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 weather services are all posting excessive heat warnings for the Arizona deserts over the next couple of days. We got up to about 110 degrees in the shade on the patio this afternoon – not the hottest we have seen here, but it is a bit abusive if you have to stay out in it for any substantial period of time.
As dog owners, we have the obligation to take the pups out from time to time. Also, the things we have growing in the courtyard garden need watering and attention, so going out in the heat for brief times is in the cards for us.
We have had a few rain showers over the past week, but today we have a few puffy clouds drifting by. I saw sun rays above this one cloud, so I went inside got my camera and took this shot of them before they eventually disappear. Click on the image to enlarge.
Late this morning, we had another intense monsoon here in town. It was not as bad as the July 18th storm, but the road in front of the house flowed for about fifteen minutes with runoff from higher terrain to the west and north. These Arizona monsoon thunderstorms sure do dump a lot of rain in a short period.
The retention walls we had built continue to do the jobs we intended for them. The wall in the back wash diverted runoff to the west side of the property and the wall around the RV drive kept runoff from the hill behind us from coming onto the driveway (mostly). The front wall, seen in the twelve second video above directs the flow downstream on the road rather than eroding the frontage any further.
I panned the camera from west through south to eastward down the road. It was still raining as I made the video, albeit not as hard as during the peak intensity ten minutes prior to this. After these last two episodes of rain, we can know that our money building walls and paving the RV drive was well spent.
I saw a yellow butterfly browsing the Red Birds of Paradise in the courtyard this afternoon. I went inside to get my camera and the butterfly was still browsing when I came back out.
I took several photos of the butterfly as it browsed. In this particular shot, you can see the butterfly’s proboscis reaching into the flower for the nectar. Click on the image to enlarge.
This is the reason we came the two-hundred plus miles to the California Desert: our new grandson!
His Mama is staying at the home of the baby’s other grandparents while his Daddy is back in town (the Pasadena, CA area) completing the room addition to accommodate the baby. This is good for us that he is in the Palm Springs area, since making the trip this far cuts off 120 miles of pretty aggravating driving if we were to go to the baby’s parents home.
He is only just over a week old and is the cutest little thing! I held him and fed him about two ounces of milk. While we were there, he was very alert for a newborn and was quite actively stretching and moving about. He didn’t cry or fuss at all.
He is small, still just over five pounds, but perfect in every way. He has a nice round head, long fingers and toes, is gaining weight and, of course, pooping and peeing his fair share. I hated to say goodbye for now when we headed back to our campsite.
The other set of Grandparents told us that the new little guy will be visiting them often and said we’re welcome to come here whenever he’s in town. We will probably be back in September when we are planning to take our next California trip.
Tonight, we’re in Palm Desert, CA., anticipating meeting our new grandson, Baby G., in the morning. We had sort of a late start today and, after Bob getting us lost a couple of times, finally in camp after five PM PDT.
Once here, we note that this is a very lovely RV park with all the creature comfort for us and our little dogs. There are two or three swimming pools, a very nice dog run with shade trees which are a big plus in the desert heat.
We are relaxing this evening after a tedious desert crossing and plan to get up in the morning to go the couple of miles over to where the baby is staying. We will post photos of the new baby shortly after we get them.
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.