#saguaros

[thomaswaynewolf]

[bitchenfries]

[thewolfnessphotography]

McDowell Sonoran Preserve

Arizona

[mitsdriveswhere]

Saguaros

[lockvogel]

Saguaro National Park

[dbtucson-blog]

Wide View, Raggedtop in Spring

[scaryscarecrows]

So we have transplanted our baby saguaro. Could go either way now, but it had to get out of that pot. I'm hopeful, because we have literally seven large saguaros in that yard--I once looked out there and found a tourist family taking pictures IN the yard, it remains a point of pride--so I think there's something about the soil that they like.

I'm not kidding when I say seven. We have:

The Big Ones: two large, arm-y ones that look very Classic. When I say big, I mean big. When my dad was still up to doing Hardcore Christmas, he'd get a crane out to wrap them in lights. They. Are. Massive.

The Three Amigos: a cluster of three. So named for the comedy film, which my entire family enjoys. The tallest one is flowering for the first time this year!

José: a singular one, no arms, so named because he used to be the perfect height to be mistaken for a person if you looked out there in the dead of night. He's tall enough now that that's no longer a problem.

Headless: Headless got whammied good in a storm ten years back--a tree branch got blown off and hit it--and lost the top. Got some nasty scarring down the side too, probably from lightning. That whole storm was brutal. Neighbor tree hit my fence, power lines down...ugly. Anyways, I thought it'd be a goner, but it flowers on. A lesson to us all.

Hopefully The Baby will take. If it makes it to winter, the plan is to wrap it with a strand of lights for extra warmth: we also have a pair of organ pipes, which don't grow this far north as a rule, that are huge, and I suspect it's because they spent twenty-five winters being wrapped in lights and kept snuggly.

[canela575]

Mexican poppies and Saguaros

[my-life-on-parade]

My first husband (of 42 years) Spider passed away eight years ago this month and over those eight years, I and friends have spread some of his ashes in many beautiful places here in Arizona and California, even in Hawaii. Yesterday Mark and Dhara and I hiked Honeybee Canyon which was one of Spider’s favorite places in all of Arizona, a mile and a half hike through a sandy canyon wash surrounded on both sides by magnificent rock formations and filled with giant saguaros, chollas in full bloom, green trees, colorful wildflowers, wildlife and butterflies, and at the end of the hike, there is a huge boulder carved with ancient petroglyphs. Again, this was one of Spider’s favorite places, and so this is where I spread the very last of his ashes (mixed with some of our little dog Frappy’s ashes who left us recently). I didn’t think it would get to me, but as I scattered the ashes near the huge petroglyph boulder, I could see Spider sitting atop of it, and I broke down and wept and then Mark and Dhara hugged me and I felt myself letting go one last time. Goodbye my beautiful and loving Spider and my sweet little Frappy. You will both always be in my heart. ❤️

Last pic is of Spider.

[mmwm]

LINK FEST: 30 JANUARY 2024

Links that may or may not be related to gardens, food, travel, nature, or heterotopias and liminal spaces but probably are. Sources in parentheses. short article: Pine Cones: The Complicated Lives of Conifer Seeds (Jenna O’del/Northern Woodlands). Look for squirrels, nuthatches, crossbills, and pine siskins near the fallen cones this year. essay: Cold in New Hampshire, or, How Do Chickadees Not…

[racingatthespeedoflove]

Medium-sized contemporary backyard house with a rectangular infinity pool

[rosechata]

superbloom, saguaro

[thewolfnessphotography]

Sonoran desert

Arizona

[bircedikici]

‘Saguaros’, 9 inches x 12 inches, watercolor on paper.

[chasingrainbowsforever]

Superstition Mountains, Arizona

[dbtucson-blog]

Solstice dawn rainbow, Ironwood Forest National Monument