Arizona Autumn

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

It is slowly but surely getting cooler in the Valley of Hell - and I love it! Now instead of 115 degrees every day, the high is usually closer to ninety-five. I heard one forecaster say yesterday that the triple digits may be gone for the rest of the year.

There is, of course, a down side to the improving temperatures. The blue-haired snowbirds will soon be flocking here from the colder climes, driving up the price of liquor and clogging up the freeways with their big-assed cars and RV's. A few months from now the Valley will start to get insanely hot again and the old farts will head home. And so it goes...

I have been outside today landscaping with cactus. It feels good to get my hands in the dirt, sort of reminds me of being back in the Ozarks at Rock's Roost. Well, not much! The people who lived here before me preferred bushes to cactus, and I have spent much of the summer trimming and hacking my way thought the landscape. Now I am beginning to pull up their confounded bushes and replace them with cactus - which are much easier to care for.

I have also been pushing paths through the house today to get it ready for my sons and oldest grandson when they visit later in the week. I'm glad that summer is fading. That should make their trip more bearable - for them. It will be a blast for me! We are talking about going to Sedona and the Grand Canyon while they are here.