Madera Canyon Picnic (not)

I had invited several couples to go up to Madera Canyon for a hamburger cookout this evening. But rains blew up from Mexico and we had to change our plans. Thirteen of us crammed into my house. It was impromptu, but it worked. From an "enjoy your friends" standpoint it was very successful.

These people all are full-time residents of Green Valley, and have Dutch, or Michigan connections (with the exception of Otto & Marilyn DeBruyn who were here checking on their property before winter arrives). They are a subset of a larger group that meets frequently for noon picnics at Madera Canyon during the winter months. But they don't get together as a group during the summer.

New Camera

I bought a new Nikon D40 camera. It's a step up for me from my Canon A510. The greatest benefit, in addition to increased resolution, is that the shutter release is instantaneous with when I press the shutter. My old camera was driving me nuts--I was getting lots of tails of dogs. "It was a whole dog when I pressed the button!" But the dog moved and all I was getting was the tail end.

I took the camera to work yesterday and here are a couple of shots from during the day.



Oliver is my brother's cat. Cute, huh?

Madera Canyon Picnic

We decided to take a late afternoon ride up to Madera Canyon and cook hamburgers. They have a number of picnic sites with charcoal grills. This is a dog-friendly park, so we took Mica (she did have to stay on the leash, which dampened her enthusiasm. We were there till just before sunset. I took some nice pictures of Mt. Wrightson. I've never been to the top, although Jenni has twice. It's a 12-16 mile hike depending on which sets of trails you take. Too much for me. My brother, Tom, has climbed to the top, also. I like looking at it from a distance.




This was the sunrise this morning from our backyard. Because of the moisture in the atmosphere the sunrises and sunsets for the next month or two should be "Arizona's Best."


Mica, the dog, and Panda, the cat, really enjoy each other's company. Yesterday I took Mica to the office with me. Here was 1.5 minutes after we got home--Panda came to greet us and wanted to play with his friend.

Dinner with the Boss

Last Thursday we hosted Jenni's boss, his wife and another co-worker and his wife for dinner. I cooked a beer can chicken. With six people, I wanted to make sure we had plenty of meat, so I ordered a chicken from a local butcher shop. It came in at 7-3/4 lbs.! It was huge. It took two hours to cook on the grill, but it turned out delicious.

I also made mushroom risotto--which is very fussy to make, but delicious to eat.

Labor Day at the Men's Shelter

We volunteered to serve lunch at Primavera, a shelter in Tucson for homeless men. Valley Presbyterian Church, where I work, prepares 700 sandwiches each month for them. Two months ago they called our office asking if we could find volunteers to serve lunch on Labor Day. As it turned out several of our staff members decided we would do it together.

So on Sunday Jenni and I used the church kitchen to fry 30 lbs. of hamburger and fix our favorite sloppy joes. On Monday we met with 5 other staff and drove to Tucson. We also served potato salad, chips, brownies, cake and apples. It was all a big hit.