When I walked out on the patio today, the little eschevaria succulent caught my camera’s attention with these colorful little bell-shaped flowers. Click on the image to enlarge.
Home & Garden
Asian Lilies
The centerpiece for today’s Sunday dinner will be these Asian lilies: Sumatra (dark red), Broadway (blush) and white Stargazers. Appropriate for our Chinese-style steamed breast of chicken and steamed veggies with saffron rice.
Click on the image to enlarge.
Cymbidium Orchid
During our visit to the home improvement center today, I saw these beautiful cymbidium orchids in the hothouse. I looked on the internet and found out this variety is probably called “Diane Falk.” I presume they’re named after the developer of this cultivar. Click on the image to enlarge.
A Visit From Cooper’s Hawk
The little birds that normally gather around the bird feeder in our back yard were definitely not present for the visit. It seems that Cooper’s Hawk is a predator of small rodents and birds as large as doves and pheasants. This one appears to be an adult male hawk, with a wingspan of about 30 inches.
Click on the image to see a different image in a larger size.
From WikiPedia:
These birds capture prey from cover or while flying quickly through dense vegetation, relying almost totally on surprise. Most prey are mid-sized birds, with typical prey including American Robins, jays, woodpeckers, European Starlings, icterids and doves. Birds preyed on can range in size from wood-warblers to Ring-necked Pheasants. Cooper’s Hawks also eat small mammals, especially rodents such as chipmunks and tree squirrels. Mammalian prey can be as small as mice and as large as hares. Other possibilities are lizards, frogs, snakes and large insects. The hawks often pluck the feathers off their prey on a post or other perch. They are increasingly seen hunting smaller songbirds in backyards with feeders. They will perch in trees overlooking the feeders, then swoop down and scatter the other birds in order to capture one in flight.
Patriotic Holiday Decorations
It’s that time of year when we start to put up our Christmas decorations. Over the past few years, we have been putting a red white and blue emphasis on the color coordination. I got some red poinsettias and some white mums for the planters out on the front porch. To add the blue color, I placed a couple of small American flags in the planters. Click on the image to enlarge.
Christmas Cactus
The newest addition to the flowers in the patio is this pretty Christmas Cactus. It should be producing these nice pink flowers well into January. Click image to enlarge.
Santana Hibiscus
How about a break from politics and firearms to look at this beautiful Santana hibiscus currently showing on the patio?
Click image to see the full-sized version.