Cooling Finally??

Don and I actually got to sit out on the patio last night to watch a passing thunderstorm with lightning, thunder, and even some rain.  The street actually got wet this time but not enough rain to form a puddle anywhere.  It was lovely while it lasted.

Maybe there is relief in sight!  It has been a scorching summer!!

Farewell to Ashley

Many of you must know Ashley Delgado who has been our Activities Manager for several years.  We received a note from her that she and her husband are moving so Ashley will be leaving us.

"I wanted to make everyone aware that this will be my last week with Palm Creek. My husband and I will be moving.

 

I’m sure you have questions about what next season will bring. We have yet to receive clearance on when and if we will be holding events or booking rooms. When we have more information we will inform you. Terri and Marion will be here to help you in the future. Please find their contact information below.  It’s been a pleasure working with you all."

 

 

Glance into the past

I was cleaning up some old files on my computer this morning and stumbled on an old site I used to use as a back up for the blog.  It was kind of fun to scroll through.  Since I have nothing new to post today, I thought I'd give you a link back to November 2013.  Enjoy the ride:

Click here:  2003

You can see that it is a very quiet afternoon at the Heplers.

Quiet Day

It's another quiet day.  Good time to change the furnace filters.  If you will recall, we had to screw shut the filter door to keep the cats out.  

Kat couldn't wait to get that door open.  Sorry to disappoint him that he couldn't enter.

I don't know if he's pouting but he went in the closet to sleep in the laundry basket.

That's it.  No other news to report.  

No break in the weather.  Still triple digits usually over 110 every day! 

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Rain??

Yahoo!!  We had "some" rain last night.  Not enough to leave a puddle anywhere but enough to turn more dust into heavy spots on the car and windows.  Don and I did get to sit outside and watch the lightning show and listen to the rumble of thunder for the first time in months.  It cooled all the way down to 80 but the humidity went up.  Some you win, some you lose.

September 1 starts the annual scalping and reseeding for the golf course, dog parks, ballfield, and palm park area.  Be prepared for more complaints on NextDoor for those folks who don't like dust.  With the grass as brown as it got this summer without any rain, it should bring some brown clouds.

We had a bit of good news from the weather lady.  Three days of less than 110 for the first time in months.

BUT.....only 3 days.  

This constant heat is getting stressful.

I recorded this news broadcast about plants and trees.  I hope our housewatch customers will understand when they return to find less than green plants.

Those of you who are sitting in your lush green landscaping with a cool breeze passing by, know that I envy you.  😄

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Mouse likes to sit looking out the window and does not like it when I pull down the blinds.

Have a good day!

Dust clean up

Our street sweeping contractor is hard at work trying to catch up after that last wind storm.  Granite is a big challenge due to the dirt from the open fields.  That's just something we'll have to live with till more houses get put up in that area.

The driver will make several trips up and down each street.  He has a fine water spray behind to try to limit the dust although I read on Nextdoor today that someone even complained about the dust from this truck.  <sigh>  Even if we all took our push brooms to clean up the mess, we would still stir up dust.  It's really hard to keep dust out of a desert environment.

Yes, new holes are being dug for new houses.....dust can't be helped.

Good news for our RC Advocates.  We have quite a few Palm Creek members involved in this organization.  Congrats to them.

That's all my news for today.  

I have someone waiting for me to leave the computer and come to play.

How a dust storm is created

My son took some fascinating video of a big dust storm that was forming in Eloy yesterday.  It looks like 3-5 mini tornadoes as they suck up the dirt from the open desert floor.  It's not a full haboob yet as it is just sucking up the dirt.  You can see the cloud gradually getting bigger.

When the storm hit, Eloy was without power for about three hours.  Plenty of trees down, debris scattered, etc. but this one didn't really hit Casa Grande.

Still no relief in sight from this HOT weather.  It is wearing on us!

Some of our summer residents are complaining about the appearance of our golf course and the park in general.  Please have patience and some understanding of what this summer has been like with the extreme temperatures and absolutely no measurable amount of rain in four months.

Because of the Covid issue, part of our crews were laid off or furloughed for several weeks limiting the amount of work that could be accomplished.  Palm Creek is a lovely place to call home.  Just give it some time to get back up after a tough summer.

Missed Storm

Our son (currently living in Eloy about 20 miles south here) called us last night warning us to batten down the hatches because a BIG storm was headed our way.  They had high winds that knocked out power again and heavy heavy rain.  We did as instructed but..........no storm came our way.  The weather here is really weird.  When they say "isolated" storms, they really mean it.  There are small cells that travel randomly and quickly.

Julie Wolf captured the threatening sky but we didn't get the fury of the storm.  (Thank goodness).  We don't have the whole mess from the last one cleaned up yet.

Oasis is getting trimmed today.

One man sorts the branches turning them all in one direction for easier clean up.

Then another truck and crew follow to pick up the piles.

We're getting tired of this HOT weather.  Still no relief in sight.  It is, however, nice to see the lows in the 80s so we can still have coffee out on our dusty patio in the mornings. 😅

Another feature of this heat is our water temperature coming from our indoor faucets.  We experimented yesterday with our thermometer.  Turned on the COLD water faucet and measured the temperature of the water.  It was 110.4 straight from the faucet.  There's not much need for a hot water heater in the summer.

This heat and lack of rain is really hard on landscaping...........especially any kind of fruit tree.  They are all very stressed.  This is typical of all the trees even when they are getting irrigated.  Don't have high expectations for a bumper crop when you return.  Poor leaves are getting parched from the sun.

Sorry if this sounds like a gloomy post today.  I'll try to do better soon.  😏

Strong Haboob Hits Casa Grande

That was a dandy storm last night.  It was a good old-fashioned haboob with strong wind, LOTS of dust, but still not a measureable amount of rain.  We had just enough rain to turn some of the dust to mud.  Typical of a monsoon storm, it only lasted 35 minutes from beginning to end.  Temperature dropped from 112 to 97.

Considering the strength of the storm, there was only minimal damage inside the park.  We took a long slow ride throughout the park and checked on all of our housewatch customers.  If you don't hear from us via email, there was no damage to your site.

Several residents saw it coming!

This photo from Dick Rietz:

Next three photos compliments of Julie Wolf.

Scene from my kitchen window.  Could barely see across the street.

This is about the only damage we found on our rounds this morning.  I'm not posting the site numbers until sure that all have been notified.

Picking up the pieces.  

Tree down by the sales office plus at least one we know of on the golf course.

Crews are busy with the clean up this morning.

Posted a short video on You Tube.

Our Koi Pond

I'm bored so spent this morning cruising through old photos from "way back when"(2003).  I've told our stories about our little koi pond we had at our house in Marion, Ohio but I don't know if people believed me when I told them how our frogs would attack and eat birds that came down for a drink.

Here you can see the frog hanging onto the bird in an effort to drown him.  The bird is smart and keeps his wings spread.   

We rescued this little guy.  He was exhausted but safe so we put him in a shoe box till he could dry out and rest.  When we took the lid off later, he happily flew away.  I doubt he'll come back!

It was a relatively small pond with a nice waterfall.  We could view this from our kitchen window.  Spent many many hours watching the wildlife there including the squirrels that came for a drink.  The frogs would actually jump at the squirrels to chase them away.  We got hysterical with laughter when one squirrel was so surprised at a frog jumping on him that he jumped and landed in the pond.  He rolled over and over in the dirt to get dried off.  

I spent plenty of time laying at the edge of the pond to get some close ups.

It's hard to see in this photo but the front frog is just finishing his birdie meal.  You can just see some feathers sticking from his mouth.

The project was intended as a koi pond.  The idea of tadpoles came later.  Here the fish look pretty small.

It was great entertainment to sit on the bench to watch the activity and feed the fish.

Over the years, the fish grew!

In fact, they became too big for the pond.

It was a sad day when we returned from a short vacation to find that the pump had died.....and so did the fish.  This one's name was Hemingway.  All the fish were named after famous people.  The big white one above was Delilah.

It was a wonderful time in our lives.  Many fond memories.  There were also home built squirrel houses in the trees so we watched baby squirrels when they emerged.  It was like watching a litter of kittens on speed.  So fun!