Ramirez’ brilliant juxtaposition of recent non events:
Happy Fishhook Cactus
A single flower opened on this little cactus last week. Today, it has five beautiful pink flowers. Click on the image to enlarge.
I found this reference to the little cacti that dot the hill behind our house at BirdandHike.com:
Common Fishhook Cactus (Mammillaria tetrancistra) is a small, mound-shaped cactus with short, thin white spines that nearly cover the plant plus longer, darker, fish-hook shaped spines that stand out from the body of the plant. In early summer, red to lavender flowers emerge from the side of the stem that are nearly as large as the entire plant.
Thunderstorms Brewing
We’re getting some light rain this evening and hearing thunder and seeing lightning flashes. This morning, we were on errands and I caught this panoramic image of the build-ups over the mountains to the north. Click on the thumbnail to view the full-sized panorama.
The Office
When we were deciding on the furniture for our new house, we concluded that we would need an office area, so we chose one of the three bedrooms to use for that purpose. We brought our office chairs from California and bought two new desks and a file cabinet.
My desk and file cabinet seen in the image features an HP laptop and an external Dell 21 inch monitor. I have a docking station for the laptop that allows me to connect all the auxiliary USB devices, the Ethernet connection and the external audio system. The external monitor, however, plugs directly in to the laptop. One of the two new desks – click on the image to enlarge
Damsel’s desk matches the style of mine, but hers does not have all the drawers and such that she doesn’t need. She has a little notebook HP computer that ties into the wireless function of our LAN router.
We’re planning to get a loveseat-sized foldout bed for the office so that it can be used by visiting guests in addition to the guest bedroom. We still have a number of additional accessories to acquire for several of the rooms. It all seems to be coming together.
Last Saguaro Flower of Summer
I believe this is the last of the summer saguaro flowers on our giant cactus. We were very fortunate to have had so many flowers after the cactus crew transplanted our beautiful saguaro in May. Click on the image to enlarge.
West Side of the New Casa
I took this shot of the west side of the house from the other side of the wash that runs north to south next to the house. Click on the image to enlarge.
Thresher Thief
I guess we won’t be harvesting any of the saguaro fruit this season since the birds seem to gorge themselves on the fruit before we can get them to ripen on the cactus. This is a curve billed thresher helping itself to the pears on the saguaro this morning. We call this the “Skut Farcas” bird because of the yellow eyes – YELLOW EYES!! (Reference – “A Christmas Story” – a quotation by Ralphie.) Click on the image to enlarge.