Christmas in New England

T and I spent Christmas in Massachusetts and Mother Nature made sure that we wouldn't forget what winters are "supposed" to be like...we were hit with two separate snow storms totaling around 30 inches and we made sure to do a little bit of shoveling too!

Our New Car

T and I bought a new car!  Check out the pic of our 2008 Ford Explorer.  We love it and are so happy to have more than one car again!

Christmas Tree Chopping 2008

Last Sunday, T and I went out with my family (Mom, Dad, Bro, Bro's gf) to get our Christmas tree.  In AZ, you can buy a beautiful tree from Oregon or Washington on pretty much any corner.  You can also buy a $15 permit to go out into the Northern AZ forest to cut down your own (clearly, we opted for the latter or this post would be a little less interesting).

We started out at my parents' place in Payson (less than 2 hours from the Valley and about 5000 feet in elevation) and headed further North to the Mogollon Rim (pronounced "mug-ee-on").  Along with our tags, the Forest Service (USFS) provided maps to the cutting areas that we registered and descriptions of the species in the area.

  

Our first stop was about 2 miles into the cutting area where the forest was filled with Ponderosa Pine.  We hiked off from the road with our handsaws, chainsaw, and lopper.  After about 20 minutes of walking, we found a perfect Christmas tree ponderosa.  

We carried the tree back to the car (very heavy since it's still filled with water) and kept on driving north.

We pulled over a second time to the side of the road where we saw more spruce and firs (we estimated that we were around 7,500 feet in elevation).  The Fam hiked down a raveen where there was a lot more snow still on the ground and where we found our other two trees!  Bro's is a Blue Spruce and ours is a Douglas Fir.

Back to Boston

Tomorrow, T and I are heading back to Boston for a week (mainly for work).  I checked the weather in Boston and it's supposed to be in the upper-40's / low-50's and rain.  Bleh.  Have I been back in Phoenix long enough to be totally spoiled by the weather??  I found out today that it hasn't rained in Phoenix since August 31st!  That's nice (even though my lawn could probably use a healthy dose of rain water right about now!).  Will post more when we're back from our trip!

Overseeding 101

On Sunday, T and I overseeded our lawn (no need to do anything with the backyard since we don't have any grass back there...yet!).  Again, I think it's necessary for another brief tutorial/info session for the non-Phoenicians (as well as those Phoenicians without yards!).  Many people with yards in AZ put in two different lawns for the drastically different seasons.  This is also what all the golf courses in the Valley do and how they keep the greens/fairways so green and beautiful year-round.  Hearty bermuda grass is always on the lawn (it just goes dormant during the winter) and can be left as is throughout the winter (usually turns slightly brown though).  But if you so choose (as we did), rye grass can be put in over the bermuda to last through early Spring.  Rye grass has soft, long blades with a deep green color.  Rye can be put down after the risk of 100+ degree days are mostly past, but before it gets too cold (risk of early frost).  The ideal timing for this weather is during the first 2 weeks of October -- clearly, we're running a little bit behind, but we're still ok.

The first step in the process is to mow the bermuda down to almost nothing.  T is the mower in the family, so I followed him with the second step (and arguably the worst step in the whole thing): thatching.  

This is the act of raking up the loose grass with a heavy metal rake while aerating the dirt a bit.  We especially had trouble thatching the areas of our lawn that have hardened stucco/concrete on it -- it appears that when work was done on the house, before we owned it, the stucco and concrete was disposed of in the front yard!  I may not have looked like the most serious landscaper because as T will tell you, "C is the only person I know who does lawn work in flip-flops."  What can I say?  It was hot and I left my nasty sneaks in MA.  But I have to note that I was wearing my "Just Married" flips, so I think it was very apra poe.

After thatching, rye seed is laid using a spreader (borrowed from my dad).  Then mulch/fertilizer is spread over the most bare spots (at a minimum).  The final step is to water.  This is more difficult for us since we don't have our flood irrigation activated yet, nor do we have sprinklers, so we have to water the lawn with the hose.  Stay tuned to see if we actually get any new blades...

Our Citrus Grove

T and I planted a 5-year old naval orange tree in our front yard earlier this week (a wonderful housewarming gift from my parents)!  It now joins our 80+ year old grapefruit tree in the yard.  To reflect what an additionally significant event this is for us, I think this post also deserves a quick, historical background to the city of Phoenix and our neighborhood...

The economy in early Phoenix was mostly agriculturally-based -- dependent on citrus and cotton farming.  As the city developed, the economy changed to rely less on these agricultural industries.  More than 60 years ago, our neighborhood was the site of a huge citrus orchard.  When it was sold to developers, they removed most, but not all of the trees in order to build the houses.  These remaining trees are still found throughout our neighborhood including the beautiful grapefruit tree in our front yard.  Since citrus trees do have a limited life span, we thought we'd do our part to continue planting citrus (as most of our neighbors have also done) -- not to mention the shade and aesthetics it will provide to the front of our house.

Now, we won't get any oranges this season (the transplant is too much of a shock for the tree), but we should get fruit by next season!  Here (above and below) are a couple of pics of our new, little friend!

Dunks in AZ

So, as many of you know, T and I are totally and completely addicted to coffee, specifically, Dunkin' Donuts coffee.  In New England, a Dunks can pretty much be found on any corner, literally.  The people who worked in the Dunks by our former home in Medford knew us by name (and of course knew our orders by heart) -- they would even get concerned when they hadn't seen us in a few days (often during a feeble attempt to save money and make coffee at home or work).  We were spoiled rotten by having a Dunks on every corner in New England.

T and I were ecstatic to learn a year ago that the Dunkin Donuts corporation was planning a massive expansion in the Phoenix market.  The Phoenix area would go from having about 12 stores in the Valley to 1,200 (ok, ok, I'm exaggerating, but a girl can dream, right?!)!  There is a Dunks that is currently under construction/renovation less than 2 miles from our Phoenix home.  We plan on being some of the first in line on the day it opens.  No joke.  

This brings me to one of our latest adventures...on an afternoon drive to go shopping in

 Scottsdale, T came up with the brilliant idea to search our GPS to find the nearest Dunks to our location.  We drove 10, yes 10, miles out of our way to find that Dunks and enjoy a tasty doughnut and two glorious iced coffees!!  It was totally worth the detour!