A Yard Full of Prickles

He’d always had a quickening of the heart when he crossed into Arizona and beheld the cactus country. This was as the desert should be, this was the desert of the picture books, with the land unrolled to the farthest distant horizon hills, with saguaro standing sentinel in their strange chessboard pattern, towering supinely above the fans of ocotillo and brushy mesquite.”
- Dorothy B. Hughes, The Expendable Man -

We spent part of our winter in Arizona. The landscaping in our yard is more aptly called hardscaping since it is mostly paving stones and rock. There are a number of green plants – most of them of the prickly variety. Here they are, up close in all their spiny glory.

Golden Barrel Cactus

___________________

Fishhook Barrel Cactus

____________________

Possibly a type of Hedgehog Cactus

______________________________

Saguaro Cactus

________________

Prickly Pear Cactus

__________________

There is one animal that is not intimidated by the Prickly Pear Cactus. It is the Javelina. It looks much like a Wild Boar, but it isn’t. (For more information about this animal, here is an article called ‘Do Not Mess with Javelinas‘). I haven’t actually seen Javelinas in our yard, but I do know what they dine on – my Prickly Pear Cactus!

_____________________

My recent story about a cactus in bloom: Weekly Photo Challenge: Future Tense

Weekly Photo Challenge: Color

Any colour – so long as it’s black.
- Henry Ford -

I haven’t felt much like blogging for a few months now. Have I been Blue? Yes, some days. Other days, I’ve been seeing Red (but that is a post for another day). Very occasionally, I’m Mellow Yellow - (white wine can do that). For the past week or so I’ve been kind of Grey though – I’ve got a cold.

I perked up, however, when I saw the Photo Challenge this week was Color (or Colour). Just click on this Tag – Colour – and you will see just a few of the Colour themed posts I’ve done in the past few years.

So, what to choose for this theme?

In the creepy crawly department, I found a scorpion in the bathroom the other day, but in my hurry to remove it from the house, didn’t get a photo. I did, however, find this very handsome Large Milkweed Bug a few days later – well, actually I found lots of them and they were very absorbed with mating, so I had to wait for some time to take a picture that wouldn’t compromise their right to privacy.

A recent visit to Goldfield Ghost Town (see Two Subjects for a few words about this Arizona destination) offered many opportunities to photograph the bright yellow flowers, blue skies and Superstition Mountains, all while eating ice cream in a freshly baked waffle cone. Life just doesn’t get any better than that.

Another bug – a honey bee in a the bright pink flowers of – well something. Arizona plants and insects are still pretty much a mystery to me.

Things happen fast here in the Sonoran Desert. These Wolfberries are already a deep red orange in colour and I expect they will be a welcome food source for something very soon. I have read that the berries are people food too, but Arizona berries are pretty much a mystery to me too.

When the water of a place is bad it is safest to drink none that has not been filtered through either the berry of a grape, or else a tub of malt. These are the most reliable filters yet invented.
- Samuel Butler -

Fire in the Hole!

The original lists were probably carved in stone and represented longer periods of time. They contained things like ‘Get More Clay. Make Better Oven.
- David Viscott -

Did I ever tell you about The Car Guy’s To Do List? It contains things that I put on it (see Pink Jobs and Blue Jobs for an explanation of what kinds of tasks I put on his list) and things that he adds. He often adds items after he has done them, and then he immediately crosses them off.  He likes his list to look like it is close to completion.

This week he added Order a new oven bake element from Amazon.com.

We’ve never had an oven element self destruct before. It is pretty dramatic. It started in one spot with a spark like you see when someone is welding. This white hot spot slowly inched along the element, even after The Car Guy turned the oven off. It stopped as soon as he closed the electrical breaker.

This seemed infinitely more sensible than the recommendation from some guy on the internet who said he tried to put the same kind of fire out by dousing it with water.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Future Tense

Strangely enough, this is the past that somebody in the future is longing to go back to.
- Ashley Brilliant -

I’m spending part of my winter in Cactus Country, and the past week has been pretty exciting. All sorts of interesting things are popping out the sides and tops of the cacti in these parts. I have no idea what the flowers will look like, nor how long it will take before they bloom. We’ve had quite a bit of rain though, so I’m hopeful that means a brilliant future for all the interesting plants that live in the desert.

One of the first out of the starting gate is this cactus – the Argentine Giant (Echinopsis candicans).

The plant itself isn’t all that wide or tall, but the flower buds were as long as my hand. Yesterday they were tightly closed.

Today- they were just about all open and the flowers were as big around as my cereal bowl!

Yes, they are fragrant and no, I have no idea how long the blooms will last.

I stood back and admired them for quite a while, and though both a butterfly and a hummingbird fed in nearby plants, neither of them paid any attention to these flowers. The bees didn’t either. Apparently the flowers are normally only open at night, which means that moths and bats would do the pollination.

For more photos from this part of the world, click on this story: A Visit to Never Never Land.

For more interpretations of this week’s photo challenge, click on this story: Weekly Photo Challenge: Future Tense.