Lots of paperwhite flowers blooming in the courtyard. Good sign that warmer temperatures are coming. We might have some showers by the first of the week which the flowers (and all of the desert) will appreciate. Click on the image to enlarge.
I will have photos of daffodils very soon. They have started to appear at the flower concession at the supermarket.
This little bucket which sits under the rain spout by the patio serves to not only collect rain runoff, but to provide a reservoir suitable for our little winged friends to get a drink of water. There generally are no places where water stands for very long in our arid environment, so we’re happy to provide a place for the birds and other critters to get water.
I had a birdbath set up out back for quite a while before the monsoon winds and showers totaled it out. This bucket takes the place of the fragile glass fixture that we still find shards from, while not endangering the critters that take advantage of it.
We have no direct evidence of it, but we suspect that squirrels, roadrunners, bunnies, coyotes, mule deer and other assorted local critters take advantage of the water. Someday, we might get photographic evidence of that and post it here.
The Baby is now almost as big as the family pet, Bentley. His Mama sent us this nice photo of the two of them on a quilt with ABC’s all over it. Click on the image to enlarge.
We will be going out to California again around Valentine’s Day to visit with the other grandparents, the parents, Baby G and Bentley plus our dogs. This time, we’re inviting everybody to the RV Resort to have dinner with us – we’re cooking!
We saw, but did not buy these beautiful Miltoniopsis Orchids in the flower concession at the supermarket last week. I did not have my camera, so Bob had to use his little pocket camera he carries most everywhere to get this picture. Click on the image to enlarge.
A short article in Wikipedia describes this variety:
Miltoniopsis, abbreviated Mltnps in horticultural trade, is a genus of orchids. It consists of 5 species, native to Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Colombia. They are named after Lord Fitzwilliam Milton, an English orchid enthusiast. Miltoniopsis’s common name is Pansy Orchid.
Although the flowers are similar, Mitoniopsis differs from Miltonia by having one leaf to each pseudobulb, and a lobed column that is united to the labellum through a keel. In addition, the column is not concave at the base.
Bob carried Cabela and Bay Bay out into the courtyard this evening to watch the setting sun and the colors of the clouds. I took this picture while the dogs were interested in some cottontails or jackrabbits feeding across the road. Click on the image to enlarge.
This is the most colorful sunset of this year! However, there are bound to be a lot more as colorful and more in the coming year. Happy New Year!
Click on the image to enlarge.
