An ironic seven year old boy

My grandson Jake is 7 1/2 years old. It never ceases to amaze me some of the comments he makes about life. But, I never thought he could be ironic at his age. When he visited on Friday night he drew me some sketches. One of them was of a man with a cigarette dangling from his mouth while wearing a T-shirt with a no-smoking decal. On the man's arms are tattoos of skulls. Something to remember for parents who puff away while telling their kids not to smoke. The irony and hypocrisy is not lost on their children, even 7 year old kids are aware of it. I don't know why Jake made the drawing since neither I nor his parents smoke. I'm saving the drawing to show him when he's older.

The smell of the Desert after a rain

When I first moved to the Southwest I learned to love the distinctive odor of the desert after a rainfall. It had a strong, musty odor. Some people love that smell, others hate it. I couldn't figure out why the rain smelled that way and assumed it was the rain drops hitting the dry sandy soil. Then eventually I found out the smell came from the raindrops hitting the leaves of the Creosote Bush (Larrea Tridentata). I could even smell the rain falling far away and knew the rain was coming my way.

I always wanted to have one in my backyard garden, to make sure I could smell the rain when it fell. Sometimes I tire of waiting for the rare desert rains and just throw a bucket of water on my plant so that I can smell it. As a result it has grown fast and bigger than the desert plants that have to wait for the rains.



The Creosote bush is one of the most common desert plants and helps to make the southwest desert look green. It is extremely drought tolerant and adapted to the desert. It will shed most of its waxy, resinous leaves but not all during extreme drought. It competes for the available water with other plants and usually wins. Creosote lives a long time, some plants are thought to be over 11,000 years old.

Since the leaves contain many anti-herbivory resinous compounds, the plant is seldom eaten by grazing animals of any kind. The plant itself is visited by many bees for its pollen, but it is not a good source of nectar. Burrowing animals dig holes around the base of the plant and use these during the heat of the day and then emerge to forage at night. Snakes,spiders, and scorpions sometimes use these holes.

According to Desertusa.com :
This medium-to-large evergreen shrub has numerous flexible stems projecting at an angle from its base. It is usually less than 4 feet high, but can grow to 12-foot heights with abundant water. Its small (1/4 to 1/2 inches), pointed, yellow-green leaves have adapted to conserve water and dissipate heat. The bush may lose some of these waxy, resinous leaves during extreme drought, but never loses them all. These leaves are especially pungent after a rain, and have been used as antiseptics and emetics by native peoples. Its foliage provides refuge for crickets, grasshoppers and praying mantids.

The Creosote Bush is NOT the source of the commercial creosote used to preserve wood and other uses.

Below is a photo of my "baby" Creosote in 2006. They are hard to transplant so I bought a nursery specimen.

My nap time fur babies

My cats Amber the Tabby and Raven the Black are today exactly eleven months old. They were litter mates but I'm not sure if they are true sisters, since their mothers were raised together and allowed to breed at will. All of the mothers nursed whichever kitten nuzzled her at the time. Next month I will be taking them to be spayed. I wanted to wait until they are one year old so that they will achieve their true body size. They're indoor cats and I was not afraid they would become pregnant.

Amber is the quiet, more stately, cautious type. She eats a lot and sleeps a lot. Raven was the runt, only two thirds the size of Amber when I adopted them at six weeks old. She is now the wild one, very inquisitive and playful and stubborn. If she wants to go into a room or do something she will persist until she finds an opportunity. I think she's smarter than Amber in some ways, but Amber would likely be the one with better survival skills in the great outdoors.



And here is an extreme closeup of Amber's face showing the latent wildness of her distant ancestors. The original cats were tabbies. The tabby stripes and spots and earthy colors were perfect for camouflage for succesful hunting.

The 200th Heart Award!

Reading through the Etsy forums months ago I read about someone planning on giving a free gift from her shop for the person who gave her X amount of hearts. I thought that was a nifty idea and decided to give a gift to the person that gave me the 100 heart and every 100th thereafter. Somehow it happened and I completely forgot about it. Then the other day I noticed that I had 198 hearts, so I waited excitedly to see who would be the person to give me the 200th heart. It turned out to be Pam of pmcookie, a art shop. She also has a jewelry shop at kittywoman.

So, I convoed her with my offer of a free item from either of my shops and she chose my Amethyst and Powder Rose earrings.


Pam is a very talented artist and jeweler. This is my favorite item from her art pmcookie shop: "The Blue Bird of Happiness Original"

And this is my favorite item from her jewelry shop kittywoman: "Turquoise and Glass Necklace"

I have always loved the USA Southwest, even before I ever came to live in this country. When a pubescent in Caracas, Venezuela I used to read crime stories and western paperbacks handed down to me by a family friend. I learned about mobsters and cowpokes. And I always dreamed of someday visiting this land of cowboys and cattle drives. But, somehow I imagined it as a dusty brown desert land. When I finally came to live in Arizona I was surprised that it was so green with creosote and desert brooms and the mighty "sentinel of the desert", the mighty Saguaro that can live 200 years and grow to 50 feet tall. And the mountains are so tall. They've hints of purple during the daytime and glow red when hit by the light of the setting sun. This is the Treasury I made about the Southwest, it evokes the colors and the "soul" of this great region.

Learning curves

I started my online jewelry selling officially on January 8, 2008 at Etsy.com with my main shop, Earthly Creations. I'm self taught with some help from books. That part I've loved and I love designing and making the jewelry. What I HATE the most about this venture is the need for promotion and advertising. I simply am too cheap to spend the money on advertising and simply don't "get" merchandising. I can't see spending $150 a month on it when I'm only making perhaps $20 in profit a month.

Yet today I visited a popular blog, Modish.com, with ads spending $40-65 or more a month and three sellers that I checked out also spend a lot of money listing and renewing on Etsy. Two of them sell high point jewelry but the third one sells for my lower points. Perhaps in the beginning I need to dish out the money for advertising and perhaps make it up later, if and when I actually become a good seller?

Sometimes I'm sorry that I started this jewelry business, have invested more than $6000 in equipment and supplies so far, but I just don't have the heart to quit now. I really like making it and designing it and I don't feel that I've done everything possible to make the shop(s) a success. And right now the economy is in real bad shape and people are tightening their belts quite a bit. The last is just an excuse, because plenty of high volume sellers on Etsy are selling daily.

I just don't know, wish I could afford to hire someone to do the pesky marketing chores for me. I'm simply inept at these things. Sigh!