Friday

I’ve had so many people ask me to put the picture of the great horned owl back up…….so here it is.  If you want to save it to your computer, just right click on the photo and choose “save as”.  Then you can name it and put it in your photos.  Again, thank you to Bill and Maureen for sharing the photo.

We had great fun at a surprise birthday celebration for Mona Conkle last night.  We all gathered under the north pavilion for a fantastic pot luck dinner followed by some karaoke, cake, & ice cream.  Happy Birthday, Mona, from all your friends here in the park. 

Happy Hour gatherings, block parties, and social gatherings of all sorts will soon abound as more and more folks return.  It is always fun to see folks have a happy time with friends old and new.  Let’s keep Palm Creek a friendly park.  Get to know your neighbors and welcome new people so they too feel part of the Palm Creek family lifestyle.

It is quite obvious that RVers are on the move this time of year as evidenced by our overnight parking area.  It was almost full this morning when we drove by.  If these folks knew how much FUN we have here, I don’t think they’d drive any farther!

We see work progressing on the new dog run at the north end of the park.  I’ve heard it will be for the larger dogs so they have enough room to exercise and play.  When I looked back at this photo, I saw how pretty the sky was that morning and how unusual it is for us to have ‘clouds’. 

I like to post photos of the wildlife here in the desert of Arizona.  Check out this pretty critter we found at the back of an RV that was parked here for the summer.  WOW!!  Does anyone know what kind of spider this is?  Certainly is colorful.

This past Tuesday was the first bus trip to the Fort McDowell casino.  Marilyn Roemer is our ‘tour guide’ again this season and had her usual plethora of jokes to entertain us and treasured gifts as door prizes. There will be a bus to Fort McDowell each month and in addition, two overnight trips are planned as well.  Sign up in Activities.  The cost is $10 for the monthly trip which provides your bus transportation, $10 in slot money upon arrival, a great $1.99 breakfast, and a discount for bingo players.

Meanwhile, back at the park, the softball players are gearing up for the season.  We see them out practicing several times a week now.

AND…..as always…..as we play and romp in the sunshine, our landscape crews are busy at work to make our park beautiful.  Flowers are arriving by the truckload and planting has begun. 

That’s the update for today.  Have FUN out there!

Planting Season

It appears that our FIVE month heat wave is finally dissipating.  We not only had the 33 days of over 110 degrees this summer, we’ve also had one of the warmest months of October with temps nearing 100 almost daily.  FINALLY the weatherman says we’ll cool down to our normal fantastic 80s.  That’s when our Arizona sunshine and blue skies are at their best!  As this low pressure system of cooler temps arrives, we even had some ‘rain’ yesterday.  I think we counted 14 drops that actually made it to the ground.  The rest just evaporates before it hits the ground (technically called virga) but it did give us a pretty rainbow around happy hour.

Cooler weather means planting season!!  Jim Dawson and his crew have the gardens well under way.  They look gorgeous!!  Lillie Corbet and Natalie Aaron have been helping Jim with the early planting.  I heard that we have some very aggressive and athletic rabbits as they’ve learned to hop up on those bales to munch on that sweet lettuce!  New fences have now been installed since having to replant the lettuce twice already.  Congratulations to everyone who contributed to the construction and planting.  The beds look great. 

AND….the flower beds are being tilled and prepared for planting too!

I love watching the flowers come in by the truck load.  I’ll have to get more pictures ….. but the Fort McDowell casino bus departs at 9:00 this morning so you readers will have to wait till I return.  Sorry about that.  Wish me luck today!

Be sure to read this posting on the pickleball blog regarding the new courts.  Future Plans

P.S.  If you get some nice photos or have a cute story to share about life in our paradise resort, please send them my way.  sue77hepler@yahoo.com    If you don’t know how to email photos, be sure to come to the computer club meetings starting November 9 at 9:30 a.m. in the San Tan Room.

Wednesday

Stopped by the tennis courts again this morning.  This court is in the sealing stage.  Sure is a LOT of labor involved in this job of resurfacing!

While we were in the area, I snapped some photos of the pickleball players too since so many were out this morning.  It certainly is a popular sport.


As we drove by the club house we saw a big crane bringing down a huge air conditioning unit.  More maintenance and upkeep we never think about or realize.


There’s never a dull moment for Fernando and crew.  Get one thing fixed and another breaks.  This time I found them having to replace the flow meter by number one well.


Drove by Bill Nagy's home and couldn’t help but notice how nice his yard looks.  Sure enough….we spotted Bill up a tree doing more décor.  Hope he doesn’t get hurt or he won’t be able to be our bingo caller again this year.  Stay safe Bill.


I always have a fondness for landscaping, plants, cactus, blossoms, etc.  It’s hard to keep greenery ‘green’ in the hot Arizona sun………but somehow Mary manages to grow this beautiful enormous fern in her front yard.  I guess the plant just responds to her tender loving care.







While Don and I are out on our morning rounds stomping on the occasional scorpion we find in someone’s home,……………….

our cat, Hiway, enjoys her morning nap.


Have a GREAT day!!

Tuesday

What a difference a week makes around here!  We went from having lots of leisure time to suddenly having a very crowded calendar all within a few days.  Residents are returning to our resort in droves and it is sooooooo much fun to ride around and say hello to everyone, get a big hug, and briefly hear about their summer.  I can sum up the Hepler summer very easily…..HOT, DRY, and DUSTY.  It was still a very interesting summer! 

 

Remember this cactus I photographed last week with the pretty blossom on top?

This crazy plant amazes me.  Look at all the blossoms on it….from top to bottom.  I’ll have to drive by daily to watch them open and display their glory.  Obviously this plant LIKES hot dry weather!  A true desert dweller.

The tennis courts are really getting a make over this year.  A contractor by the name of Dave seems to be single handedly tackling the project of resurfacing all the courts.  He has been out there day after day working on the hot courts in the bright sun.  It appears he’s doing a fantastic job as the tennis players highly praise their new courts.  Every crack gets patched and sanded.

The before and after shots are amazing.  Thank you, Dave! 

Speaking of painting stripes and resurfacing, I think everyone will notice our newly paved streets and fresh painted lines.  It looks so fresh and new.

The back 9 of the golf course is open for play and looks great.  I think the front nine is ready to start its new growth as well.  The dirty part of the job should be done now so it should be safe for residents along the course to clean their patio once again.

<cough cough sneeze>

Aha………..so this is how they keep those pretty fountains in working condition.  I’m sure they all have to be cleaned and polished….perhaps change a bulb and clean the filters.  Sooo many behind the scenes chores that we just take for granted.

The north end of Oasis looks like a totally different neighborhood as the new village homes emerge.  Crews are busy on that street!

Well…..while so many folks are working hard to keep our resort beautiful, I decided to try a new sport today and headed over to the horseshoe pits.  What FUN!!  Since I’ve never thrown before, I was a little intimidated and nervous about walking in as a total newcomer to the sport but the friendly folks there immediately put me at ease and were extremely helpful in getting me started.  Believe it or not, I actually threw a couple of ringers!  I think they call that blind beginners luck but I danced and hooted anyway.  I didn’t bother to count the times they had to pull my horseshoes because they bounced in illegally.  At least I didn’t hit anybody.  Thank you to all the players for being so friendly and helpful!!    If you decide to venture over to join this group, take plenty of water and sunscreen.  It was hot out there.