Tucson...are we there yet?

Arrived Monday in Tucson to a spectacular early evening view of the Catalinas. Today is Thursday and we still haven't gotten our hot water heater working. So...cold bathing--luckily the weather has been warm and water in the pipes has heated up from the sun! Wish we had a solar system in place :)

Spent two days unloading boxes from our Penske--who knew how heavy books can be? We finally broke down and got a styrofoam (the bane of modern times) cooler to keep some cream, eggs and white wine (the most important item)  in...furniture is here but the 80 foot truck can't get down the dirt road leading to the house and so driver is off getting a truck for shuttling! Should be a very long day--luckily it's cool.

We have a gopher snake living on property as well as a nesting Quail in the back yard--trying hard not to disturb her. Our poodle flushed her off the nest the other evening...put up a thistle feeder and a hummingbird feeder yesterday--hesitate to put up my wind chimes until the babies are hatched--she thought she'd found a safe place to nest!

Still looking for local honey since it has been said that eating a teaspoon a day can help one acclimate to a new environment--it seems that the little health food stores are sadly lacking here. Whole foods and another large store called Sprouts are what we've found so far...but I haven't been into Tucson proper around the University..I'm hoping...I found a beekeeper on line who I've written to...

Two of our neighbors have come by already--the woman down the hill has a female
doberman who is the perfect playmate for Buddha dog--in the mornings he whines until we let him go visit!

Found out that besides scorpions, black widows and several kinds of rattlesnakes, this area has a lethal toad that comes out when it rains! Apparently they are attracted to the bugs if you have lights on outside--they have some sort of hallucinogenic neurotoxin secreted on to their skin that goes into mucous membranes and is actually harvested by people who want to get high--(against the law of course) but this toxin can kill a grown dog...cute, isn't he?

The movers have arrived with the first load on a tiny truck--the only one available--did I already mention how long this day is going to be?