Star One Smart Blog's

This is an overlay of the Wallow Fire (from here), as of late last night, with Middle Tennessee superimposed at the same scale for reference. Burned: so far, 607 square miles, as of this morning.

All of the terrain consumed in this fire was Ponderosa Pine and Aspen, at high-altitude (7000 to 8000 ft.), and amazingly rugged and beautiful. This fire is a disaster.

Here's a photo I took in 2005, 3 years after the Rodeo-Chediski fire consumed a large swath of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in 2002 (some 690 sq. mi.). You can see the limited regrowth, but it was then a barren wasteland.

After Rodeo-Chediski, near Joe Tank Rd.

This, also from circa 2005, is/was located just south of Eagar, near Nutrioso.

White Mountains High Country

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How do you know...that you are alive? And, if you are a bomb, can you be talked out of detonating by forced exploration of your existential phenomenology?

Bomb # 20...

Dark Star, of course...John Carpenter's first movie. 1974.

Let's have some music in here, Boiler!


(Benson, Arizona starts at 45 seconds in)

Oh...this is The End...

Usually this cactus is finished blooming in the spring, May or so. Imagine my surprise when, on one of the hottest days of this year, another blooms shows up...


Just a non-native Opuntia laughing at the misery of the local biota...


C'mon, don't be such a Prickly Pear!


(Hmmm...that's why I like 'em, huh?)

I'll have a buy a sack full of these things, when they come out.

Here's your chance to rank the quarter design, one to five, on all five coins designs...all of which are presented on their merits.

At first quick glance, I'm definitely drawn to AZ-1 and AZ-3. AZ-2 seems to split designs of both AZ-1 and 3, throwing a bone to both the Grand Canyon/High Desert motif of AZ-1 and the Saguaro Cactus/Low Desert design of AZ-3, and as such looks a little 'busy'. AZ-4 shows the Powell Expedition, running the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, and while that is a facinating bit of history, it's not anywhere near what Arizona should use on it's national quarter. People run that river every day, and while doing so in wooden boats seems somewhat risky, for 1869, who cares if Powell did it first? And, we don't know if Powell was first...Leif Erikson might have beat him to it.

AZ-5 is highly charged (as a matter of fact, it could be interpreted as a couple of insurgents wiring a bomb). The depiction of WWII 'Code Talkers' gathered around a radio is much too narrow to reflect Arizona's history, and doesn't even potray any Arizona's physical magnificence (it's not like we're talking about New Jersey, here). Sure, it's politically correct, throwing bones to the right causes, but that's not the purpose of this particular Commemorative Coin. This is 25¢ worth of State Advertising, and AZ-5's 'Code Talkers' isn't broad enough to show off Arizona. Might as well show off the USS Arizona.

Saguaro Cactus are "Low Desert" dwellers, where they flourish, for now. Long-lived giants...you won't see an 'arm' bud until the cactus is 75 years old, and those huge monsters you see on these coin are some 200 years old.

Saguaros have a delicate ecological balance, and enemies include any frost, a strong wind, cattle grazing, and human "cactus rustlers" (for their landscaping projects). If one lives 200 years plus, one needs to have one's likeness on a coin. And, it's unlikely humans will have any impact on the Grand Canyon, (unless New York City needs a new landfill) but with the pressure on ecology that's a given with human overpopulation, the Saguaro species has it's clock running, just like every other species (including humans) on this here planet.

So, with that in mind, I'll have to rank AZ-3 as my top choice.