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Passion flowers at the Tucson Botanical Gardens (#FOTD)
Long-suffering husband and I visited the Tucson Botanical Gardens yesterday for the first time since December (see pix from that trip here and here). We’re having a wet monsoon season, so we hoped for lots of flowers–and got our wish. Their butterfly garden includes these wonderful passion vines twining around the trunks of huge mesquite trees. I love the intricate detail of passion flowers–so lovely after a couple of months of dry, scorching heat. Posted for Cee’s Flower of the Day challenge.
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The Ancient Pueblo Ruins of Wupatki National Monument
When I lived in Flagstaff, I was about half an hour from the pueblo ruins of Wupatki National Monument. In this post, I’ll share some photos as well as some links in case you’d like to learn more about this wonderful place. This post is part of Anita’s Amazing Stonework photo challenge. Please click on each image to see the entire picture. For some reason, my WordPress theme cuts off parts of some pictures. Wupatki preserves several pueblos built by the Ancient Pueblo People sometime between 500 and about 1000 AD. The structures are built from the local red sandstone and mortared in place. The fact that these structures are…
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Desert View Watchtower, Grand Canyon National Park
If you’ve hung around on this blog for very long, you’ve probably figured out that I love photo challenges (see just about any of my photo posts for evidence). Well, I just found a new one, the Amazing Stonework challenge over on the For the Love of blog. Anita’s goal is, “to highlight the artwork created by builders of long ago.” I’m fascinated by old stone buildings, from millennium-old pueblos and cliff dwellings to the midcentury brick homes in my Tucson neighborhood, so I’m excited to participate in this challenge. I’m also excited to use this challenge as an opportunity to share photos from places that relate in some way…
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Bloom on an organ pipe cactus, Stenocereus thurberi (#FOTD)
Yes, I’m back with yet another cactus blossom for Cee’s Flower of the Day challenge. This one is on the organ pipe cactus in my front yard. Organ pipes are somewhat rare in Tucson. They’re native to an area southwest of here in the borderlands of Arizona (USA) and Sonora (Mexico). They even have their own national monument, named, fittingly enough, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Tucson is supposed to be a little too cold for them, but apparently the one in my yard doesn’t read botanical texts or garden guides. It just grows happily in front of my house, making magnificent blooms like this one. Or this one: Learn…
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#FOTD: Dragonfruit blossoms
For Cee’s Flower of the Day photo challenge, my neighbor’s dragonfruit blossoms, taken during my morning walk yesterday. Dragonfruit plants are scraggly and ugly, but dang, their blooms are spectacular. Here’s a closeup of the center. My husband says it looks like it has an alien bursting out of it. He’s kind of right.
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#FOTD: Blooming prickly pear
Yes, it’s another bloomin’ cactus (with a bonus bee!) for Cee’s Flower of the Day challenge. I snapped this pic on my morning walk in the neighborhood last week. Most prickly pears aren’t much to look at most of the year–and then they bloom, and I understand why almost every yard in Tucson has at least one.
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#FOTD: Blooming saguaros
If you’re a regular here in my little corner of the interwebs, you probably know I’ve become smitten with cacti and especially our enormous, whimsical, and occasionally ridiculous-looking saguaros (see this post and this other post for examples). Well, now my favorite form of desert flora is floriferous, or, to put it less pretentiously, the saguaros are blooming! When they bloom, they look even more whimsical/ridiculous. I think the blooms, especially the ones on the main part of the plant, make them look like characters on The Simpsons. See? Or maybe like they’re carrying multiple bridal bouquets. And maybe I’ve lost my mind. Want to see lots of pretty flowers?…
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#CBWC: Wispy water
This week’s entry for Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge was taken on a rainy Black Friday in 2007. I’d always wanted to learn how to get this ribbony effect when taking pictures of running water, so I decided to teach myself. This picture is one of my earliest attempts.
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#FOTD: Lemon blossoms in our Tucson backyard
My mother always cooked with lemons. We had a lemon tree in our backyard when I was growing up in Northern California, and it produced lemons by the bushel basket. She even left a huge bag of lemons on the front seat of my car when I was in college, so my dorm-mates and I could make fresh lemonade. That activity was a wholesome departure from our usual shenanigans. The house we bought here in Tucson came with a sad, neglected lemon tree. We’ve been pampering it since we moved in–giving it lots of water, mulching it with compost, and, in my case, whispering sweet nothings to it as though…
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#FOTD: Trillium from my Portland garden
For Cee’s Flower of the Day photo challenge, another throwback to my Portland gardening days. Taken April 7, 2007. I posted another trillium picture back in January, when I was looking over memories of times and gardens past. We don’t have trilliums here in Tucson–trilliums don’t have spines or thorns, and I believe it’s a local ordinance that anything grown here must be able to stab you. I don’t miss the rainy Portland winters, but I do–occasionally–miss slogging through my garden between showers to see if the trilliums were blooming yet. After months of grey and rain, I’d cling to any sign of spring the way an aphid clings to…
Janet Alcorn
Suspense | Horror | Romance
