Leslie Prest, Owner, Assoc. Broker, ePro Prest Realty, Payson, AZ

This year I just can't get it together enough to be in a craft show. I'm getting calls from people wanting my candles, and I hate to disappoint, but we do what we have to do. We are managing almost 100 rentals this year, and we are BUSY! Maybe I'll make some cinnamon roll candles and sell them at the office!

Anyway- there are shows galore coming up in Payson.

The show I often participate in is the Presbyterian Church Show. It will be held this year at the Payson Senior Center, on W. Main Street.

Saturday, November 8th, from 8am to 2 pm.

There will be lots of homemade goodies,
Food, Santa, Music. COME AND ENJOY!

I will be adding more shows in the next day or two, so check back!

Xmas tree is from a large compilation graphics site:
http://www.hellasmultimedia.com

We took a couple of days last week, picked our sons up in Flagstaff, and drove to the North Rim. The drive takes you to within 30 miles of Page, then you turn west and climb up to the Rim. That is one long drive! The scenery is interesting, passing through Indian reservation, past the Vermillion Cliffs, across the Colorado at Lees Ferry, and then into the mountains. The North Rim is 8,000 to 9,000 ft. elevation.

The North Rim being so much higher in elevation, gets much colder (and sooner). We were there the 1st of October and the temperatures were 60s, but the park closes for the winter October 15th each year.

The evergreens are mostly fir and spruce. The elevation is too high for Ponderosas.

Even though the daytime temperatures were great, the nights had been cold enough to turn the aspen leaves yellow. In the middle of the day, with the sun on the leaves, they were so bright yellow it was if they glowed.

The North Rim park includes a lot of woods, one can backpack or camp in the park.

This is called Angel's Window. You can't tell well in the picture, but you can see the Colorado river through the "window". To give you scale, the little lines up on top of the end of the rock- those are people.

There are only three main areas for viewing the Canyon, at the North Rim. At this one, there is a walk to several points. One of the view areas requires a four-wheel drive vehicle and a lot of time, so we didn't visit it. Another trip.

We stayed in a cabin, right by the Rim and the Lodge. We had two rooms with a 3/4 bath for about what a motel would be. They take reservations a year in advance, but we got in with about a month's notice.

The Lodge has a gorgeous Dining Room, high ceilings and chandeliers, and very good food. It also has patios from which to watch the sunsets (crowded!)

With the North Rim 1,000 to 2,000 ft. higher than the South Rim, there are places where you can see over the South Rim and beyond.

To give you some scale- that part in the middle ground- it is several miles away, even though it looks close.

At one point a helicopter dipped down into the canyon. It looked the size of a bird.

Vacations are good for the soul! I know the economic situation is in melt-down, but I'm very glad we went when we did.

Yes, that time is here again. I'm a "hunting widow" for a few days. It's not that I don't understand the appeal of the woods...

It's just that, when my husband is gone I have to do everything myself. Not only at home, but since we own an office together and manage almost 100 rentals, all the work at the office falls to me also. Saturday morning brought the usual amount of rental inquiries. OK, I can handle this.

Saturday afternoon, though, brought two surprises. The first surprise was a call from a neighbor to a rental property. "Do you manage the property at______________?" That tells you it's a neighbor, and that it's not good. Seems the tenant moved out, left STUFF everywhere, and even left the doors wide open. The neighbor was actually quite helpful, and offered to close up for me. Since it looked like rain and the property is 6 miles out of town that was nice.
Second surprise- I got a call from a tenant who sounded upset. She hemmed and hawed awhile and finally said her boyfriend had taken a SHOT at her, and put a hole through the manufactured home's wall! As she talked, it became clearer. He (the resident, with her) was now the EX boyfriend, and she had brought another guy over to help her move out. She said yes, she HAD called the police, the guy was in jail. I heard today from someone with a police scanner that the situation had gone on for quite some time with a swat team called and everything. That should make the neighbors happy.

I went, later, to look at the trashed house. I don't think there is real damage, but the STUFF is strewn from one end of the lot to the other, with neighborhood dogs rooting through it. We'll have to file it abandoned, but we will get the trash picked up, for health and safety reasons, immediately.
At the other property, the hole is head height. She's lucky the hole wasn't in her head! The girl will give us her key, and we will file for immediate possession due to the boyfriend SHOOTING THROUGH THE WALL, and go request a court date.

And I got the extra fun of getting to call and tell both Owners about the situations. These kinds of situations are really very rare, in our property management, because we screen our tenants well. They had to happen on hunting weekend!

I got a call from my absent hubby today. He has to get to the right high spot on the Mogollan Rim to get cell phone service. He and our son are turkey hunting, but he said the only turkeys they saw were on ATVs. Great! Not only does he miss all the excitement, he also doesn't get a turkey! Oh, well, at least he's heading home this evening.

The "woods" pictures are actually from much further North than where he is hunting. They are from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, where we took a mini-vacation last week. He is hunting on the Mogollan Rim, about an hour North of Payson, AZ. It actually looks quite similar, except that the evergreens in the pictures are fir and spruce. Where he is hunting is lower elevation (about 6,000 ft. the Canyon is over 8,000) and has Ponderosa Pines. But both have those gorgeous aspens.

When we first moved to the Payson area, we lived in mobile home about two miles South of Star Valley (a small town four miles East of Payson). Now this put us OUT IN THE COUNTRY! we had all kinds of wildlife around. One morning a woodpecker woke us early banging on the metal roof. We had an owl perched near and calling one evening. And one night, in the Fall, I woke up and heard what sounded like a SCREAM. It was down at the end of the valley and I wasn't sure I heard right, but as I lay awake listening it moved closer, and then passed our house.

It scared me half to death at first. I swear, it sounded like a woman screaming. I wondered if I should wake my husband, should we get up and see about it, should we call 911? But the way the sound was moving up the valley, with no other noises, no commotion or sounds of violence, made me think it MUST be an animal.

Turns out it was a bull elk. If you have never heard them, watch the video (make sure you turn your sound on).

Elk are calling all over the Rim Country. We live in town now, but behind us are 5 acre lots and National Forest is near (not uncommon in Payson). One night we heard an elk SO CLOSE that we could hear the intake of breath before he bugled. We couldn't see him, he must have been in the trees, on the 5 acre lot behind us.

If you love Fall, or miss it because you now live in the desert, come and visit Northern Arizona. The nights are just starting to cool, and the leaves will start changing soon.

OK, I'm cheating just a little with this photo. The leaves aren't changing JUST YET in Payson. The photo is from another year. But the nights are getting cooler, and it won't be long!

If you live in the hot part of the state, come visit us in Northern Arizona. we're low 80s now in the day, low 50s at night. Beautiful weather!

And the leaves will be turning soon!