This Schlumbergera is one of the first houseplants I bought locally for the Arizona house. Even though it’s popular name is Christmas cactus, this one seems to have its flowers in April like an Easter cactus. No matter, though, the flowers are very pretty. Click on the image to enlarge.
Today is my Mom’s 93rd birthday. Damsel and I went to visit her today at her retirement ranch. While we were there, I took a couple of images of the view from the window of her room and merged them into this single panoramic image. Click on the image to enlarge.
Mom looks out the window and sees some mesquite trees, other cabins around the ranch, birds of many varieties and the cottontail bunnies that graze out there. She has been resident at the ranch for a little over a month now and has made many new friends and seems to be enjoying her new habitat.
I posted a photo of this cactus last week with a single open flower. Today, we were delivering a package to Mom’s retirement ranch when I saw these flowers open on the same cactus. Wow! How beautiful! I love spring in the Desert. Click on the image to enlarge.
I took this photo of one of the several curve billed thrashers that have been hanging around the area. There are several pairs that have built nests which should be filled with eggs soon. I hope to get some photos of the thrashers and their chicks without disturbing them this spring.
I’m not sure what the bird has in its bill, maybe a seed or something for its mate. Click on the image to enlarge.
Here’s two different cartoons that basically demonstrate how the media works . . .
First, from Rick McKee:
and then from Gary Varvel:
Both via The Patriot Post.
It is springtime in the desert and I never get tired of posting pictures of cactus flowers. Our bishop’s cap cactus is blooming again. Twelve or more flowers are open this afternoon on this cactus that we bought in a garden shop near Phoenix back in 1998; at the time the little barrel cactus was in a two-inch pot and badly in need of transplanting. I took it to California, put it into a six-inch pot which it eventually outgrew. Today it’s in an eight-inch pot and will soon be in a twelve-inch or larger pot to continue to make flowers in our courtyard. Click on the image to enlarge.
We have been having a wonderful array of spring cactus flowers here in town. I took many of the images in the slideshow here in our yard, although some in other yards here in town. The cactus types are hedgehog, Argentine Giant, prickly pear, beavertail and cholla. Click on the slideshow above to advance through the ten-image array.