Echoes of the Southwest

  As I noted on an earlier post, my hubby and I, along with two others, bought 80 acres (two 40 acre lots) of land in the northeast part of Arizona. The land is near the towns of St. Johns and Show Low, AZ. We are very close to the New Mexico border with Gallup close to us as well. This month, March 2022, we start developing the land and adding structures to it. On one of our lots, the land is fairly level. That is the area my hubby and I want to put a house and other structures. The view from there is amazing. They will start with that area and grade the ground for our future home. They also plan to add a perimeter fence around the approximately 2 or 3 acres for security from the critters that roam in that area. Along with the fence and grading, they will add a septic tank, water tanks and a building to house a bathroom. It is very important to this gal that a bathroom be up there first, lol. My hubby will go up there for a couple days to see what they do and take pictures for me....

  We have been to this trailer park for 12 years now. When we first laid eyes on it, there were several trailers still sitting on the land. Three were intact, while one was about to collapse. As we went there through the years, we watched two trailers disappear without a trace. The swing set that was still set up finally fell down from the harsh environment. The last remaining trailer finally crumpled and looks like a pile of rubbish. What once was a trailer park or graveyard, now looks like a junkyard. We ended up finding some items to take home and took lots of pictures. I think this is the last time we will go there. Time to find other abandoned places to photograph.

After three weeks of constructing our greenhouse kit, we finally got it done. I put together a video of the finished product. I am so happy to finally have a greenhouse. https://youtu.be/dcT2T22Uy0k GARDEN PROJECTS This cute water fountain ended up with a crack and would not hold water. I decided to turn it into a planter. I found this wood ironing board top at an antique mall. I repurposed it into a bench. This was given to me by the funeral home that took care of my Mom's burial. I took a terracotta pot and painted it. I used my cricut machine and added text to the pot. I used my cricut joy to make labels for my plants. To label my other plants, I used file tabs and popsicle sticks. A friend gave us three old windows. I used one to make a garden sign.

We finally got to head out and take photos of abandoned structures. We decided to go back to Hayden and Winkelman AZ to see what had change in the 8 years since we been there. After getting home and downloading my photos, I compared them to the last time we were in these towns. Some structures were gone and others were barely hanging on. All and all, it was a great day and we can't wait to photograph more places. I took lots of pictures so I put them together in a video.

  As I have said before, I love fall. Here are some of the photos I took with a fall theme.