The flower shop in the supermarket had cut Gerbera Daisies and some nice tulips today. I bought a bunch of each and fashioned this centerpiece for the dining table this afternoon. Click on the image to enlarge.
The flowers made our light lunch of healthy greens, tomatoes, cubed avocado and shredded chicken breast taste all the better. We enjoyed a lovely spring-like day here in the desert once more.
Around the first week in December, I posted an image of an ultralight aircraft overhead at our little desert casita. Today, I had just finished delivering a package to the local UPS pickup point, when a pickup truck pulled in the parking lot with this contraption strapped in the bed.
Looking at the image I posted before, I can not positively say whether this is the same aircraft. This one has blue paint around the propeller shroud while the other one (seen in the inset) seems to have silver or white paint in that area.
I think that it is interesting that the pickup has a silhouette of a parafoil aircraft stenciled on the side, possibly indicating that there is a commercial enterprise associated with the two guys in the truck and the aircraft. Perhaps they are here for the rodeos that take place almost every weekend and on some weekdays.
I noticed this lizard sunning itself on one of the river rocks below the courtyard out front this morning. I went and got my Canon SL1 and the 300mm lens to get this picture. The little guy obliged me and sat tight while I went in to get the camera. This is another view of the same lizard.
Despite consulting a desert wildlife book and looking on the Lizards of Arizona webpage, I am unable to identify the common or taxonomic name of this variety. We see lizards all the time, now that the weather is warmer.
Maybe readers like Crotalus or Glenn B, being desert and reptile aficionados, can shed some of their wisdom on this one. Right now, I call it “Gray Lizard with two-tone brown pattern on its back.”
UPDATE: Thanks to Glenn B, the little critter has been almost positively identified as an ornate tree lizard. See Glenn’s comment below . . .
We have several levels of pests in the desert (excluding the humanoid ones) to include several mammal species, a bunch of reptile species and, of course, insects. Damsel can’t abide having ants anywhere on the property, so, when she finds an anthill, she wants something done about it.
The fire ant nest in the image is located down by the roadway in front of our house. It’s an area where we walk the dogs and Damsel worries about the ants biting the dogs. She spotted this anthill a couple of days ago and yesterday, I sprinkled some Amdro fire ant bait pellets on and around it.
When we arrived in the desert homestead, we were relatively new at the game of coping with desert denizens. One of the locals suggested the Amdro product to me and I have to sat I’m glad he did. The little worker ants take the bait down to the royal chamber in their burrow and poison the queen ant with the pellet taken down. The hive is doomed thereafter.
I bought a one pound container of Amdro about five years ago, and I still have several ounces left in it since it only takes a few pellets scattered on and around the mound to do the trick. Nests are usually completely destroyed about a week after the application of the pellets.
The mound was still active when I took the image above. It should be inactive in a day or three. Click on the image to enlarge.
We have been home for a couple of days following our recent visit to the California Deserts in the Coachella Valley and the Colorado River. We were fortunate to have had wonderful, warm (for the season) weather the whole time we were gone. Better yet, the weather here at home is just as beautiful and warm.
We did a little yard work today; since the weeds are vigorously growing, it was time to spray weed killer wherever we see them growing out of the rocks or near the trees in the orchard and in the courtyard. We noticed several indications that spring is coming soon – the plum tree in the courtyard has a lot of new flowers and growth, plus the beavertail cactus in the photo above is showing several flower buds. It won’t be long until the vivid pink flowers on this cactus are catching our attention (and the attention of the pollinators as well).
Unfortunately for the cactus shown in the photo above, it is one of the rapid growing species that we have decided to move out of the front part of the yard and into the rock and cactus garden on the west side of the lot. We will let it do it’s spring thing and then it will either be moved to the R&C garden or some of the paddles will be transplanted to that part of the yard. There are some bare spots on the hill near the fence line to the west where these will suffice as barrier cactus to divert the javelina to the back wash rather than into our improved areas.
Click on the image to enlarge.
We have had a couple of beautiful days camping here in the Coachella Valley. The temperatures and the weather in general have been very acceptable. This evening, we enjoyed this beautiful sunset. Tomorrow, we will be breaking up camp and headed to the Colorado River to visit with our friends who live there.
While we were here in Palm Desert, we enjoyed visiting with our six-month old grandson, his parents and his other grandpa was here, too. We had a cookout yesterday, when Bob grilled some steaks and I fixed the side dishes which we fed to everyone. It was our first mobile dinner party!
We are planning to prepare another steak dinner for our friends at the river tomorrow. After we spend the night there, we will be driving the Roadrunner RV back to Wickenburg.
We left our Arizona home this morning at about eleven AM and arrived to check-in at the RV park at about two PM. That sounds like good travel time, but we gained an hour coming to the PST time zone, so the time was nominal as compared to our previous experience coming here. We had a good trip with one little slowdown where an eighteen wheeler rolled over in the median along I-10.
We got here and set up camp for our weekend visits with the kids and the grandson. We had been invited to the in-laws for dinner on previous trips here, but this time we’re inviting the kids and the other set of grandparents to the campground for a steak cookout on Saturday. With the big RV, we can prepare the sides and grill the steaks right here.
The RV Resort is packed today; we took a walk around and saw vehicle license plates from all over the US and Canada. There is an “Oh Canada” dinner and show here tonight (we will not be attending, eh? $40 USD per plate, hosers). Besides, we brought the food and beverages we need and are now settled in and quite comfortable.
We are using the Verizon Jetpack® MiFi wireless internet hot spot we recently obtained and thus far, it seems to work much better (and is more secure) than the often spotty performance of the unsecured WiFi offered by the RV park. We will probably report on our performance assessment of the new gadget after using it for a while.
