Saturday, October 23, 2010

Answers, The Second (random stuff)

Flowering Plum Pictures, Images and Photos

Sarah asked, "I've always wondered why no one (at least that I know of)--and especially a movie villain--has planted dark maples and other purple leaved trees all around their house. Why not surround a home with purple foliage?"

Actually, the first house we bought, I fell in love with the dark purple flowing plum that it had in the front yard. The pink flowers in the spring were just a bonus. The yard was tiny, so that was the only tree we had. Now you know someone who had purple leaves around their house. I think maples are beautiful too, but they don't grow well where I live.

Krista asked, "What took you to Mexico, Holland, Switzerland, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, and Canada?"


storks Pictures, Images and Photos

Having an airline pilot for a dad made traveling a lot less expensive (until I grew up). We went on a family vacation to Europe when I was 14, mostly to visit my cousin and his family who lived in Switzerland. My cousin and his wife talked my parents into leaving me with them for the rest of the summer, and they took me with them on their family vacation to Portugal. We drove through France, Spain (with their stork nests on churches and fields of sunflowers), and the barricades set up by revolutionaries in Portugal to stay at a beach house that belonged to some friends of theirs. That was the first summer I ever remember getting sunburned.

I went to Mexico on school related trips twice in high school and once while attending BYU. Spanish Education was one of my majors (though I dropped it later), and I lived in the Spanish House one spring term, and then a group of us went down to Obregon in Sonora and stayed there for a short while.

Carolina Valdez Miller asked,

"What is your number one goal in life?"                     To follow my Savior
"Where do you see yourself in five years?"               Writing and being a mom
"What is one thing you like to have while writing?"   Salt and Pepper Pistachios

Karen G asked, "Where do you live?"

I live in a small valley between Mesquite and Las Vegas, Nevada, in the desert. If you walked straight out my backdoor, you'd cross the railroad tracks into the desert, and you wouldn't run into any houses, not for days.

And Jackee asked, "What do you like/dislike about where you live?"

I love the people, and I love that I can garden year round here. I like that we get lizards crawling on our window screens, but I'm not so crazy about Arizona bark scorpions sneaking into our house. I love the weather in fall, winter and spring, but I want to move anywhere else in the summer. The temperatures get over 120 degrees F.

10 comments:

  1. Hi Myrna, wow the desert! Please forgive if this is a dum question, but where does your water come from? Is there underground wells or something?

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  2. It's a great question, Niki! We do have underground water. The valley where I live used to be marshy, so the settlers drained the water into a reservoir, using a canal and ditches to irrigate their fields. That system is still in place, but we use the water for domestic purposes as well now. I actually live in on the edge of a beautiful green spot in the middle of the desert. My front yard is marshy enough to attract frogs, water fowl, and all kinds of bugs, and my backyard has sand, lizards, and scorpions.

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  3. Myrna, this is so interesting. Where you live sounds lovley. I'm so sorry about your scorpions, though. Uggh.

    Amy

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  4. Thanks, Amy. Ben even thinks the scorpions are beautiful.

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  5. I love the picture of the stork nest. And although I knew your father flew planes, I didn't put that together with lots of traveling until you mentioned it. Very, very cool.

    Oh, and I like how you used Mesquite as a reference point, as if we're this thriving metropolis:)

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  6. Those giant nests are one of my favorite memories of Europe, Krista. I wish I could take my kids places the way my parents took us. Right now, I have to let books take them to the far away places, which isn't the same, but it's better than nothing.

    Las Vegas isn't exactly "thriving" either.

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  7. I'm afraid of those scorpions! But the rest sounds wonderful! (We used to live in Rancho Mirage (the desert, near Palm Springs) from the time I was 6 to 11. I never did see a scorpion, though!

    =)

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  8. Thank you! Now I do know someone who lived with purple leaves. That tree sounds beautiful. Now I'd just like to find someone with a forest of them...

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  9. We have a couple of dark purple flowering plum trees in our yard and I just love them. They're a beautiful contrast to all the green in the summer.

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  10. 120 is not even cool. Thanks for sharing your gardening soul with us! :o)

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