Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Home & Garden

Work Day

Ready to Transplant In the Ground

Now that the temperatures have cooled (only 90° today), we started some of the chores we have been putting off. My first order of business was to put Damsel’s Prickly Pear cactus in the ground in the rock and cactus garden. She grew this cactus in a pot from a single paddle over the last year or so and it is now ready to make it on it’s own. The two images above are of the cactus in the pot transported to the spot we picked for it and the cactus in the ground taken later in the day. Click either image to enlarge.

There was another prickly pear cactus we planted in the yard that needed to be moved since it was in close proximity to the new RV drive. This variety spreads like crazy and we didn’t want to chance it growing over the concrete. Since it was still small enough, I dug it up in one piece and moved it thirty feet or so over to the west property line fence.

Meanwhile, Damsel was doing her thing inside the house and on the patio; she mopped the tile floors and started draining the patio spa, the latter needing the water changed for the fall season when we heat the spa (it is at ambient temperature when we use it during the summer).

We decided to remove some other invasive cacti, also in close proximity of the RV drive. These were Beavertail cactus that we rescued from the back of the lot and that we no longer wanted by the drive not only for the proximity issue, but they had some sort of malady that was eating holes in the paddles. I took out one on each side of the RV drive and, with Damsel’s assistance, transported via wheelbarrow and put in the dumpster.

At this point, we called it a day for the yard work. Perhaps over the weekend we will refill the spa and get the heater started. We might also remove a couple more Beavertails that are close to the RV drive. Or we might postpone all of it until next week.

09 Oct 2015 by Arizona Home & Garden Retirement

A Landscape Waterfall

Waterfall

We took a little detour today along the street just to the north of our little road. We have lived here for almost five years and had not driven through this segment of our very local neighborhood. We were stunned to see several beautiful homes and landscapes, but none of them compared to this one where the homeowner installed a water feature on the front of the lot.

This working waterfall must have been ten to twelve feet in height from source to the pond below. This property is similar to our situation where the house is on a berm above the road, but the similarity ends there. This place had giant boulders stacked in front with embedded cacti, trees and this waterfall. I looked at some of the photos that I took and there appeared to be accent lighting on the property. It will be interesting to take the short walk some evening this fall and see if they’re all lit up. Click on the image to enlarge.

08 Oct 2015 by Arizona Home & Garden Photography

California Cacti Acquisition

Cactus Number One Cactus Number Two Cactus Number Three

On our recent excursion to the California Desert, we were honored to meet up with long-time reader and commenter Crotalus, who was kind enough to present us with these three beautiful examples of cacti from his collection. We transported them to the Arizona desert where they seem to be doing quite well.

In our hasty meeting (we were packing up to head home) I was not able to record their proper binomial names, so I will (for the time being) just refer to them as our California Cacti number one, two and three. You can click on any one of the three images above to enlarge to full size.

We are already planning our next visit to the Palm Desert area to meet with our kids and the other set of Grandparents to the new little grandson. By then, we may be able to meet up with Crotalus again to properly identify the varieties of these cacti.

26 Sep 2015 by Blogosphere California Home & Garden Photography

Second Spring

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:

Devil’s Tongue Flowers

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

Star Cactus Flower

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

Cholla Flower

Click on any image to enlarge.

25 Sep 2015 by Arizona Flowers Home & Garden Photography

Wickenburg Chamber of Commerce Poster

Wickenburg PosterLast February, we bought a colorful poster from the town Chamber of Commerce for twenty bucks. We intended to get it mounted and framed, but as life events dictate (read procrastination), we put it off until last week when we took the poster to the shop in town that framed our bathroom mirrors; we asked them to mount it and frame it suitable for hanging.

The poster, itself, has a collage of notable events, people and other things that define our quaint old western town. Things like our founder, Henry Wickenburg, the Vulture Gold Mine that he discovered and a plethora of artistic and graphic depictions of local lore.

We got the call from the framers yesterday on our way back from grocery shopping, so we stopped in the shop and picked up the masterpiece. We both think it looks great and it is now proudly hanging on the south wall in the guest bedroom.

Click on the image to enlarge.

04 Sep 2015 by Arizona Arts Home & Garden

Hummingbird at the Feeder

Hummingbird at the Feeder

I have a couple of these feeders outside the back patio screen. This summer, I have had to refill them more often than I seem to recall having done so in the past. The tiny birds browse them all day long and into the evening when it’s almost dark.

This little visitor was white with gray and green tones in his feathers. I have no idea what the name of this variety of hummingbird might be, but it is a cute little guy helping itself to what’s left in the east feeder. The bird and feeder were about five or six feet from where I snapped this photo. Click on the image to enlarge.

28 Aug 2015 by Arizona Critters Home & Garden Photography

One Dozen Barrel Cactus Flowers

Devil’s Tongue Golden Barrel

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.

21 Aug 2015 by Arizona Flowers Home & Garden Photography

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