With the Fourth of July just around the corner, I decided to do our usual thing and decorate the mailbox for the holiday. The mailbox is the first thing one sees when approaching our driveway along the road from the east.
I went to the dollar store and got some red, white and blue flowers. I also got a few little American Flags to scatter around, two of which are on the mailbox. The mailbox already has a patriotic cover. Click on the image to enlarge.
This is a curve billed thrasher helping itself to the fleshy fruits growing on our giant saguaro in the front yard. We were walking the dogs and heard the bird’s distinctive “weet-witt-weet” call, which made us look up to the top of the saguaro where the bird was feasting. I did not have my camera, so Bob grabbed the little pocket camera and got this shot. Click on the image to enlarge.
We found a reference (sorry, no link) to the saguaro and seed propagation:
The saguaro is the largest columnar cactus found growing naturally in the US and bears the state flower of Arizona. This magnificent cactus represents the botanical symbol of North American deserts for many people around the world. These unique plants are tall, long-lived cacti that occur naturally and only in southern Arizona, northwestern portions of Sonora, Mexico, and sparsely near the lower Colorado River in California. Saguaros can live to be 200 years old, grow 50 feet tall and weigh as much as 20,000 lb. Saguaro roots radiate out from the base up to 50 ft and close to the surface of the ground. The shallow roots allow saguaros to absorb as much water as possible, especially from light precipitation events, which they store for several years if necessary. Flowers bloom in late spring (late April through early June) and fruits ripen about 37 days after flowering. Saguaro flowers are large, elongated, and bloom nocturnally allowing both night (bats and insects) and day foragers (birds, bees, and other insects) to feed on the nectar and aid in pollination.
If you look near the bottom left of this photo, you will notice a Greater Road Runner (Geococcyx californianus) who, at the time, was being very still. The finch feeders above the bird are usually populated with several goldfinches and/or house finches and, as you can see, there are none present.
We have seen this behavior before, where the road runner will lurk near he base of the feeders and wait for a finch to come. The larger bird will then leap and try to catch one of the smaller birds. We have yet to see it score a finch, but we’re not looking all the time.
Wickipedia has this trivia about the roadrunner’s diet:
It mainly feeds on insects, fruit and seeds with the addition of small reptiles, small rodents,tarantula hawks, spiders, scorpions, centipedes, millipedes, small birds, their eggs, and carrion, including roadkills. It kills larger prey with a blow from the beak—hitting the base of the neck of small mammals—or by holding it in the beak and beating it against a rock. Two roadrunners sometimes attack a relatively big snake cooperatively.
Click on the image to enlarge.
While we were driving along SR 60 going through California on Monday, we passed this metallic mammoth adorning one of the Jarupa Hills near Riverside.
We see a lot of metallic sculpture when we’re in Arizona, some of it around town and some in the Arizona Outback between Wickenburg and Brenda just before getting on I-10 from US 60. We have seen dinosaurs, horses, a stagecoach and various other sculptures during our travels. Always entertaining. Click on the image to enlarge.
We are safely back home after our productive trip to California. Just across the state line, we pass this welcome sign that energizes us for the next 100+ miles to home. After a four and a half hour drive from the old house, we are always happy to be back in the jurisdiction of a free state.
At this point of our trip, we have a few miles to Quartzsite where we refuel for the rest of the trip with more-reasonably-priced gas (than California’s outrageous $4 per gallon prices) and after refueling, we have just about 12 miles or so until we can get off of Idiot Interstate-10 to join US 60 the rest of the way across the Arizona Outback before entering the Hassayampa River Valley and home.
I posted a picture of a single water lily last year when we were at this same koi pond inside the hospital courtyard. This time, I got a photo of these three water lilies and they weren’t the only ones in the pond.
I always think that water lilies seem out of place in the high Sonoran Desert, but they apparently do quite well here and in neighboring Yarnell up the road about 20 miles or so. Click on the image to enlarge.
Do you remember the photo I posted of the agave flower stalk last April? It’s a damn shame, but sometime in the last 24 hours, the top-heavy succulent toppled over and into our neighbor’s cactus garden.
We had been watching the progress of the agave since the flower stalk appeared. We drove down our road today to do some errands and saw that the agave had toppled. So sad – I was looking forward to getting some photos of the flowers that the little hummingbirds just love. I feel sorry for our neighbor who has to get the mess cleaned up and hauled. Fortunately, the fall did not destroy the section of split-rail fencing where it fell.
Click on the image to enlarge.