Kittens From The Dark Side: A Visit From Flat Stanley!

Thanks to our niece, Cora, we had a visitor for Christmas: Flat Stanley!
For those of you who don't know his story, a bulletin board fell on him and flattened him! Now he can travel in envelopes. It must be uncomfortable, but it's cheap, so he travels a lot and learns from his travels. He came to Arizona to learn about the desert!

We took some pictures in front of our surprising GOLD Christmas tree. Stanley was tickling Greg, so Greg was making silly faces!

Stanley, why are you poking him?!

Since he was here for Christmas, he helped me make Christmas cookies. We made Spritz cookies, a special thing our family has made for a long time. These cookies are made by pushing the dough through a cookie press (thus the name; spritzen = to squirt in German!) We decided to make some tree shaped cookies and some wreath shaped cookies.

Most of the cookies turned out great, but some didn't!

Here's Greg using the cookie press and creating some sort of ocopus-like monster cookie!

Sometimes the dough comes out WEIRD!

Stanley was proud of his work making Spritz.

The day after Christmas, we all decided to go for a hike. Arizona is warm even in the winter, and it's almost always sunny.

Don't worry; Stanley always wears a seatbelt!

Along the way, we stopped at the weirdest golf course! It's called Snakehole Golf, and it has no grass, only dirt and scraggly bushes!

Stanley's Dad enjoys playing golf, but Stanley said he didn't think his Dad would enjoy this golf course.

Stanley decided he wanted to ride in my backpack.

Here we are at the trailhead (that's where the hike starts). That's Lost Dutchman State Park in the background. We were in the Superstition Mountain range.

The area we hiked sadly had been affected by the wildfires that took place this past summer. Here's an article about how this trail (First Water) fell prey to wildfire, though firefighters were able to save nearby Lost Dutchman State Park. The fire is believed to have been started by lightning. Without the protective ground cover (plants), there's nothing to stop any heavy rain from rushing down the (not very absorbent) dirt hills and gathering speed and depth to make big problems.

The loose debris (things like plant pieces, rocks that got weakened by the fire, etc.) is also a problem sometimes. These things are especially dangerous if a flash flood occurs because the water can cause something heavy to smash a person or hit a person on the head.

It was sad to see the burned plants, especially the beautiful cacti. Saguaros can take over 100 years to grow. This area of the desert will be recovering for a long, long time.

A charred cholla:

Burned desert:

Stanley saw huge saguaros ("suh-WAR-os") and liked how their arms reach toward the sky. Saguaros take hundreds of years to grow!

Here's a nice healthy saguaro. Look at the SPIKES! The pattern of the spines is artistic and beautiful.

Here's how a healthy cholla looks. Some of the bits fall off these cacti, the spikes bounce off a passing walker's foot, and it looks as if the cactus babies are jumping! That is why these cacti are sometimes known as jumping cacti.

Cholla are very spiky! The spikes are yellow and they kind of glow in the sunshine.

Though we warned him about the spikes, Stanley couldn't resist jumping right out of my backpack into a cholla! Here's a hint: if you go walking in the desert, take along some duct tape. If you get spikes in you (Stanley got some in his butt!), put duct tape over the area and then pull it off really quickly. The duct tape gets out even the tiny spikes that you can't see with your eyes.

Silly Stanley!

We walked more through the desert and enjoyed the pretty rock formations and clear blue sky. In the pass between the hills in back of me and Stanley, you can see Four Peaks, a famous mountain here. It even has a brewery named after it!