As Isaac Asimov said, “The only constant is change, continuing change, inevitable change…” Change was definitely the theme of our September.
The contractor we hired put the finishing touches on our back porch extension and the difference was tangible. Elvis (aka our guest bedroom) and our bedroom which share western exposures were finally shielded from the sun’s rays. The temperature change was a most welcome one!
Lance attended the annual Automattic employee meetup in San Diego during the second week of the month. Talk about a change – when Lance was hired two and a half years ago he joined a staff of under 50, there are now over 120 Automatticians (as they call themselves). Lance was able to put a lot of new names with faces – which is part of what those company-wide gatherings are about.
While Lance was away his sister, Adria, and her husband Joel moved to Chicago. What a change! Joel found a great job back there, and since it is where he is from and where he and Adria first met, it was not a hard decision. Thankfully we were able to spend some time with them in the weeks before their move. And we have all those great memories from the last few years in Tucson together.
Right around that same time Lance’s parents headed south to Mexico to teach workshops which will keep them down there until the end of November. In their case, if they stayed in one place for a whole year, that would be a big change! Thank goodness for technology – email, Skype, and cell phones – it makes it easy to keep in touch.
After Lance returned from SoCal we threw ourselves into our newest project: changing our barren dirt side yard into a restful hammock space with planter beds and a meandering path. We set the hammock posts in concrete and while those cured, Lance used a pick to turn over every square inch so that we could remove the large rocks and chunks of clay. While he had fun with that, I wheelbarrowed in load after load of top soil and mulch. Only after we mixed it all in did the planting begin.
We limited ourselves to two weeks of planting so that our new additions would have time to acclimate before the possibility of a cold snap. (Yes, it does freeze out here, occasionally.) Though our new plants are small now, it will interesting to watch them take off in the spring.
Later in the month we attended the grand opening ceremony of the new Pima Prickly Park with Aunt Coralie. The park is a collaborative effort between Pima County Natural Resources, Parks and Recreation (who had the empty space) and the Tucson Succulent and Cactus Society (who had the prickly plants – some rescued from building sites). It was a warm morning but the opening was well attended. As we wandered the trails we were impressed with the park’s focus on education and the variety of plants. From vacant lot into desert oasis – now that’s a nice change!
Finished up the month as we usually do with a cleanup at Sweetwater Wetlands, only this time we started the morning by birding the main loop. During the Fall migration season a wide variety of non-native birds stop in at the Wetlands. Our morning jaunt didn’t yield any big surprises, but we did notice that the leaves of the cottonwood trees were starting to change. Bright yellow reminders that fall was on its way.
Though the days were still in the high 90s the nights were dropping into the low 60s. Sitting outside the last evening of the month it even smelled cooler. Can’t describe how exactly – it just no longer smelled hot. I think the weather was finally changing…
Photos: View our photographs from September Changes.
