Life in a House

I killed my first scorpion the other night.  It was in the kitchen.  It’s not uncommon around here to find them in the house.  The one I killed was little, they have the worst sting.  Fortunately the hammer was in the kitchen and I picked it up, preparing to swing away at it.  Jim reminded me he was on a tile floor and to please dial back the force.  Now we have the rubber mallet on standby for future killings.

Our neighbors have suffered the loss of two gigantic agave plants.  They were just huge.

They were collapsed like this when we returned to Tucson.  At first we though it was lack of water, but one out of the three was fine.  Turns out they were done in by the agave snout weevil.  It’s an evil bug that attacks old or sick agaves and lays their eggs in the center.  Then the eggs hatch and proceed to eat the core of the plant.  This is really a problem for people raising agave for tequila.  It took no effort to tip the center of the plant over, it had been hollowed out.

Here is a picture of the bougainvillea.  Every time I use that word I have to look it up.  Do you think I could learn out to spell that?

A cloudy day gave us a stupendous sunset.  We did not see so many from the RV park. 

This guy flew in this morning and perched on the wall for a bit.  Then he flew off, looking for lunch.  I wish he would eat the Gila woodpecker who spends much of the day screaming like a crazy thing.  He’s very annoying.

Well, it’s time to go out and prune the lemon tree.  It’s developed an odd growth pattern that I would like to discourage.  The deer have pruned the orange trees for us, so they don’t need any attention.