That’s it! Thank you. It’s a native plant around here and we have no dogs or livestock to poison. I’ll leave it alone and let the bees feast 
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The road actually opened a few weeks ago: none of the campgrounds or hiking trials are, but you can stop at overlooks, and businesses in Summerhaven (a bad idea for other reasons, but).
I didn’t get a lot of pictures on the way up: at least on the southeast side (where Catalina Highway enters the range) the lower elevations were largely spared, at least those visible from the road. This is surely not true on the west side, or Ventana and Sabino Canyons.
It’s clear that a significant number of trees survived. I’m not 100% sure that all the trees with dead leaves are dead. Interestingly oaks are supposed to do better than pines, but where we were the fire was mostly restricted to the conifer elevations.
We were told that the fire damage was “spotty”, which was largely true, although the north side of the mountains definitely got it worst. I suspect because the trees on that side are smaller and brush higher.
Below is the fire station (on the far right) from this video:
Turning just a little bit to the left: looking more or less north.
Turning 180° and looking across the road: not sure if the fire came very close to this house or if that was an intentional firebreak.
As high as we could go on the mountain: the parking lot of the Iron Door restaurant. The undisturbed ski hill behind us with people taking the ski lift to the top: not sure if they were allowed to hike back down. Again, facing north.
Then driving south into and through Summerhaven: immediately past the houses more fire.
You can see the ferns already sprouting up.
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I live close to the Northeast Branch, and there’s a trash boom like this, but sadly no googly-eyed trash wheel. A few hundred feet away, though, there’s a sculpture of a hand, hewn from a tree trunk – I posted it a few months ago, w-a-a-a-y upthread…
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Measured, cut, fitted, chamfered, primed, cemented, doped & tightened!
Here’s why I know that “chamfer” is a word:
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/3d0743f4-4e65-4fef-ab5a-d209373311ac
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You are needed over at our house!
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I would be careful what you wish for… This took me all week, but some less-distractible person who knew what they were doing might’ve done it in a couple of hours.
Now, on to my other unfinished household projects:
- Finish hanging shelves in the closet that I started 3 months ago
- Paint the basement stairs that I prepped about 4 years ago
- Paint the bathroom where we left a swath of sample paint 4-6 years ago
- Install the trim around the laminate flooring that I installed almost 12 years ago
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Ah yes, I’m doing a similar covid-prep-the-house-for-sale dance.
I couldn’t get that kitchen drain to unscrew, and if I can’t do it in a day, I won’t hear the end of it. That’s a high use area.
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Probably the only reason I finished it as quickly as I did.
Not budging? I used a wrench there but it didn’t need a whole lot of force. And that’s right at the drain/strainer? (Until I worked on it a few days, I actually tried to unscrew a couple of fittings that, I later figured out, had been cemented & had no threads at all)
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This rather plump hummingbird has taken to perching on the clothesline in order to guard both feeders from interlopers. Birds are assholes.
ENHANCE!
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I have a little one who sits on a ficus that’s between two feeders spaced 12 feet apart. I watch it sit there and eyeball both feeders. Any other hummingbird who flies in the vicinity of either feeder gets chased off.
This got me wondering why one itty bird can be so threatening to the others, so I Googled. OMG. Apparently, the little shits will use their beaks as spears. 
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That was very so funny and incredibly fascinating.
We once found a tiny nest on a ornamental dealy-bob that we hung from the patio cover. It was soooo cute. I think they abandoned it because we never saw anything in it and it was positioned in a less than ideal spot.
Also, I think I need to move one of the feeders around the corner.
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