Frying Pan to Fire

The only place hotter than Portland right now is Phoenix and by Wednesday evening that's where I'll be. I love returning to the Valley of the Sun, love driving by the house my family lived in for 42 years, love seeing old friends again at Art Unraveled. I'm excited.

This will be my third year to attend the retreat and probably my last. Life just keeps changing around me. Time moves on and if I'm going to have time to travel and work on other projects I'm going to have to pare back my teaching schedule. I want it all but there is only so much time.

This is how the blue corn patch looked this morning. Rain is expected this weekend and John expects the tall stalks to lodge (pitch over and croak). I wrote out pages of notes to tell you about this variety of corn but now I can't find them and I'm lucky to even get this much up. If our growing season was a little longer we would have blue corn to grind for tortilla flour but I don't think that's going to happen now. It was so much fun growing it out anyway - and watching it reach Jack-in-the-Beanstalk proportions.

In comparison, here is our sweet corn patch in its 5th week from seed. Mmmm, sweet corn.

We have these pale lemon colored sunflowers with pink edged petals.

Chilis de Aguas.

Jimmy Nardellos.

Santa Fe Grandes.

Cayenne.

Volunteer Rudebekias.

My next post should be from Arizona. Hasta la vista.