When we went shopping for our New Year’s Weekend, I bought a small bouquet of lovely yellow and orange colored tulips. Since Wednesday, when we shopped, the tulips have opened up a bit. I was at the dinner table this afternoon and noticed that I could see into the tulip’s interior enough to image the stigma encircled by the stamens of the flower. When I looked at the image I had taken, it reminded me of looking through a Kaleidoscope. Click on the image to enlarge.
After I posted photo of Sky Fire Roses last week, I had been hoping to post an actual sunset photo with those gorgeous colors. Well, last evening the weather cooperated with me and presented this brilliant sunset. I took this image of the sky from our courtyard looking west. Click on the image to enlarge.
We left many relatives and friends in California when we moved to Arizona. We still like to get Christmas gifts for the children who live out there (grandchildren, a great grandchild, nieces and nephews). So, today was my day to finish Christmas wrapping, Christmas cards and Christmas shipping.
I spent some of the morning addressing envelopes and stuffing them with our custom cards. Our card exchange list is pretty small, so that didn’t take too much time.
Next, I brought out all the gifts we have been accumulating since last Christmas (yes, I shop all year long for the right stuff), wrapped them and put on the labels for each. Then, I packaged them into the five boxes destined for the five families out there with kids. Bob prepared the USPS Priority Mail labels for the boxes which I taped on to each one.
Image: Boxes at the mailbox ready for USPS pick up
We stacked all the boxes by the mailbox when they were ready. We just made it under the wire since a few minutes after we put them there, the USPS carrier showed up, loaded the boxes in the little van and headed off for the next stop along the route. Click on the image to enlarge.
We postponed our usual Thursday trip to shop for groceries until today because we were out in Palm Desert to visit our little grandson again. We got back home last night and shopped this morning. With the snowbirds back in force, the supermarket has taken on the aisle-clogged snow-zombie effect that we experience every fall and winter and it seemed to be worse on Friday.
The good news is that the flower concession had these beautiful “Sky Fire” roses. I bought a dozen plus some pine limbs and arranged our centerpiece for the weekend. I took this photo of the arrangement this afternoon. Click on the image to enlarge.
We just about have all of our Christmas decorations in place and only a few more items to get for gifts which we hope will be complete in the coming week. Then it will be packing and shipping.
With the advent of the Christmas Season, each year, I put out our usual ornaments and decorations. The red balls on the green palo verde tree, the poinsettias around the mailbox, the wreath on the courtyard gate and the Nutcracker Guards on either side of the walkway.
Inside, we have a little Christmas tree, some Christmas troll dolls and a chili pepper wreath, among other various and sundry Christmas items. We are ready for our fifth Christmas in our wonderful retirement palace.
It has been quite cool here for the past several nights. We actually found some ice topping one of the rain barrels this morning. It was then that we decided to harvest the lemons from our little lemon tree. The tree will be covered afterward to prevent any frost damage.
This harvest was a bit smaller than last year, but there are plenty of lemons to provide for our needs as well as for giving away to one of the senior care centers. One of the ladies on the staff makes lemon pies from scratch, so they appreciate them.
As for us, we will be skinning a bunch of lemons for Limoncello, and freezing “juice cubes” to be used as needed for cooking this coming year. Click on the image to enlarge.
For several years, I have had a collection of cacti in pots in and behind the patio. This week, I moved several of them into the courtyard where we will be able to enjoy them more than out back.
The potted cacti include some recently acquired ones courtesy of Crotalus, our friend in the California desert. Thanks to him for those. Several of these will await next spring to display their flowers, while others will continue to grow to the point where We will need to re-pot them or put them in the rock and cactus garden.
