When we bought this Bishop’s Cap cactus in a nursery somewhere near Chandler, AZ, eighteen years ago, we had no idea that it would produce so many flowers. This happy cactus has been flowering since early spring and will likely continue to do so through the rest of November. Click on the image to enlarge.
This past weekend, we harvested a few Anaheim chili peppers that were growing in pots in our courtyard. I prepared them according to a recipe for Tex-Mex chicken enchilada casserole. They, and the casserole, were delicious!
Just around the corner in the courtyard, are some tomatoes that we hope will ripen before the first freeze. We will have those in another tempting (and healthy) dish after we harvest them. Click on the image to enlarge.
Damsel noticed this great horned owl perched on our roof as we were bringing the dogs back from doing their business. She didn’t have her camera with her, so I took the little Canon A1400 Power Shot out of my pocket and snapped this photo. Click on the image to enlarge.
I bought several stems of these nice spider mums at the flower concession in our local supermarket. I like the bright yellow color and the interesting petal arrangement of these flowers. Click on the image to enlarge.
Just as we were getting ready for the commute to the L.A. area today, a herd of seven or eight javelina crossed the back part of our yard on their daily forage. The dogs let us know they were coming, so I ran out to the courtyard and took several pictures of them as they crossed the wash. These two appeared to be juveniles, but we did see (and not photograph) a very small one with it’s Mama. Click on the image to enlarge.
At the recommendation of the contractor who built our house, we had him install skylight sun tubes in the laundry room and our little bathroom. Previous customers raved over the skylights, so we had no inhibitions about having them installed. We still don’t regret it.
After over two and a half years of occupation of the house, we just noticed a phenomenon yesterday where the little bathroom skylight seemed to produce much less light than the laundry room. I thought something might be covering up the bathroom skylight, so I got the extension ladder and climbed up to look.
AHA! The shadow of the air conditioning and heating unit was cast across the bathroom skylight dome and not the laundry room. I don’t know how we missed noticing this until just now, but Damsel was cleaning the floors and asked why it was so dim in the little bathroom.
Weird. Click on the image of the skylight domes and the shadow to enlarge.
This is a photo I took of a hummingbird that was browsing some of the garden shop flowers a while back. We get dozens of the little birds of all different colors who browse our feeders in the patio. They are so delightful to watch, either looking out the windows or while soaking ourselves in the spa. Click on the image to enlarge.