Verna and Bob's Weblog

August 2018

Devil’s Tongue Cactus Flower

Cactus Flower

Our Devil’s Tongue cactus had its first open flower today. Flowers open during the Second Spring Arizona pseudo-season. I snapped this in the rock and cactus garden west of the house this morning. Several bees were busily competing for the nectar. One of them is visible in the photo.

Ferocactus latispinus is the binomial nomenclature for what is commonly called the Devil’s Tongue cactus. Wikipedia offers the following information about this cactus:

Ferocactus latispinus is a species of barrel cactus native to Mexico. It grows as a single globular light green cactus reaching the dimensions of 30 cm (12 in) in height and 40 cm (16 in) across, with 21 acute ribs. Its spines range from reddish to white in color and are flattened and reach 4 or 5 cm long. Flowering is in late autumn or early winter. The funnel-shaped flowers are purplish or yellowish and reach 4 cm long, and are followed by oval-shaped scaled fruit which reach 2.5 cm (1 in) long.

August 29, 2018 by Arizona Flowers Home & Garden Photography

One Year Ago Today 08/21/2017

Total Eclipse of the SunIt was a year ago that we were in Casper, Wyoming to witness one of the greatest astronomical events of our lifetimes; the All-American Total Eclipse of the Sun. We were camped in an RV park near the centerline of the eclipse. Totality lasted just over two minutes and it was magnificent.

Verna took this image (and many more) during the totality; this image was taken at about the middle of the Moon’s shadow passing across our location.

When you click on the image to enlarge, you can see a prominence at about two o’clock on the limb of the sun and the planet Mercury at the four o’clock position below and to the right of the disc. We didn’t see those specifics with the naked eye, but inspection of the astrophotography after the fact revealed those details.

Click on the image to enlarge.

August 21, 2018 by Nostalgia Something Shiny

New Birdhouse Location

Birdhouse New Location

Last Saturday evening we had a microburst monsoon event that toppled our little palo verde tree out front near the driveway. We recently posted about repairing and re-hanging the little birdhouse in that tree. Fortunately, when the tree toppled, the birdhouse was not damaged.

A neighbor helped us clean up the tree mess on Sunday morning; we cut it into pieces with a chain saw and put it on his trailer for transport to the green dump. Verna rescued the birdhouse and put it in the courtyard for the time being. There is no nest inside, so no birds were involved.

Today, we went up the hill behind the RV drive where we have the bird feeders. There is a nice little mesquite tree up there that was perfect for hanging the recovered birdhouse. I took the image above this afternoon while up on the hill out back. Click on the image to enlarge.

August 1, 2018 by Arizona Home & Garden Retirement

Avalon 1998

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