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Northern AZ Living Wildlife, Weather, & Dark Skies with Kirsten Olson (Part 2

[00:00:00] Welcome back to part two of Kirsten and Judith. As we start talking about living in the community, what it's like living in the small town area, and we really talk about what it takes to be part of the community and how much this is a very welcoming community. So find out why we feel like that. And Verde Valley means Green Valley, but it's Oh, Spanish. It's in Green Valley. Yes, it is. It is. So Verde is, is Spanish Valley is English. They really like messing up this here. Wow. We are really going all over the Yes, we're fun. And I hope you'd love the video. Please be. I mean, it's, it's how I think that I, that's part of what I love living here is I come from a really small town, like I said, 700 people.

And living here on either the Mingus Prescott side Yeah. Of the Mingus Mountains. Or on the Verde Valley side of the Mingus Mountains. It has that awesome, [00:01:00] friendly small town. Oh gosh. Yeah. Welcome you. Yeah. To help you out. Yeah. let's look for your lost dog. Yeah. Oh yeah. Whatever. Oh yeah. I mean, you need something.

Come to my house. I'll give you a cup of sugar. It's not. It's not like the cities. It's not like Phoenix. I've never felt connected when I lived in the valley. That's what we call Phoenix area. Here I feel at home, I feel like I got neighbors. I can talk to people, and I know people who have lived there their whole life.

Generations think that it's gotten way too big and it's not friendly and things happen. And somebody did comment on that in regards to Jerome, but here's what we need to remember. If it's not growing, it's dying. And Seligman would be a great example of that because Route 66 Yeah. Kept all those little towns alive.

And when they built the 40, yeah, the interstate and cut those off, those towns died. Down to almost nothing. And when you go there, it's so [00:02:00] sad because there's some darling homes there and things like that, but there's no, there's nothing to keep there. Keep them alive there. Industry, there's no industry.

There's no industry. Yeah. And people are not moving to live there and here, people want to live here. People want to retire here, people wanna raise their kids here. You just have that great small town. Yeah. Everybody is your neighbor, kind of feel. Well, and that's true. That's my opinion. True. Well, and so growing up here, what my dad used to tell folks coming is that literally from the Prescott area, we were about six hours away from the ocean, two hours away from skiing and two hours away from the metropolitan area.

So you could basically cover everything and anything that you wanted within a few hours. The other benefit that we have, and I'm sure you've already discussed it, is the weather. Oh my God, yes. The weather. Let's talk about the weather. We weather. And I love your area because your area, we'll get some snow here and we've had up to like three feet of snow here.

Yes. It's hit and miss. We've shut, they've shut [00:03:00] down Prescott. Yeah. Yeah. They've shut it down. The town of Prescott, like do not come to town. Just don't drive. It won't be open. Just don't drive. Yeah, just don't drive because they don't have snowplows and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Like we have, where I come from in the Midwest where they're like, you just follow the track of five snowplows, and please understand, we, we don't, we, we sand, we don't ice.

We, we sand and we cinder and that's it. So the roads stay off the roads. The roads can be a little, a little hair your area. Is amazing because you have beautiful weather. All year long and it allows you to do whatever you want to whenever you want to. Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. It's absolutely gorgeous over there.

It did get a little hot this last summer, however, again, it still cools down in the evening. Oh yeah. And I kind of, you know, it's like if you wanna get out and do activities Yeah. It, there's a lot of places that people go to swim over there. I haven't found all the swimming holes in Verde Valley in Camp Verde.

I guess there's a bunch. I gotta find them. And there's some in Sedona. I, yeah, you have springs over there. [00:04:00] Yeah. I'm like, I haven't found 'em all. No. My husband knows 'em all. Well, I'll have to talk to him. Your your trophy husband. Because I saw a reel on Instagram and I'm like, Hey, there's hot springs.

He's like, yeah, I've been there. And I'm like, well, how come we don't go. He's like, well, I'll take it. I'm like, okay. Hey, let's do this. Yeah, yeah. That hasn't happened yet. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. And the the fun part is, is that we do have four seasons. Yeah. On both sides of the mixed mountain range. We have right now driving through the Verde Valley, camp Verde and around, it's like this glorious flame.

Oh, it's gotta be gorgeous, orange red and, and just golden brown. Yeah. It's just so beautiful. And if you come over. Interstate. Is it Interstate 17 i 17 Uhhuh. You come over. It's Interstate I 17 and you're heading towards Flagstaff. On 17 And you're coming into the Verde Valley? Yeah. It just is spread out in front of you.

This glorious, like all these beautiful fall colors. Oh. And then in the [00:05:00] summer, even when it's like really dry, because they have underground springs everywhere. There's so much underground water. Well you, you have the river. We do. But you don't ever see the river. No, not hardly ever. But it's that. I was gonna say, it should be flowing pretty good.

I would say January, February, I trade in there. Yeah, it does. It does. But even in the middle of the summer when it's super hot. Yeah. You come over that mountain and you're coming down into Verde Valley, it's like this green just spread out in front of you. Oh, it's so gorgeous. It's so gorgeous. And then you look up and you see the Red Rocks and it's just this, it's so gorgeous.

Amazing drive. Yeah. Sorry, we got off on subject there. Yes. Well, you know, that's. That's the joy of living here. That's why we like, yeah, no, that's why we love living here. Yeah. That's why we love working here. Yeah. That's why we wanna encourage people to come live here. I feel bad, I mean, a lot of people move outta state and usually it's because they wanna be closer to family.

That may be back east or in the Midwest or something like that. But a lot of people. They're either upsizing or downsizing. Correct. They're not [00:06:00] leaving and, and that's a misnomer. I think that people think everybody's coming from California to live here. No, no, they're not. So, so this is, tell me about that.

This is funny. Okay, so 'cause you do, I mean, you know. Yeah. So the majority, what we see happen, and this is really interesting, is that we see people coming from Miss Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and they moved to er, uh, Phoenix. Because it's just warm. And if they come in the wintertime, we had to thaw out.

Yeah. In the wintertime, they're, they don't wanna plow snow, they don't wanna shovel it, they don't wanna drive in it, so they go down there. They love it because the temperatures down in Phoenix are warmer and they're drier. They do that about, I'm gonna say four years, and then they realize they missed the seasons.

And so then what we see on an average is 7,000 of them moving up from the valley into Northern Arizona because they want the seasons. They want to see the colors change. Yes. They want to feel and everything else. Yes. But I was also gonna say too, you've got to be having amazing skies at night over there.

Oh yes. Oh yeah. 'cause we are not huge cities and so therefore, right. You get the stars at night, it's [00:07:00] amazing to walk out your back patio just to go. Wow. Well, and that reminds me that on the Verde Valley side, it's a dark sky community. A lot of it. Really? Yes. Cottonwood has restrictions on how much illumination you can do on your house.

And on your businesses. I didn't know that. And Sedona is very much a dark sky community. All the businesses even, you know, where there's shopping and bars and what, and you are restricted on how much light you can do. And there's no street lights in most of the suburban areas. And we have a, not Kirsten and I, but my, myself and Dennis have a vacation rental in Sedona.

Okay. And we have people coming into that at night. A lot of times pitch dark, they can't find it 'cause it's pitch freaking dark. There's no street lights. Right? There's, they're not allowed. And you can't really put lights on the house either. And even in Prescott, I remember this when I was doing property management that there are some.

[00:08:00] Subdivisions here. Yeah. That you cannot have garage lights on. No. Because of the dark sky. Yeah. They want to be able to see the night sky. Yeah. And, and I don't know why and if somebody scientifically can tell me how this works. Okay. Okay. We have the best sunrises. Oh, and the best sunset. Oh, we do, don't we?

I'm like, I have several in some of my videos and I'm like. I mean, you just can't get enough. They're so glorious. They're they are, they're so glorious. Yeah. Like I, maybe it's 'cause we don't have clouds very often. I don't know. I don't know. I get excited when we get monsoons though. Love the rain. I know.

We love it when, when we see clouds we're like, oh, well, you know, it's, it's nice 'cause I think we have like so much sun and I wanna say it's, it's not 365, but it feels like it's 365. I do get so excited when we start getting the seasons changing. Yes. Like the rain. The rain right now. Oh, now it's beautiful.

It's chilly. It's gorgeous. It's cool, but it's not that cool. No, it's cool for sleeping. Yes. You up in the morning, it's like in the high fifties. Yes. In the afternoon it gets [00:09:00] up like to the eighties, low eighties. Right. And then it cools down again at night and you're. Oh my God. Like perfect. You're, well, this is kind of funny.

So you're gonna see people like me who are wearing like a little bit of a layered look and then you're gonna have other people wearing shorts right now because we are at a different temperature as the day goes. Yes. It's a lot of layering. Yes. Layering is, we love layering, we love layering, and usually I have as.

Sweater or a coat in my car for that very reason. Yeah, you do that. I'll start out with a sweater on and then it's like, oh, by lunchtime I'm taking everything. Not everything. Clothes are coming off. Yeah, things are coming off. Layers are coming off. And so again, you've been here a long time. Yeah. Tell me some of your favorite things to do here in Prescott Verde Valley.

Why would, why, why would you want people to live here? You know what's really funny? Okay. So growing up here. Majority of people when they come to Arizona don't think we have water. And it is kind of funny is I have family and cousins that live on the East coast and I asked them one year, I said, you guys have these horrible, horrible snow storms where there [00:10:00] ice and you have no electricity and you see it on the news and you're like, how are you guys surviving?

And then I realized what a stupid question that was. 'cause people go, how do you guys live in that hot temperature? And I'm like, it's not like we, it's all relative. Yeah. It's, it's, it's not like we're in some cave waiting for it to pass. Not only do we have warmer temperatures sometimes, but we have air conditioning.

And then like in my cousin's case, when I asked How do you guys survive in these ice storms? She's like, we have generators. We don't have that. We actually have water here. And which is really interesting because we like to kayak. And in our area over here, we are surrounded by at least, I think it's four lakes right now that you can go on and kayak.

But on your side you have the river to kayak and you have, Sedona. Oh. I can't remember what it's called either, but I know what you're talking about. The slide rock. Yes, yes. Which you guys can actually go play in the water and most people don't realize that. That there is water. So it's, you grew up fishing, you grew up [00:11:00] kayaking, you grew up hiking, you grew up, you grew up inner tubing down the river.

Oh, tubing down the Yes. Just going and swimming. Yes. And so I said I haven't found all the swimming holes. I'm gonna be working on that. , I'm not really into swimming so much anymore. But I used to be and I hike. I wanna find it, but it's nice hike. It's, it's nice hikes, I will say. So speaking of hikes, and I have this.

On video. I didn't know about this creek in Sedona that you just referred to. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So my son and I, he was here in April and we were hiking and we just randomly picked a place to go hike. I'm just like, okay, let's go here. And we walked down into like the ravine. Yeah. And. There were other people hiking.

We saw them and we passed each other, and then we come down and we're coming over the edge. I'm going pretty sure I hear water. What was that? And we go down there and these people are down there, skinny dipping. Oh. I'm like, oh my, Hey you. Oh yeah. It's like, yeah, there was a lot of water. I took video. I'm like, there is water.

Just so you [00:12:00] know, we have water. We have water. And it's not all underground though. We have a ton of underground water. That's where most of it is. Yeah. So it's not like, and they're underground rivers, not little pockets, but they're rivers and people don't understand that. I didn't know that when I first came here.

I'm like. I, I came from Minnesota. Okay. Land of 10,000 Lakes and every puddle had a name. No, no. That's not here. No, that's it. Every mountain, every little peak has a name here. Yes. But it was really very reassuring to number one, sea Lake. Yeah. And sea water, like rivers, creeks things. And it was also reassuring to find out that most of our rivers are water that we tap into with wells are underground.

And I'm like, okay, cool. We're good. So people worry about that because it's a desert. But you know, when you come here, you don't feel like it's a desert here. No. And that was something I learned. Yeah. We're [00:13:00] high desert. Yeah. Is what they call it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not the Phoenix area, which really is a desert.

No. We got pine trees and stuff like that. Yes. And CHUs. Now do you get wildlife over there? Oh yeah. Yeah. Do you? Oh, yeah. What do you get? Well, we get, I have to be careful when I go out hiking. Okay. Because we've seen bobcats, javelinas coyotes, mule deer. Wow. what else have I seen? IESs, obviously quail, skunks.

I have not seen a skunk. I try to avoid those and I do bring, like my walking sticks, not just to help me walk, but I can make clacking noises and usually scares them away. what else have I seen out there? Those are the main things, and that's just like right in Cottonwood. Isn't that funny? The city of Yeah.

They have adjusted to us better than we have adjusted to them. Yeah. and I, where I am in Cottonwood, the Yavapai County, Yavapai Community College is right [00:14:00] behind where we live. Okay. Just like literally walking distance. Okay. Well then we have the Mingus Mountain range. Oh, gorgeous. Right there.

Absolutely gorgeous. And I go up there and hike a lot too. No, I have not come across a rattlesnake and here's that does concern me. I try to hike and stay on the trail. If it's during the heat of the day, like if it's hot, they're not gonna be out too much. If it's cold, they're not gonna be out. No. So I try to kind of pick those times, pick those times where it's too hot or too cold.

Yeah. Because they're reptiles, you know? Yeah. They can't move and they don't wanna die if they're in the heat too much. So. If you stay on the trail, they're not stupid either. They don't wanna mess with you anymore than we want to mess with them. So I have not run across a, rattlesnake. Thank you Lord Jesus dogs.

Yes, yes. no cats, but dogs, people let their dogs run Well, yeah. And I'm like, I always stop because I don't know. Well, you don't know how the dogs gonna react. No, I'm actually more worried about the dog than the coyotes. Well, if they're out there [00:15:00] running around, they can deal with the coyotes. Yeah, the dogs can.

Yeah. But I'm like, I worry more about the ki A dog attacking me than a coyote if it's out loose. Yeah. 'cause that's happened. so. Anyway, but, yeah, coyotes don't wanna deal with us either. And so yeah, there's a lot of life. There's a lot of wildlife. I love it. I do too. I actually do. I really do. I love it.

I like, I don't, I in the quails and I, all of the stuff, I love the Javelinas. I don't mess with Javelinas, but I love seeing them. I don't know why, but I think Javelinas are super cute. See, I don't agree with that at all. No, they're ugly. They're, they're, I love them. They're stupid, ugly, smelly things. No. Oh no.

I know you probably like the babies too. I do. I like them all. No. And they cry. No, no. You know. No. 'cause they grew up on a farm and I think, well, and here's the thing, if you don't know what a Javelina is, it's a wild pig. It's not. It's it's a rodent. There's another reason not to like 'em. They're rodent.

Actually, I looked it up. 'cause people think they're pigs. [00:16:00] They're not pigs. I thought they were like just a wild pig. No, they're not. You know what's really funny is I look these things up. They're not, we're look it right now. So if you like to hunt. Oh, you can hunt javelinas. You can hunt javelinas. And I'm like, from what I understand, you have to cook those a really, really long time.

Probably before they get good. Well, yeah, just put 'em on the slow cooker. They'll be good tomorrow maybe. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's kind of any kind of game that you might eat because there's very little fat on them. No. Yeah, and that's why Yeah, they're good meat, but it's a lot tougher meat than what we eat.

That has a lot of fat on it, beef and pork and that, right? They're like, all because the fat is what makes the meat. Sorry, we really digress here. I know we're totally off the board. Makes the meat, makes the meat juicy and cook basket. So do you guys hunt like elk and, and, Elk and deer over there. Yeah.

Oh, do you? They do. Okay. And you know, you, they have a place up in Jerome. And it's funny, we ran into our neighbor from the valley when Dennis and I were [00:17:00] out on our bikes. That happens. That happens a lot. That happens a lot. We rode our bikes up to the, mine. Yeah. In, in Jerome parked them and we're like.

Watching people go up this road like past where the mine is. I'm like, what are they doing? All of a sudden this person comes down and they see us and they recognize us and they pull over and Dennis is like, hi, it's our neighbor from the Valley. That's funny. And we're like, what are you doing here? And he goes, we're Javelina hunting up here.

Mm. So up in Jerome, up in the mountains past. Okay. The mine kind of up there. You gotta have a four wheeler to get in and outta there. They're hunting javelinas. Wow. Why, why do they hunt quail? Cool. Yeah, they hunt quail. Yeah. So there's definitely a lot of places you can do that. A lot of there's a lot of.

Forests there. Yeah. And a lot of, protected land. So again, just like any place in any other state, that's where you hunt. You get your permits, you get so many you can get, and then you go hunting during certain seasons when you drive over, are you driving I 17

or you driving over Jerome? Depends on [00:18:00] my mood. I like the Jerome drive. I think it's beautiful. I, I drive the Jerome Road from time, most of the time. I will not do it at night. I drove it one time. I, I, I did it one time at night and I was scared to death because there's mule deer crossing all the time. And one time I saw a small black bear and I felt so bad for the little thing.

It was a baby. You didn't stop. And he was trying, well.

Yeah, baby, you're so cute. Can you stop? She's got the baby bear in the back of the car. I know she knows me an animals, but I'm like, I felt bad for it because it was such a sheer area and narrow and there's cars going, and I was on the outside 'cause I was heading back over to, and I'm like, please little bear.

A little bear find. He just kept going along and there's a baby. There's a mom. Somewhere. Yeah, somewhere. But he finally found a place where he could scramble up. But I felt so bad for, I would hate to have seen that bear squashed on the road. Oh see that. But I also would hate to be the one that hit him. She's out there holding the bear up.

You could do it. You could do it. That would be me. Keep going. Come on baby. [00:19:00] You back in the car. Get back in the car, you're gonna get eaten. Get back in the car. Mama's coming. Mom's coming. Mama's coming. Yeah. Yeah. So they're mule deer. I've crossed and you have to watch. And I am from the Midwest where there are a lot of deer.

So it's like if you see one stop. There's gonna be a couple more usually. Yeah. So you look, do you see two more on that side or wherever they went to? Right. And sometimes I don't realize why somebody in front of me is, Hey have off. Oh yeah. Oh, then I go, oh deer. Oh deer. Well, and I'll tell you, I will tell you, so 69 Highway 69, coming into Prescott is the main thoroughfare.

And you will see people stop. And if they stop, it's usually because there's wildlife somewhere. Crossing the, crossing the road. Ah, yeah. It'll be geese. That's a big one. Yeah. Sometimes quail. Yeah. But they usually get a little scared and fly. But yeah, sometimes ducks are a lot more like, do, do Yeah. You know?

Yeah. You wait for me and my babies. , I'm trying to think what else I've seen crossing, but you have to really pay attention to the wildlife here. Yeah, you do. And it's, it, this is their [00:20:00] world too. So don't, but they get, but they usually stay out of our way. They do. They do. Yeah. I, I really don't worry. though, I will say coyotes came into our yard in Phoenix.

Really? Yeah. Huh. Well, and that's the other thing. People have a missed, from what I understand, coyotes can jump six feet. They actually jumped, I think it was at least an eight foot. Really? A crew of them. And the reason that they did a crew of them, a pot, two of them. A whole pack. A whole pack. Bad boys and, well, yeah, they were bad boys, but it's not their fault because the bog where they lived and hunted, caught on fire.

Oh, so they're just moving, they were just trying to find food. Yeah. And unfortunately. Yeah, they came into our little subdivision and saw him run in on the walls. Oh, wow. Our walls were, they're looking for, they're looking for pets at, were eight feet tall. Oh, yeah. They got mines looking. Oh, I'm so sorry. I know.

It was really sad. I'm so sorry. Yeah, it was a bummer. But we, at least they did. We scared him off before they took him. Okay. So I have his ashes. Okay, good. So, yeah. [00:21:00] But I've never had them come in yards here. Okay, so here's the thing, now that I've said that, please wear some water. Yeah. So here's the thing.

So growing up here, we didn't have air conditioning. And when I finally got married and we started building our own houses and moving, we live in Stone Ridge now. I now have cameras. Oh, never had 'em. I sleep with Windows open in the summer. I never had 'em. And I'm like, you know what? You know what? I just wanna see.

And it's really funny. You know what I caught on the camera. I caught a big old buck jumping my little four foot fence in my backyard. Yeah. And my husband's going out to the hot tub. He comes flying back into the house and I go, what? And he goes, there's a big buck in the backyard. I'm like, I live in Stone Ridge.

Really? Where? Where's it going? Yeah. It's like, why are you, why are you wandering over here? No. And now I'm like, so happy I have cameras. 'cause now I look for the wildlife coming and going in the yard. They're going in the yard. There you go. Exactly. Exactly. So, uh, yeah, we've kind of gone all over, but it's, it's, [00:22:00] it's part of what makes living here.

Awesome. Is because people like Kirsten who've lived there their whole life are very welcoming to people like myself who just moved here.

Well, again, I hope that you enjoyed that video. I know Kirsten and I kind of went off the rails a little bit there, but that's how it is here. We're very low key. We are not, um, stuffy people here. Small town living is a unique experience, so if you are liking what you're seeing and you're enjoying our video and our conversation.

Stay tuned for part three of the Kirsten and Judith interview.