A Walk by the River

We took a walk in the Rio Salado in Phoenix. They have been transforming it into a riparian river walk. They have been talking about this since around 1970 when it was suggested by the ASU architecture students. The Rio Salado is part of the Salt River the great and world wide known river of Phoenix. It's right up there with the Mississippi, Amazon and the Brisbane Rivers. When Dad was courting Mum in Brisbane, she was feeling sad at the thought of having to leave Brisbane and the Brisbane River (which you will understand if you look at my Australian slides to the right). The Brisbane River is beautiful and winds back and forth through Brisbane. Well, Dad, trying to impress his girl said, we have a river in Phoenix too. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a map of Phoenix and showed Mum how the Salt River runs through Phoenix. Mum got to Phoenix and became very homesick for water. She kept trying to get Dad to take her to see the beautiful Salt River, he kept putting her off. Finally he could avoid it no more and took her to the Salt River which was dry as a bone due to Roosevelt Dam upstream! All the cottonwoods and other riparian vegetation had died. Roosevelt Dam was built around 1910 and the first time I remember water flowing in it was in 1966 when there was a flood! Needless to say she was disappointed and Dad had to take her to sit by the lagoon at Encanto Park whenever she got homesick for water. See the smile on Mum's face, she is so thrilled to finally see some water in the river!
This is the Desert Willow. We saw a lot of hummingbirds feeding on these beautiful flowers.
Jules walking down one of the paths with the trees touching overhead.
This is a picture of the leaves and seeds of the cottonwood tree. The seeds look like cotton and it almost looks like snow when there are many cottonwood trees.
I'm not sure what this is, but the flowers almost look like wattle.
We saw a jackrabbit which was at least twice this size but alas, it was the one that got away!

We saw a lot of birds. Snowy Egrets, Redwing blackbirds, Gambol Quail, Great Blue Heron, Cormorants, Roadrunners and many ducks.

What a face!

Look at my parrots. Well they are not my parrots because they are wild. They belong to no one. They are wild and free, can go where ever they want but choose to spend some time in my yard. They are chatty and funny and put smiles upon my face, which is always a good thing. I have to decide if I will keep my job and continue to fight the district about my job title, job description and my worth. "It's not personal", you understand, that they don't feel they need a nurse at each school. I'm watching "You've got mail" as we speak and Joe just told her that it's not personal that he forced her out of business. She said it may not be personal to you, but it is to me and many other people also. That's exactly how I feel. We were going to go to Flagstaff this weekend, but I was so drained and tired after Friday that we didn't go. I just needed time to breathe. I had a boy come into my office, walking and talking with a heartrate of 220. Well it took him a while to get up to that rate and our Principal told him that it was because of the cute female paramedic who responded to my 911 call or rather my non 911 call. His BP dropped and his heartrate kept slowly going up and his pulse was about 1/2 of his heartrate. I called 911 and all I got was a busy signal. Well I have the number of Firestation #17 which is cattywhampus across the street from the school. So I called them and they came. Thus they responded to my Non 911 call. They thought he was fine because by the time they arrived his blood pressure was better because I had him in trendelenburg and they took his pulse and it was normal. I was on the phone with his Mom and the paramedic asked to talk to her. He said, "I think he is OK". Then after they connected him up for an EKG they finally realized that his heartrate was 180 and going up, pulse was still normal. Paramedics never think to use their stethescope and listen. I felt vindicated because the paramedics reached their conclusion too fast. By the time he headed to ER his heartrate was 220 and going up. The untrained aides that they are putting in our schools wouldn't have recognized what was happening (the plan is an RN and aide for every 2 schools). So something like this had better happen when the RN is there or the outcome may not be as happy.




Aren't they wonderful!

Easter weekend brings visit from Diane & Bill

My sister Diane and Bill graced us with their presence this weekend. How's this picture for happiness and contentment? We had so much fun! We rode the light rail to downtown and ate lunch out on a patio on a crowded downtown Phoenix street. Who would have thunk it! We have seen crowds on game nights, but this was Good Friday at noon. Anyway it was fun to see and I wished my Dad was there to enjoy it with us. He spent most of his life either growing up or working in downtown and would love the changes.
I told Diane that our visit to the Chahuly exhibit and butterflys at Desert Botanical Gardens would be so amazing that it would blow them away. They said that we would just have to put rocks in our pockets. So, with rocks in our pockets and joy in our hearts we visited the gardens.











We had dinner with Faye, Javier and the boys on Thursday. We ate outside on the patio, a pre Easter gathering, food and company were great. The boys ran around outside fighting, chasing before dinner typical 4 boys. After we ate we moved inside to visit. Jeremy was bored, Nathan, Niko, Maceo and Faye played with leggos.

Therefore let us joyful be!

I have been singing in the choir at church since last summer. We are a 65 to 70 member choir. We sang Dubois, "The Seven Last Words of Christ" and Bach, "Christ Lay in Death's Dark Prison". If you have never heard Dubois work, it is very emotional. It was very touching and moving to be a part of performing these great works. For Bach we had a string quartet playing with us. The cello part in particular was amazing. Some of my favorite lines, "Therefore let us joyful be and praise our God with solemn glee!" "Death was swallowed up by Life!"

The weather here is great. Each morning is delightfully cool with a reminder of colder days and a hint of warmer and hotter weather to come. It is a great combination. Hard on the allergies, great for the soul.



My garden has new blooms the purple iris, the first roses of the season, larkspur and the bright yellow sunflowers loved by my wild bird friends.