June 21st to 28th On Our New Adventure

It was sad to leave our home in Alpine, AZ but we're both excited about the future, new adventures and city living again! We were blessed with beautiful weather those last days. We got to stay at our friends Hotel for a few days to fully enjoy the outdoors and other friends came up to visit.

We had some rain storms brew over our last few days in Alpine. Nice cool weather!

Sam Mid Bark - you are NOT leaving without me!

A herd of Elk our last day - in the meadow behind our house. What a nice goodbye.

Storminess at Luna Lake. I will miss those summer Monsoon Storms.

Kevin, Gia and Mark. What a delicious feast of fresh caught trout and roasted veggies! It was so nice to spend time with them and do some rockhounding over our last days.

Miss Gia hamming it up on our hike behind Luna lake.

This rainbow was MUCH prettier in Person over the Sportsmans' Lodge in Alpine.

Beautiful clouds over Nutrioso as we headed down the hill. Crazy mountain weather on the drive down to Phoenix. Drove through rain, dust and hail at all the different elevations - starting at 8050' to 1500'.

Just outside of Globe, AZ - we though IT was hot - ha ha - Phoenix is a LOT hotter!

Changes and New Adventures

I haven't been posting much these last two months. All of May and June have been about organizing and packing. As of today our workshop is officially packed up and moved until after our summer shows when we re-open. Strange to be "camping out" in an empty house!

We both loved Alpine so much but there is no opportunity here for young folks like us that are still interested in working. It's a great place to vacation and most of the retired residents are only here from May to September. They have it figured out! Here for the beautiful weather and gone during the severe winters.

Albuquerque is calling us and we hope to have our place lined up in July so after the show travels we can be up and running ASAP. A city with action, culture, an Art Community, hiking, great food...can't wait - can you tell? As soon as we land I'll be in touch .

Hope you have a great summer!

Spring Is In The Air - Alpine, AZ

Spring has finally made it to Alpine, AZ. Crows are shredding bark off the cedar in our woodpile for nesting material. The Blue Birds are back - had to clean out their nest box this morning. Amorous Squirrels are chasing each other up and down the trees. Even Sam is in love! Our neighbor's dog Sasha comes to see him a few times a day now. The first visit of the morning there is a hearty wag "Good Morning" then they just hang out together on the back stoop for hours. (We are starting the search for a female companion for our little guy. He's lonely!)

Most of the snow is gone now except for the shady spots. The pile behind our house - which was originally 10' high (from clearing off the roof during this snowy winter)is now down to 5'. Sometime in May that will be gone too! The elk babies should be around soon and the brown forest will start to green up. My favorite time of the year!

Alpine, AZ January 2010 Blizzard - What An Experience!

Constant shoveling. Our truck is about 7-8'. You can see how high the snow is where we shoveled it. Over the week we had about 6 feet or more of snow fall. I'm interested to find out exactly what we had when I get home!!

We've had quite the week in Alpine, AZ! The waves of storms from the Pacific started dropping snow last Monday with the worst Thursday and Friday. We lost our power 9pm Thursday night and it wasn't restored until 11pm last night. We didn't know when it would be back on so decided to leave yesterday morning - also before any more storms rolled in. We are all so lucky to live in this country. We learned first hand what it's like to live without electricity or water supply. We have a great wood burning stove but it's small and you need to stoke it every 1/2 hour to keep it going. So our pipes or we wouldn't freeze, we had it going 24/7 until we left. I wanted Mark to be in good shoveling shape (since we were doing it every 2 hours to keep our driveway clear to get out to our upcoming show - I helped but he was the real muscle moving tons) so I manned the fire. For three nights I set a kitchen timer for every 30 minutes so I would wake up to stoke it then he'd take over at 4am. Also interesting to get on the schedule of do everything you can while there's daylight - then we only had candlelight. It was a very serious storm and luckily rare. There were some really nice moments of quiet and I did make some killer baked potatoes,beanie weenies and grilled cheese sandwiches on our wood burning stove :) but mostly hard WET work! I'm so glad we were able to get customer's orders in the mail before this immobilized us!

We got plowed the first couple storms but had to wait until the end of Saturday for our road to be cleared. You can see the road - that's over 2 ft there - impassable even with our 4 wheel drive and high clearance. We were truly cut off and on our own - even emergency respose vehicles couldn't get through it.

One of our local birds laughing at us, sitting on the broom we've destroyed by brushing off the truck.

Sam got REALLY tired of it too.

We initially planned on keeping our U-Shaped driveway clear - lofty ambition. We settled for just one side of the driveway. That was enough.

That snow pile from shoveling is OVER Mark's head!

Our road before plowing.

Our home as we left it. Those are actual snow boulders out front from the plowing. Some were the size of a small car.

Driving out our road yesterday. As soon as we got around the corner to connect to the main road which leads to the highway we were driving through 2-3 foot drifts. We were worried we'd even make it to the highway without getting stuck. Too scared, as Mark plowed through it to get pictures. :(

Yay! We made it to the highway - this is our powdered sugar meadow behind our house.

Another meadow picture. Soooo beautiful when you're driving by but unpleasant to be stuck in!

At the Alpine Divide - 8550' - looked like it was going to snow on us again as we were trying to leave.

Pretty cabin on the way out of town near Tal Wi Wi lodge.

FINALLY out of the snow line. In the dessert before getting to Phoenix. Before this went through two more dicey driving conditions - 50m of iced over highway from Springerville to Show Low then about 20m of an only one lane plowed road from Heber to Payson. The plowed snow was piled 12' on each side of the road and pretty scary when tractor trailers were coming at you head on!! (No pictures of that one either - too busy freaking out!)

Right before Phoenix - Four Peaks. The snow is such an amazing site in the dessert.

So here the three of us are - feeling like refugees at Mark's Sister's beautiful home in Phoenix, AZ. It's so wonderful to be warm, be dry, have power, phone, Internet, and get a break before leaving for our show in Indio on Wed. We were going to leave this Wed, spend one night then leave for the show on Thu but this works out so great. We feel like we're at a resort for a couple days!!

The Blizzard of 2010!

We're getting a lot of snow in Alpine right now - possible 3-7 ft more by Saturday morning!! All we can do is ride it out and get ready to leave for our show in Indio, CA 1/29-31. Thank you Mother Nature for hitting us with the storm this week instead of next!

Feeding the birds - yep over my knees in this spot!

Our road yesterday. We DON'T have a road today until the plow truck comes!

The Blizzard

We had our first blizzard of this winter! Wait - it's not even winter yet! :) All day Monday into Tuesday morning - then Mark and I shoveled our driveway for 6 hours. We love living in the mountains.

2009 Capitol Christmas Tree - Alpine, AZ

We are so thrilled and honored that the Capitol Christmas Tree is coming from Alpine, AZ this year. We know that we live in one of the most beautiful places in Arizona and now the whole country will hear about our home!

It's no surprise that the tree was selected from the Apache Sitgreaves Forest - it's the centennial of Aldo Leopold's arrival to our area. The tree is being called "The Aldo Leopold Centennial Tree." Aldo Leopold was a pioneer in the conservation of our natural resources. To find out more information about the Aldo Leopold Centennial, please visit the website: http://www.leopoldcelebration.org/ Apache Sitgreaves Forest Service Headquarters. Home of the Forest Rangers - stewards of our beautiful forest.

We experience all seasons in Alpine, summer is vibrant green due to the almost daily rain showers - which also create beautiful rainbows. At 8050' we are close to the clouds which settle on the mountain tops during the night. If you ever have chance to visit this relatively unknown gem - Alpine, AZ, please spend a couple days. It takes that long to absorb the natural beauty, abundant wildlife and friendliness of all of us that live here. Here's a link to our chamber website for lodging and other information http://www.alpinearizona.com/

We've been excitied about the tree for months. It's been hush hush about the exact location - but through reliable sources the tree is coming from just south of Alpine off Route 191 - between us and Hannigan's Meadow.

We're dissappointed that we'll be out of town at a craft show during the procession. The cutting ceremony is November 7th. For more information on the tree please see the following links. http://tinyurl.com/q8dtcv , http://capitolchristmastree2009.org/ and http://tinyurl.com/ll5bdo

If you'd like to see more images of Alpine please see click on the Alpine subject bar on the left side of our Blog. Hope you enjoy the pictures and the beautiful tree we've gifted our nation!

Steller's Jays In Alpine, AZ

We generally don't feed wildlife - it's not a good practice - but we do help the birds along with seed through the winter. Right now we have two Steller's Jays that are relying on us. I worry about them when we leave town for shows and hope they've stashed enough peanuts in the tree tops for while we're gone. (They do stash them in crooks and needles of the trees and bury them at the base of trees.) Both are injured so we may help them make it through the winter. The one, "Chicken" (she perches like a one) is missing a leg. She's the Momma bird. "Baby Girl" has a bad wing (she's one of Chicken's offspring.) They perch together chirping to each other. I have a scenario in my head - we often have birds of prey in the area - what if baby was getting attacked and Mom stepped in causing them both to have injuries? Who knows. Here's a picture of them perched together. I wish I could capture their personalities here. They are smart, agile and comical birds! Baby Girl In Flight

Hummingbirds

Mark and I needed to recharge so we immersed ourselves in the forest today - starting with watching the hummingbirds this morning. I'm not a great photographer but it was fun trying to catch them during their feeding frenzy. We're going through 16C of food a day now!

Paisley House, Alpine, AZ

We'll be exhibiting our jewelry at Paisley House in Alpine, AZ 9-5 every Saturday in August. Please come see us if you're in the area! Heidi creates some delicious dishes, refreshing smoothies and coffee drinks. http://www.thepaisleyhouse.com/ A beautiful drive, great place to eat and we'll be set up with our locally made creations too! Hope to see you there.

We are setting up outside in our show tent so it's weather permitting. If there's a violent storm on the way we won't be able to set up that weekend - but we WILL be there the next!

Bull Elk in Alpine, AZ

I grabbed these pictures in our neighborhood earlier today. Too bad I didn't have the camera yesterday when there were soooo many more elk. They were a little wary today too - yesterday they were just lounging in the shade. Live and learn - always walk with a camera around the neck!

Someday I'll have a telephoto - these were closeup shots.

Mini Horses

These two mini horses are next to the "Future Home of Black Mountain Jewelry?" Building. So adorable. The little guy has a blue and brown eye. It would be nice to get to know them as neighhhbors (ha ha - couldn't resist!)

Future Home of Black Mountain Jewelry Co. ?

Hard to think of something else when you're struggling along.... This building is up for sale/lease and we're going to talk to the owners next week. Maybe we can rent it for a while then buy in the future. We both feel it would be a perfect location for Black Mountain Jewelry Co. It would be great to travel to work everyday (1.5m down the road) and be a part of the community - and always have a permanent location - cutting back on shows. We'll see what happens - maybe the universe is looking out for us?

Poor property is in disrepair - every time we drive by wish we could tidy it up - inside and building is great though - you never know.

Friends Visiting

Having a great time with visiting friends Gia & Kevin. We've been exploring the great outdoors of Alpine. Other than that been working on new jewelry for all the shows we have coming up. If you are in Greer, AZ this weekend please come and see us at the Greer Days Celebration!!

Visitor On His Way Back East

After our last show - before this current one, our good friend John spent the night on his way back to upstate NY from PHX. We creates beautiful wooden vessels and has a big following back East. We went rockhounding then had a great dinner. His dog Snorky became friends with Sam - they were very polite to each other in Sam's house. :)

A couple days later Sam got sprayed at 4:30am by a skunk!!

Snow

The only thing I don't like about the snow is cleanup. Constantly sweeping the porch and Sammy. :)It sure feels Christmasy here!

Our Christmas Tree

We got our Christmas tree this past Thursday. (I've been waiting anxiously for 2 weeks after we got our permit.) It was a lot of fun. We drove outside of Alpine towards Big Lake a few miles then 100' or so up a hill and there it was! I spied it through the forest. It was marked for thinning so it would have been cut down anyway. Instead it get's to be enjoyed - not be cut down and wasted. The pictures are of Mark next to the tree in the forest, by the truck on snowy Big Lake Road and the tree decorated at home. Sam also had a great time on our trip! It's snowing right now - around 6" today. Supposed to get 1-2' tomorrow! I'll post pictures. :)