How was your month for Free Range Naturism?

[jbeegoode]

Ditto.
Jbee

[balead]

Dave, there are some natural ways to mitigate that. Diet change, and some fasting regimen. Out there on the internet. A change in climate helps some people.

 "Truth about Fasting." Ty Bolinger accumulated several experts to create a series and addresses several issues including arthritis. Jus' sayin'...maybe.
Jbee

Thanks Jb, I'll keep fasting in mind but wonder if I have the discipline needed for it.

[AZ_Nudist]

Recently I have been working on our Garden of Eden in central Tucson, it is an odd shaped private area surrounded on three sides by my home, work shop, a six-foot block wall, and Redwood fence on the westside of the property which I erected about 10 years ago from materials purchased from the Home Depot, a local home improvement warehouse.  The elements are beginning to take a toll on the wooden fence, the slats are shrinking from the sun and arid climate leaving small gaps, a thin vertical window into our private world should some walk by in close proximity.
 Last September I had a great idea of planting vines to cover the gaping fence, add foliage and ambiance to the garden. My plan was working well, the vines (creeping figs) were growing wonderfully until the heat for June arrived, then started to shrivel and dry up. I poured water to them daily only the plants in the shade of the old Eucalyptus are showing any promise, not thriving, we were hoping the monsoons would bring some welcome rain to central Tucson. For the past month, CB and I have watched the storms brewing, dark clouds, lightning and thunder building in the surrounding mountains, we have been blessed with so very little rain in the central Tucson Valley.   
Monday morning at first light, I was watering the garden au natural, something caught my eye through a gap in the fence. It was a neighbor woman walking her dog through my property, between the  neighboring house and mine, not sure if she spotted me or not, so I have begun removing the fence slats one at a time, tightening the gaps as time permits to increase privacy.
Today, I took another trip to the Home Depot and purchased four Oleanders in five-gallon buckets, all I could fit into my car in one trip. The oleander is a drought resistant plant and fast growing that will add beauty to the garden and shield us from nosy neighbors.         

[jbeegoode]

Local greenhouses used to sell oleander several feet high, already trees. Yours may take a few years. They are a wonderful hedge when deep watered, because they keep blooms so long during the year, they can be as tall as you need going way over a six foot fence. There is a property surrounds by an oleander wall of several acres near you. I have often thought that it would make a perfect nudist club. It probably has a well grandfathered in. The Racket Club has an oleander wall that you can walk through as an arch as I remember.

Always gaps and knotholes in those old fences. The new ones shrink incredibly within a year. They are worthless.

Dipping drop cloth, or sack cloth in ferro cement and attaching it to the old fence appears to be a good solution. It is durable, translucent and can have another layer put on it for cheap after it stiffens up...but I haven't actually done this...It can be reinforced with chicken wire, and/or slats. It is stucco when it is done.

I have several rustic railroad ties that will be used for a wall. They will be the posts stabilized laterally with rebar. Then, chicken wire with the cloth. Extra layer stucco added. If I do my own labor with a helper, sinking those poles two feet, it is a stucco wall and difficult to climb over and cheap. The plan was t erect a wall between the weird neighbor an me for privacy, but I'm going to move instead to a nice walled piece of land in town more like you.
Jbee

[nuduke]

Do oleanders grow in cool climates i.e. UK?


Now then, Trip Report.  Aha HA!


I went to a naturist swim yesterday in Sleaford, Lincolnshire.  If you recall, dear reader, I was going to go 2 weeks ago when my wife was away but changed my mind for the better avoidance of deceit.  When she returned I told her about this respectful decision and I'm sure she appreciated it (amongst the usual huffing about why I would want to drive for 35mins just to swim simply without a small garment versus a 10 min drive to the local normal swimming pool) but remarked as she does that what I do when she's not there is up to me.


This week we were discussing each others' diaries and I cheerily remarked (not spontaneously of course) that it was again the fortnightly naturist swim at Sleaford Leisure Centre and that, now that there is no duplicity, dissimulation, dupery or deception involved, that I would go this week.  She bristled.  "Whether you approve or not." I finished. She did not speak.  Yesterday she asked if I was going out this evening and I replied that I was.  "Well, I don't approve, as you know, but I won't try and stop you if you want to go." she averred. Excellent!  A bit of spousal progress I think.


So off I went to the swim.  When I arrived in the car park a few minutes before the start time of 7.30, I was surprised by the number of people also arriving obviously dressed for sport and carrying bags that were obviously for sport kit.  We proceeded into the foyer through some barriers made of sheeting that were obviously there so the public could not see into the foyer café where the early comers and organisers were well into the nude session, booking people in and taking their fees and a registration form which I filled in honestly.  Being a first timer at that swim I was then welcomed by one of the organisers and shown round the leisure centre, which I was surprised to find was much cleaner and better maintained that I had imagined from its corrugated industrial unit exterior.  For instance, no problem about going for a pee barefoot - the floors were very clean.  So that was nice - and made to feel welcome. The whole leisure centre was very open plan and all was available - exercise machine rooms, sauna, steam room, front café (vending only) and pool.  We had the place to ourselves, no out of bounds places. I disrobed, put my clothes etc. in a locker (dang, not 100% naked as had to wear the key on a wrist strap!), showered and dived in. 


Observation and conversation with other naturists revealed that the group of about 40-50 were composed mainly of regulars, but during the evening I spoke to 2 irregulars and another first timer.  The average age was about 70 with a span from late 30s to late 80s, I reckon.  There were about 30-40% women, no kids, and most people were white British (as is the case in much of Lincolnshire.  Most of the other races/nationalities in our region are eastern European) although there was an Asian couple and a transsexual (M to F). There were quite a few regular naturists, which one deduced from the all-over tan.  Conversation in and around the pool revealed that this session was a fairly modest turnout (mid holiday season in the UK) and that there were families with kids amongst the regular attenders.  One gentleman observed that over time the group had become more male and we had the single male discrimination conversation with which I will not bore you here.  Everyone was very friendly and I didn't feel like an outsider or anything.


I swam and steam roomed (don't like Saunas) and chatted until about 8.45 or 9pm whence I showered, dried but did not dress and joined the majority of people that had now gravitated naked to the café and it was obvious that they were also a bit of a social club with flasks of tea and cakes being shared across the tables.  I drank a modest bottle of water and fully dried off whilst to my surprise, they had a raffle!  Weird.  But reinforcing the fact that this was a club.


I greatly enjoyed my hour of freedom to be naked in a situation that otherwise I would long to be naked in.  I shall go again.


John 






 

[JOhnGw]

Good job they had wrist straps, John. At one venue I use they only have safety pins on the keys but it is only a small venue where everybody knows each other and nobody bothers with locking up their clothes.

[yeldew]

Well John,
I wish I had known you were there.
So was I!
Norman.

[jbeegoode]

And Mrs. N was hospitable upon return, no evidence of fuming for the duration?
Jbee

[Davie]

Softly softly catchee monkee. Mrs D was the same, now she's a member and on the committee to boot.

Davie 

[jaybirdsen]

Oh So?  Mr. Moto

[AZ_Nudist]

We finally received a little bit of rain in central Tucson!
CB and I returned home around 6:00 PM Saturday after our regular weekend visit to Mira Vista, the skies were dark to the northeast, the smell of rain was in the air. We settled under the old Eucalyptus tree with a couple of adult beverages hoping the rain gods would bless us with some relief from the dessert heat. CB stood up and slipped off her hippie dress (as I call it) and began to dance nude in an improvised rain dance around our Garden of Eden. A short while later the winds began to swirl, large rain drops   splattered on the patio, the skies grew even darker, finally we have rain. The rain left as quickly as it appeared rendering a mere 2 tenths of an inch, not much, but we will take whatever can get. So, we ordered a pizza for delivery, spent the rest of the evening under the stars, until CB headed home before midnight.
Sunday, I had planned to meet a couple of my biker buddies for an early morning breakfast ride on the east-side of Tucson. After breakfast with the guys, I stopped at a local nursery for gardening ideas as JBee suggested in an earlier post.
The place I chose to stop was Mesquite Valley Growers, a newly remodeled nursery with acers of shrubs, trees, planters and garden ornaments, so much more to imagine what a beautiful place. Next weekend, hopefully, CB will lend me her eye for such things and her pickup truck to transport my purchases home.                     
 

[jbeegoode]

Peety Mesquity's place! They have some natural ideas. He mentioned a vine that grows well in Tucson on his radio show (KXCI 91.3) a couple of weeks ago. His wife and he had found some down in the Chiricahua mountains where they live and it reminded them of Tucson. I wrote down the name, and misplaced the note. Good for fences. You could probably email him at the radio station, if you're interested. Less water usage.

The weather pattern has changed again. This year, the rain has been heading north, wrapping around the Catalina Mountains and slipping back down into the northwest and of course Tortolita. Our little mountains are exceptionally green. The old usual pattern was rain coming up more directly from the southeast like a black wall of water. So, central and the eastside is not getting as much monsoon. Redington Pass hasn't been flowing, which is very weird. The rest of the regularly scheduled rains this year have been coming in a month late. Perhaps, there will be more opportunity to dance naked in the rain in central Tucson, as time wanders on.

Our hiking camping schedule has certainly been upset, as the cool places and water places that we go have been raining us out on the weekends when work has been off and not in the middle of the week. Great, if we were not working. I am scheduling hiking around the more general consistent pattern, where rain generally comes later in the afternoon and before 11:00pm. Oh for the good old days before the climate changed, a six to eight week nightly deluge with fun lightning and thunder starting promptly during the first week of July. Then afterward, we'd head up into the mountains under clear skies.
Jbee 

[AZ_Nudist]

Jbee,
You are correct, many years ago we could set our watches by the afternoon Monsoon rains, the winter rains were also just as spectacular, raining the entire month of January. 
Our family lived just off the Avra Valley Road, two miles west of the Interstate 10, my mother still lives on the property. During the rainy season we would park our cars on the shoulder of the paved road and walk the half mile to the house, if you had a four wheel drive you might still bog down in the quagmire named Airline Road.
I do miss the simpler times when we all knew our neighbors,considered them friends, all welcome in our homes. In an earlier post, you mentioned you were considering a move  back to midtown?   
 Living in midtown today its convenient, anything you need is just minutes away. However, people keep to themselves, barely know their neighbors by locking themselves in the homes, emerging only when necessary.   
Les       

[BlueTrain]

I hesitate to talk about the good old days but here goes. I was born in 1946, so I remember the 1950s fairly well. In our blue collar working-class neighborhood, you may have known most of your neighbors, though you probably wouldn't have considered them your friends, except for maybe one or two. I'm speaking about the adults. Kids had their own social arrangements. Except for relatives (we lived across the street from my mother's brother and his family), the adults were never in one another's homes. Nobody had a patio or deck and nobody barbecued. It may have been different on the other side of town, though, for all I know. Everyone locked their doors. People who didn't keep to themselves were considered "nosy."

I'm not so sure it was a simpler time or not. The grown-ups may have thought their own childhood was during simpler times, which was very likely to be true, though not necessarily better. If anyone thought so, they didn't talk about it. One uncle was in the CCCs and judging from the letters, things were tight at home. The simpler times included WWII, also, of course.

One big difference was that most kids seemed to have more freedom, although I'm commenting on my kids growing up in the suburbs versus my own childhood in a small town. Curiously, that small town was much more city like than the suburbs, which are more like an overcrowded rural community where you can see deer in your back yard and need a car to go anywhere. And we know our neighbors just about as well as my father knew his sixty years ago.

[AZ_Nudist]

Good Evening Blue Train,
Yes, we grew up in different times. I was born In Hamilton Ontario, Canada in 1958, the eldest of four and remember most of the 60’s.  My parents immigrated from the UK in 1956, moved into an immigrant community, mostly from European and Mediterranean regions. We joined many of our neighbors for get together and dinners, I especially liked the Greek family next door, everyone was served wine with dinner!
My mother survived the bombing of London in WWII. My Father fought in Korea, Argil and Sutherland Highlanders. In the UK, my father was a mechanic for BMC, my mother a secretary for the London Police Department.
We then immigrated to The United States of America and settled in Marana Arizona, in the middle of nowhere!  We became friends with many of our neighbor’s, would carpool into town for shopping, or pick up a few items for them while there.
We had a lot of freedoms, as a teenager, I rode my motorcycle all around the desert with my .22 rifle, that was common in the wild west. As a young adult, late one night, I was stopped by the local Marshal leaving a local watering hole, should have been charged with DWI (as they called it then), instead I was ordered to park my truck and given a ride home, it was a simpler time in my opinion.