabin burns down!
Two of my articles, not yet
published, are actually insects not places. The first insect – actually a swarm of lady bugs (called ladybirds in the UK) can be seen in the photo on a large boulder. These tiny insects swarm together for winter, for warmth and for mating. They die in the Spring but their offspring will return to the same place to hibernate the following year. I've seen these swarms on a number of occasions, always on a high ridge or a summit, sometimes on the branches of a tree instead of on a rock.
The second insect is called a “bagworm”. The photo on the left was a serendipitous find. Rick and I were hiking together in the woods,
using my chain saw to clear some deadfalls from one of the hiking trails for
this year’s Spree. We stopped for a
moment right next to a tall ponderosa pine when Rick saw this “thing” move
slightly – it looked like some pine needles that had somehow got stuck together
and been blown by the wind onto the bark of the tree. I had never seen anything like this before,
probably because the camouflage was so good and the insect not obvious – though
on close examination you can see its head sticking out at the top. Rick decided to take it home in a zip-lock
bag he had, and ask a biologist friend to identify it. He found out it was a bagworm (or moth caterpillar) that builds this silk cocoon around itself, rolling on the ground so twigs and
needles stick to the silk when it’s just formed. At home, Rick said the worm would crawl out
of the cocoon, about 2” long, and then crawl right back into it if
disturbed. The tip of the cocoon is open
at the bottom so the droppings fall out and mating can occur. There are different types of bagworm, at
least regarding the leaves they eat.
They are very voracious and groups of them together can eat enough of
the leaves on a fruit tree to pretty much destroy the tree. They are considered pests in some places and
have to be sprayed with insecticide. The
botanist had never heard of one on pine trees, though Wikipedia does describe
this sub-species.
A Merry Christmas and a Happy New
Year,
love Nigel & Donna
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Prescott Daily
Courier newspaper. July 20, 2017 – Switchback by Steve Reynolds
The great thing
about mountain biking is the adventure. You never know what you might find
around the next curve or bend and the fitter you get… the more twists and turns
you can cover on each ride.
The other day I
decided to connect town to Spruce Mountain using a mix of trails and dirt
roads. Some sections highly used and others almost forgotten. Eventually I made
my way to the top of Smith Ravine, which is an amazing route down the east
slope of Spruce. It’s fairly remote and often empty.
As I headed down
at dusk I started to get into the groove. It’s rocky at times with old rubber
water bars adding to the confusion. Most of this trail's design would not pass
modern acceptable standards for sustainability, but this gives it character and
creates a deeper challenge. I often see all sorts of wildlife and I began to
hope I might see some deer, javelina or even turkeys that I had come across
here before.
Towards the last
third, the National Forest has applied fire mitigation strategies which basically means the
densely forested route suddenly looks like the surface of the moon. When this
first happened I understood the reason but was upset at the devastation. But
now I actually enjoy breaking from the tree line as the unobstructed views
offered are very impressive. I decided to stop, sit on a nice log, take a
couple pics and enjoy the moment.
Sitting there
involved in my phone and the world around me I noticed movement out of the
corner of my eye. Didn’t give it much attention and assumed the dog approaching
was friendly and their owner would be along soon. Once it was about three feet
away, I looked up to say hello and maybe give it a pet.
Suddenly I
realized this animal was not a dog at all … but actually a full grown mountain
lion!!
I jumped to my
feet and shouted purely from instinct and surprise. The cat quickly dug into
the trail and spun around. I could feel the dirt from its explosive action
bounce off my shoes. It walked back about thirty feet and stopped, stood and
looked at me. Its posture was not aggressive. No teeth and tail calmly swaying.
I immediately tried to recall all the things I was supposed to do in an
encounter like this, but my mind was empty. I wasn’t scared necessarily, but to
say the big cat had nothing but my full attention would be an understatement.
Despite the
potential for things to go very wrong I was struck by the beauty of the animal.
The strength, color of its coat and confident stance. So quiet and still yet so
powerful and intimidating. Moments later it began to walk down the hill. I was
pretty sure I knew cats like to chase, so even though I didn’t want to lose
sight of it, I also didn’t want it to watch me ride off. As it disappeared into
the brush I got back on my bike and rolled in the other direction very slowly,
looking back every second I could. Several yards away I let it rip and flew
down the last section of trail to Walker Road.
Once across the
pavement the encounter began to really sink in. I have always wanted to see a
mountain lion but assumed it would be from a distance. Perhaps a brief
silhouette on a ridgeline or flash of tail as it ran away. But to be only a
yard from one was intense and deeply moving. Makes me love and appreciate the
woods that much more.
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