Joe and Mary Ann's personal web site

This post has the latest update to my yogurt recipe. After years of no problem with the pectin recipe, I had a mysterious problem of the yogurt not fermenting. In the process of fixing this, I discovered that if I use organic 2% milk, the yogurt thickens very nicely, with no thickener required (see the Thickener section below for more details). This surprised me – I didn’t expect that the organic milk would impact the thickness. But, I have lately been using this recipe with no thickener. I left the pectin recipe post alone (a link to it is here), and added this one. This recipe easier than the pectin recipe, because it eliminates the steps required to dissolve the pectin. It’s simple: just heat the milk, add the starter yogurt, and ferment in the yogurt makers. Why do I need a long post for that?

Mary Ann and I went up north to see the fall colors. Mary Ann had some days off, but we didn’t plan ahead. I’ve gone to Lockett Meadow many times for fall colors, which is a great spot. We decided to try something different this year. They had an early snow in the area on Tuesday, so we went on Wednesday. We thought it would be nice to see some snow before it melted, and get there as soon as we could after the snow, since the cold weather might cause the leaves to fall.

Mary Ann had a day off Thursday, and we spent a few hours at the Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch. We got there at 7:00 AM, and left at about 10:00 AM.

Mary Ann and I took a drive up to Mt. Ord on August 4, 2021. There was a wildfire in June last year, called the Bush Fire, which burned Mt. Ord, and closed the road. This was our first trip up since then. The fire damage wasn’t too bad where we went. In the foothills, we noticed manzanita bushes and some scattered trees burned. In the forested area, there were just a few fir trees burned.

This is the second post for our trip to the Huachuca Mountains, this time covering our time in Huachuca Canyon. We had breakfast in the hotel, and headed out early to Huachuca Canyon. We already had our pass for entry into Fort Huachuca, so we didn’t have to wait in line again to get one.

For our wedding anniversary (22 years, June 5) trip this year, Mary Ann and I travelled to the Huachuca Mountains. We drove to Garden Canyon on the first day, and stayed overnight in Sierra Vista. The next day we went to Huachuca Canyon. This post is about our first day in Garden Canyon.

On the second day of our trip, we went to the Old Safford Bridge in the Gila Box Riparian National Conservation Area. Old Safford Bridge is one lane over the Gila River, and serves a dirt road called the Black Hills Back Country Byway. It was built in 1918. It was about a 50 minute drive from the hotel.

Mary Ann and I went to Aravaipa Canyon on April 6. It’s a beautiful spot, and we try to go every year. You can enter the canyon on the east side or the west side. Permits are required to get into the canyon, and they limit it to 20 people per day, at each entry point. This year we went to the east side, which is a longer drive. We left Monday night after Mary Ann got off work, and stayed at the Quality Inn & Suites in Safford. It’s about a 3 hour drive to Safford. The next morning we drove to the the Aravaipa Canyon trailhead, which is about a 1.5 hour drive from the hotel.

A Streak-backed Oriole (SBO) has been seen recently at the Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch (RPWR) in Gilbert, so I decided to try my luck at photographing it. I arrived at RPWR at about 7 a.m., and left at around 10 a.m. The SBO is a rare visitor to Arizona from Mexico. A male was at RPWR in 2006, and created quite a stir. It was said to be the most photographed bird of 2006! This year, a female is visiting. I saw it close up, and got a definite identification, but not a decent photograph. It never came out for an unobstructed view. Then it flew to a high dormant tree, but it was still behind branches. I included a terrible photo of it – it’s the best I got! It flew away from that tree, and I couldn’t find it again.

Mary Ann and I went to the Boyce Thompson Arboretum (BTA) on Friday, February 26. We got a late start, and didn’t get there until about 11:00, which isn’t typically a good time for birding. We dropped off the new ‘Birds of Boyce Thompson Arboretum’ posters at the gift shop.