It's been a long Summer. Life in Deception gulch has been interesting. Jerome has become a bona fide tourist town. Actually, it has been moving in that direction for several years now, but with the economy in the shape it's in more people are showing up every day.
It doesn't adversely effect us down here in the Gulch. At least not directly. With a little planning we can make our daily visit to the post office without too much outside interference. It used to be that a local could just tend to stay low on the weekends and pretty much have the town back to "normal" (a term used very loosely here) during the week days. Now it just ain't so.
I really am not complaining. The town can certainly use the revenue and the quality of merchandise available in the shops has improved significantly over the past 20 years. I don't think you can buy a rubber tomahawk in town any more. There's just too many strangers wandering around these days. It wasn't so long ago I could walk up town and at least recognize every third or fourth person I saw. Those days are fading into the history of the town.
However, it is still one of the best communities I've had the pleasure to live in.
Life in Deception Gulch tends to move on at its own pace. We had a neighbor's cat go A.W.O.L. for almost 72 hours but I'm happy to report the critter decided to return home and the cat patrol has been able to stand down. A couple fo fall/winter gardens are starting to show some promise. The paradise and black walnut trees are changing color and dropping leaves.
The only real sad news is that the hummingbird population has dropped off dramatically. I knew it could not last, but this year our house finally rated top billing with the little creatures. I was going through about a gallon of sugar water a day there for a while and it was great fun! In past years the hummers have shown a decided preference to our neighbor's feeders. A decided difference! We would walk down to his house in the afternoon or early evening and there would be 30 to 50 birds hitting on his feeders. While on our property we would have about a half dozen. Not this year, though! They finally decided to have the party at our house and it was great fun!
Music is in the air again. I've been managing to play an afternoon gig at one of the local pubs on the weekend once or twice a month. Getting my chops back in the hopes of actually putting an album together. It's been a dream for a long time. Practice, practice, practice!
I'll see if I can't come up with more interesting tidbits on a more regular basis.
Thanks for dropping by...
T.F.O.T.H.
