Growing Native with Petey Mesquitey

Series produced by KXCI

Series image

Petey Mesquitey is KXCI’s resident storyteller.

Every week since the spring of 1992 Petey has delighted KXCI listeners with slide shows and poems, stories and songs about flora, fauna, family and the glory of living in southern Arizona.


211 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
Piece image
There are 13 species of oaks found in Arizona and they range from 3,000 to 8,000 feet in elevation across the state. The only one I haven’t seen in...

  • Added: May 18, 2020
  • Length: 05:07
Piece image
I like the name sumac. I learned it when I was a kid in Kentucky. The most talked about sumac of my youth was poison sumac or poison ivy, but there...

  • Added: May 04, 2020
  • Length: 05:40
Piece image
What is it about sycamore trees? When I mention a sycamore or show a photo of one to someone, invariably they declare their love of the tree. Well,...

  • Added: Mar 17, 2020
  • Length: 04:55
Piece image
March really is the month of change around all of us in the borderlands of southeastern Arizona. How fun to celebrate the arrival of turkey vulture...

  • Added: Mar 10, 2020
  • Length: 04:48
Piece image
Where we live in southeastern Arizona it has been a very wet winter with rain out in the flats and snow in the hills and mountains. All that moistu...

  • Added: Mar 03, 2020
  • Length: 05:20
Piece image
My goodness, there are times that I so miss the Sonoran Desert, especially when I leave the desert grassland and get into the diverse vegetation th...

  • Added: Feb 24, 2020
  • Length: 05:10
Piece image
When I was little boy I thought the name yellow-bellied sapsucker was the funniest thing I’d ever heard and though I did know it was some sort of b...

  • Added: Feb 19, 2020
  • Length: 05:23
Piece image
I enjoy hearing friends talk about the plants that they’ve seen on walks or hikes and when we share our enthusiasm the jabbering is so sweet.

  • Added: Feb 09, 2020
  • Length: 04:49
Piece image
Desert anemone (Anemone tuberosa) is in the Buttercup Family. Buttercups are the genus Ranuculus and the family name is Ranunculaceae. It’s probabl...

  • Added: Feb 06, 2020
  • Length: 05:01
Piece image
Whenever I do of my “pictures and stories” presentations I always show some photos of our chickens, followed by photos of some of the wildlife they...

  • Added: Jan 29, 2020
  • Length: 05:16
Piece image
This week, Petey talks about his experience at the March on Frankfort.

  • Added: Jan 21, 2020
  • Length: 05:28
Piece image
There are five species of mistletoe found in Arizona and they all can be found somewhere in southern Arizona at various elevations and on different...

  • Added: Jan 17, 2020
  • Length: 05:12
Piece image
Eumorpha typhon or the Typhon sphinx moth is out and about from June to August in the borderlands. I realized very quickly that we had everything t...

  • Added: Jan 14, 2020
  • Length: 05:10
Piece image
There is a road across the grassland and I still go there for stories. I suspect that everyone needs a road or trail or special wild place that mak...

  • Added: Jan 03, 2020
  • Length: 04:51
Piece image
We love our annual tree hunt and it’s been going on for a long time. I have 35 mm slides of hunts from 30 years ago…kids and dogs and Christmas trees.

  • Added: Dec 19, 2019
  • Length: 05:51
Piece image
Can you believe I was whining about rainfall? It’s funny because as Ms. Mesquitey and I were driving to and from Cascabel we talked about coming ba...

  • Added: Dec 19, 2019
  • Length: 05:07
Piece image
Well, first of all I should explain why I set live traps for pack rats (Neotoma albigula) around our little homestead or maybe it needs no explanat...

  • Added: Dec 19, 2019
  • Length: 05:16
Piece image
White-tailed deer in southwest North America are Odocoileus virginiana couesi or Coues white-tailed deer. The naturalist Elliot Coues is probably r...

  • Added: Dec 18, 2019
  • Length: 05:12
Piece image
The scientific name for Mearns quail is Cyrtonyx montezumae. The genus refers to its big claws for scratching around in desert soils. It has big fe...

  • Added: Dec 12, 2019
  • Length: 05:07
Piece image
I can’t believe I almost let November go by without at least mentioning desert broom (Baccahris sarothroides). It is the native plant the folks lo...

  • Added: Nov 19, 2019
  • Length: 04:52