A Tombstone Tour

Main Street Tombstone

Main Street Tombstone © 2102 Bo Mackison

Tombstone, Arizona was a rough silver-mining town made famous by the O.K. Corral gunfight involving the famed cowboy family, The Earps.  Today, you can still hear gunfire in the streets, but it is only from re-enactments staged at a variety of locations. Tombstone is proud of its Old West history, and has worked hard to maintain the National Historic Landmark District designation it received in 1961.

Boardwalk, Main Street

Boardwalk, Main Street © 2012 Bo Mackison

At one time, Tombstone had a bowling alley, four churches, an ice house, a school, two banks, three newspapers, and an ice cream parlor. Of course, this was the Wild West and Tombstone also claimed 110 saloons and 14 gambling halls. Must have been a wild place in the strongest sense of the word.

Big Nose Kate's Saloon

Big Nose Kate's Saloon © 2012 Bo Mackison

You’ve got to love any saloon named for a big nosed proprietor. In this case, Big Nose Kate takes the honors. Today the saloons serve more food than drink, but it was busy with tourists on the Sunday afternoon I walked through town.

Golden Eagle Brewery 1879

Golden Eagle Brewery 1879 © 2012 Bo Mackison

Originally known as the Golden Eagle Brewing Company, this was one of Tombstone’s first saloons, occupying a small lot. The brewery was in another structure at the rear of this restored building. There was a devastating fire at the brewery in 1883  and the building was quickly rebuilt and re-named  the Crystal Palace Saloon.

Tombstone Consolidated Mines Company

Tombstone Consolidated Mines Company © 2012 Bo Mackison

Tombstone was one of the last wide open frontier boom towns in the United States, the epitome of the American wild west legend. Silver was discovered in 1877, and over the next 13 years, 85 million dollars of silver was mined in the area. It was the largest silver production operation in Arizona.

Historic Cochise County Courthouse

Historic Cochise County Courthouse © 2012 Bo Mackison

History is preserved, time stands still in the true old West at Tombstone Courthouse State Historic Park. The courthouse was built in 1882 at a cost of nearly $50,000. It was a modern and stylish building as well as the symbol of law and order in these turbulent times. It housed the offices of the sheriff, recorder, treasurer, and the board of supervisors. The jail was at the rear, under the courtroom.

Courthouse

Cochise Courthouse Historic Park © 2012 Bo Mackison

Tombstone was the county seat from 1882 until 1929, when Bisbee had enough votes to move the county seat further southeast, and the county seat was moved there. The building was vacant until 1955 when the Tombstone Restoration Commission purchased the land and courthouse. The Courthouse was restored and developed development as a historical museum. No longer under the State Park auspices, it is operated jointly by the City of Tombstone and the Tombstone Chamber of Commerce.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC, living and photographing in southern Arizona. She visited Tombstone a few days ago, town of Western lore, cowboys, and gunfights, and this is what she photographed.

 

Reflections on Colors and Shapes

Reflections in Two Windows

Reflections in Two Window - Spring © 2012

I found I could say things with colors and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way — things I had no words for. ~ Georgia O’Keeffe

Two windows — one with a gauzy white curtain, and the other, small, squared off, sealed off with rough laid blocks. Yet the casement is painted in happy colors, bright pink, deep blue. Hand-painted curlicues, curly Cs with a freshness,  a surety, a promise of decorations and celebrations.  Even life is represented in the greens of the aloe and the tree branches, dense with life sustaining yellow buds.

An open window, a closed window, bright colors, artistic flair, living things, the burst of spring. Life is full.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC, living and photographing in southern Arizona. She visited Tombstone a few days ago, town of Western lore, cowboys, and gunfights, and this is what she photographed. Details.

Wilderness is not a Luxury

Desert Globe Mallow

Desert Globe Mallow © 2012 Bo Mackison

Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of human spirit. ~ Edward Abbey

The desert expands and seeps into my vision,
the floor is ocean, odd twisted creatures,
and the cactus-corals are prescient.

When the ocean — tiding by lunar pull — disappears
the desert returns, a remnant of ancient ocean,
fossil, a testimonial embedded in rock,
geologic band of aquatic life remembered only in stone.

I too will be remembered only in stone.

When I swim too far from the shore of this desert,
stray into the repeating saguaro-ocotillo wilderness,
I stop, afraid to cross the sand arroyo

Descend into this dry bed,
and reach the blooming oranges and yellows that thrive on the edges.
I take my chances, there are times I cannot manage.

Waiting,
shadows are longest when the sun heaves herself
onto the desert floor and again when she
slips off the desert and drops from the horizon.

Even the longest shadows disappear in the
blotting dark of night,
dark skies are coming — no
they are here.

This cold monument to the dark,
desert monolith, see the shooting star emerge from clouds,
momentary, streak of light, I blink and it is gone.
Or was it even there?

I rub creosote leaves between my index finger and thumb,
smell the pungent aroma of preservative,
lie down to rest upon the packing quilt, a U Haul relic,
and wait for the desert to spit her rain.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC, living and photographing in southern Arizona.

Double Trouble – Mama Feeding Baby Hummingbirds

Mama Feeding Baby Hummingbirds - Double Trouble

Mama Feeding Baby Hummingbirds - Double Trouble © 2012 Bo Mackison

Spent the morning at the Desert Museum just west of Tucson. I wandered into the Hummingbird Aviary to see if there were any babies. And yes, I did find a pair of Costa’s hummingbird babies that looked as if they were nearly big enough to fledge.

I’m not much of a bird watcher nor a bird photographer, but I couldn’t resist the show these two hummingbird babies put on. The one baby is larger, and kept leaning onto its sibling’s shoulders — do birds have shoulders? — trying to push up front and get Mama’s attention, and more food.

"Mama, I'm Starving!"says Baby Hummingbird

"Mama, I'm Starving!" © 2012 Bo Mackison

Even when the mother was feeding the less aggressive baby, the other one was always at the ready, beak open wide, as if to say petulantly, “Mama, I am starving! Feed ME!” A couple of times the larger baby pecked at the mama, and she pushed it aside. What a circus! She must be ready for them to fly away soon.

Baby Hummingbirds Awaiting Mama

Babies Waiting Mama's Return © 2012 Bo Mackison

Once the mama left the nest, darting up and down throughout the aviary collecting invisible insects, the babies snuggled together, and looked almost content. Content and alert, watching for their lunch-mobile mama to come back.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC, living and photographing in southern Arizona.

Spanish Bayonet in Bloom

Spanish Bayonet Agave in Bloom

Spanish Bayonet in Bloom © 2012 Bo Mackison

The Spanish Bayonet has many common names, plus an out of date genus name and a corrected genus name. One look at this eye catching plant, and it is understandable why it has attracted much attention (and many names, too.)

The name that seems the most fitting is that of Spanish Bayonet. While the literature reports the sharp tipped leaves as “dangerously rigid” and states it was named after a bayonet because of its dagger like tendencies, I cannot help but think that the lovely red tips also influenced this name. As I have been (unintentionally) stabbed by one of these daggers, and as this unfortunate contact drew blood from my arm faster than a needle, I associate the Spanish Bayonet with blood letting tendencies.

Spanish Bayonet

And It Grows © 2012 Bo Mackison

This used-to-be yucca, now a hesperoyucca, still bears names from its misidentified yucca past — chapparal yucca ( yucca growing in a chapparal habitat) and foothill yucca (obviously named) and it is even called the common yucca, though it is no such thing. (Though “common hesperoyucca” is rather a mouthful.) The Spanish Bayonet was only found to be a misidentified plant through DNA testing, so one can hardly fault any of the yucca names. It is similar to a yucca in looks, but only distantly related.

Blooming Sotolillo

Blooming Ten Feet High! © 2012 Bo Mackison

This plant and its relatives, the agaves and yuccas, are some of the most conspicuous plants in the arid Southwest, not only because its plant form is highly attractive and frequently used in xeriscaping, but also because its flower (or inflorescence – what the flowering stalk is called) is hard to miss.I find them attractive nuisances, because when I see them flowering along the highways, I want to either look — a definite no-no — or stop and take photographs.

The Spanish Bayonet blooms only once, after it spends its lifetime accumulating enough sugars and starches to provide the fuel for the rapid development of its shooting floral stalk. This type of plant is called a monocarpic — it spends its life energy to produce one huge floral stalk which then sets a huge quantity of seeds. The plant’s cause of death is most commonly ‘setting flower’.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC, living and photographing in southern Arizona. She cannot resist the occasional botany lecture interspersed with relevant photographs.