A Dead Mesquite

Alas, a prominent mesquite in our front yard died, victim of a type of pest that bores beneath the tree bark.  Very similar to the Emerald Ash Borer that took out so many of my Ohio ash trees.  But, I get to rent a chain saw and get to work so that is the upside.  Unfortunately, there are a lot of desirable plants around so I can't just drop it.  It's more of a limb by limb project but had Amy to help guide the fall of each piece via a rope as I cut.

I rented a saw for 4 hours but was only able to get half of the tree cut, which also threw off thousands of small branches that had to be burned.  The fire kind of got out of hand a couple of times. Next I'll rent the chain saw on the end of the pole to reach the higher branches.  All in, I'll probably have $150+ into the project but certainly much lower than hiring someone and denying me the fun of wood cutting.

We rode to the end of Speedway via that awesome new pavement.  The vehicles are overflow from the Douglas Springs trail head parking lot.

There's a famous dude ranch also at the end of the road and I wonder if they had some influence to have the road repaved.

We drove to Oro Valley to do a 47 mile ride with 2000'+ of climbing.  

The views coupled with many colors of wildflowers are grand.

I finished the week with 135 miles again and am in good enough shape that I think I'll try something epic for the new week. I first rode out Speedway to loosen my legs. More to come...