This yellow flower has red stamens; most yellow flowers have yellow stamens.


Above are dark red cholla flowers. Deep pink flowers seem to glow.
Dark orange flower.


It's been a while since my last blog. Several things got in the way; income taxes primary among the things. We had some lovely rain last week, rather unexpected for this late in April, but very welcome. The cool weather and moisture is extending the bloom on the palo verdes and cacti (cholla and hedgehog especially) and the desert looks really green. Lots of seeds are setting on the creosote bush and many bushes are still flowering as well.

Our back 5 acres is a paradise of rainbow-colored cactus blossoms. The cholla cacti are blooming, and the flower colors range from yellow through oranges and terra cottas to pinks, rose, and varying shades of red. The photos I'm posting show some of the different colors. The cactus bees are having a wonderful time wallowing in the stamens, collecting pollen.

I took a bunch of photos right after the rainstorm, showing lovely drops of rain water on various plants. However, my hard drive is about full now, so I'm having to back up my humongous photo files to an external hard drive and to DVD's to make room for downloading what I have on the camera flash card. It's actually good that I'm being forced to do the backups--long overdue--because I'd hate to loose all the images I've painstakingly accumulated over several years. Hopefully I'll have the computer tasks done by next week so I can post some of the rain photos.

Spring continues

Beautiful weather; today's high in the low 70s. Plants and people and critters are loving it. We got just a slight trace of rain last night; wish we would get more but the storms are staying to the north and we're getting mostly the winds, which stir up the dust and the allergies, and the barometric changes which bring grief to joints such as mine.

Beautiful flowers continue to come into bloom and more interesting creatures come to light as we work around the yard. We found a tiny banded gecko when moving cardboard boxes; it's one of the youngest I've encountered. We let it find a new home after it got photographed. The hybrid tea rose shown above is the variety "Arizona" which does very well here indeed--appropriately named! It is fragrant as well.