Late this afternoon, just before dusk, we took a walk down the road to witness this rare phenomenon of anti-crepuscular rays. This image is looking toward the opposite horizon from where the sun was setting. Clouds and atmospheric particles contributed to this glorious array of sun rays that had to travel from horizon to horizon to get this effect. Click on the image to enlarge.
The monsoons bring lots of cumulus clouds when they come. Sometimes, the clouds line up to form sunbeams late in the day. This image is from last evening when we got this nice display of Arizona sunbeams before dusk. I took the picture from the road in front of our house. Click on the image to enlarge.
Our absence from posting here is, in part, due to our recent excursion to the People’s Republik of Kalifornistan. A necessary evil, since we want to keep in touch with our new grandson face-to-face in his first years so he knows who we are. We have been to this particular campground just about every month since grandbaby’s birth last August.
Bob took this image of the campsite after getting all the stuff out for grilling steaks and corn on the cob. This menu requires both camp grills since there are six steaks and six ears of corn to prepare simultaneously. The one grill hooks into the RV propane tank and the other, smaller grill, has a small bottle of propane attached. One grill for corn and one for the tenderloin steaks.
The baby’s first birthday is next month and, of course, we can’t miss that event, so we’ll be out there again in a few weeks. All of the traffic, the obnoxious politics out in K-stan and the hot weather at near sea level in the low desert this summer notwithstanding, it is worth the minor discomforts for us to be able to go to see this wonderful new addition to our family.
This is the little Mammillaria yaquensis fishhook cactus that our friend Crotalus presented to us last fall when we met in Palm Desert. The cactus had this flower open yesterday and there are two more buds that may open soon.
This cactus and the other two Crotalus brought to the RV campground now reside in the courtyard in front of our house. There are several other cacti out there plus some tomatoes, squash and basil that we hope to be able to use in the kitchen.
Click on the image to enlarge.
All three of my Caesalpinia pulcherrima shrubs in the courtyard are now producing flowers. I took this close-up of one of the flowers this afternoon.
The individual flowers only last a day or two, but the racemes have dozens of flower pods opening from bottom to top which gives the appearance of having perpetual orange, red and yellow flowers in the courtyard. We have the colors all summer and into the fall.
Click on the image to enlarge.
Of all the dozens of spring flowers on our big saguaro out front, these appear to be the last two unopened buds. Sometime in the next few days, they will open, get pollinated and then wither while the stems swell to become saguaro fruit, just like the dozens of other flowers that preceded these two flower buds.
The fruit on this saguaro and the last big cactus that sat in this spot never amounted to much, since the birds peck on the fruit to extract the nutrients inside. It’s all part of the desert life cycle and we like it. Click on the image to enlarge.
When we returned home yesterday, this pair of flowers greeted me when I went into the courtyard to water the plants that had been neglected for a few days. I say neglected because we weren’t here to water them, but we see evidence that there was at least one moderate rain shower while we were away – tell tale pockmarks on the soil suggested a fairly good shower albeit with no evidence of flooding or running water.
As for these flowers, they are the second batch of buds that showed up on this cactus this spring. Last year, this cactus had flowers opening most of the spring and summer. We are eagerly anticipating a repeat performance this year. Click on the image to enlarge.
