Farmer John Meats

On the north side of Grant Road, just east of the I-10 underpass, is a former meat packing plant, Farmer John Meats.

The exterior walls are covered with murals celebrating the cowboy myth of happy cattle and Marlboro Man ranchers.
As mesquite hugger and pesco-lacto-ovo-vegetarian (that's a joke, son), I am of course cynical about the whole How the West was Won legend, but I like these murals.

According the the New York Times, these murals were painted in the 1960s by Leslie Allen Grimes, a Hollywood set designer. He also painted murals for Farmer John Meats in Vernon and Fresno, California and Phoenix. Amusing comments about the murals at the Farmer John slaughter house in Vernon can be found here.
Mr. Grimes died in 1968 in a fall from a scaffolding while painting one of his murals. Arno Jordan restored and added to the murals from 1968 to 1998.

I'm not sure whether anyone is still maintaining the murals. I also wonder what is going to happen to Tucson's defunct Farmer John plant. I think I remember hearing years ago that it may become a nightclub or something.

June Residential Sales Statistics

The Tucson Association of Realtors just released the Residential Sales Statistics for June.

The market continues to slowly stabilize. Changes from May 2008 to June 2008 were as follows: Average sale price up 2.65%, median sale price down 0.5%. Housing units sold up 0.88% and active listings down 4.54%. With 8,140 properties on the market, and 1,034 sales in June, we have a 7.9 month supply of listings. A six month supply is considered a balanced market. We're heading in the right direction.

Bats

A couple of nights ago Steve and I decided to go see the bats emerge from under the Campbell Avenue bridge over the mighty Rillito River.

While we waited for them to wake up, we enjoyed the usual postcard pretty Tucson sunset.



We were surprised to see that a couple dozen other people had the same idea. Some were sitting down in the dry (for now!) river bed. Everyone seemed to know the bats would fly to the west.

We could hear the bats twittering to each other as they woke up. They had been sleeping in the one inch space between pairs of joists. I read somewhere that some buildings and bridges are now designed as bat houses. I don't know whether that happened here, or whether it was just a lucky accident.

After the sun went down, the bats started coming out a few at a time. Eventually we could see hundreds fly away for a night of insect consumption. Eat lots of mosquitoes, guys!

We stood under the bridge with bats flying within inches of us, but none ever hit us. It was really fun.




Although the air was filled with bats, I could only get a picture of one of them. You'll just have to go see the spectacle for yourself.

Update: The Arizona Daily Star just did an article today about the Campbell Avenue bats. It says the bats are Mexican free-tailed bats. They've also got a photo of a cloud of bats.