Flowers

Today was a busy day for us. Actually, the whole week has been an entire disruption to our peaceful little retirement routine. Monday, I went to the dentist for my regular cleaning and check-up and the exam showed I had a broken molar that should be crowned. Wasting no time, I went back in on Tuesday to get that work done. Wednesday, we took a trip down to the northwest Phoenix metro area to do some shopping and what not. All the while under stormy skies. I think this might be a record-setting October for rainfall in recent years.

Back to today – we went grocery shopping for our coming weekend meal preparation (the whole week, actually) and afterward, we both had appointments with the dermatologist. The “derm” eradicated several skin lesions on each of us with oversized Q-tips dipped in liquid nitrogen. He did not find anything that could be considered a health risk like skin cancer, but he did say to come back every six months or so for a check-up. Too many years in the desert sun without sunscreen (not available in our youth) takes its toll.

The stormy weather cleared up today and we got considerable sunshine as we went about our business. The yellow roses in the flower concession were beautiful and I now have a dozen in the vase on the sofa table. Click on the image to enlarge.

While most of the northern hemisphere marks the beginning of fall, we, here in the Arizona Desert celebrate the beginning of “Second Spring.” The summer monsoons are gone and the flowers are opening again.

Here are three open flowers on my Devil’s Tongue Barrel Cactus with several more flower pods set to open:

This Star Cactus flower was open when we got home from California:

Finally, a lone flower blossomed atop one of the Buckhorn Cholla in the west cactus garden:

Click on any image to enlarge.

This is the time of year that these barrel cacti show their flowers. On the left above, the Devil’s Tongue cactus in my rock and cactus garden displays six flowers open. On the right, my Golden Barrel cactus shows six more flowers that are smaller than the other ones, but the cactus is a bit larger than the Devil’s Tongue. The two cacti are about three feet apart in the garden.

Click on either image to enlarge.

Fortunately, when we had the massive rainfall in July, the runoff spared most of the cacti in the garden since most of what we transplanted here was on higher ground than the creek that flows when it rains a lot. We plan to distribute the rocks and other landscape items to conform to the flow that will most likely happen again.

I am always intrigued by the delicate inner parts of the cactus flowers. This is an extreme close-up photo of a flower that opened up on my Astrophytum (Star Cactus) yesterday and was open again today. Unlike the Bishop Cap flowers that are only open for a single day, this cactus offers a second look the flower on the next day.

I also took a photo of the whole cactus flower. Click on the link to the left or on the image above for full-sized views.

I posted about this cactus two months ago when it had three flowers. I did not post last month when it had several more flowers. Today, there are five of them open. This cactus has been with us since the late 1990’s and has been faithful about having flowers ever since its first year of blooms.

I will have photos of our other Astrophytum cactus in a day or so when its flowers open. I just love spring, summer and second spring cactus flowers. Click on the image to enlarge.

The Astrophytum Ornatum cactus by the back patio offered another beautiful flower today. They come and go so quickly that I was lucky to get this shot when the flower was completely open. In the morning, it was still just a bud, but by early afternoon it had closed up again. It may open again tomorrow, but we will probably be on the road to see our newest grandson.