Our route from Monument Valley to Moab through Utah today, took us past the Mexican Hat rock formation just north of the San Juan River and the town bearing the Mexican Hat name. I snapped this image from the motorhome as we drove past the famous formation along US Hwy 163. Click on the image to enlarge.
After a recent rainfall, several hummingbirds can be seen browsing the Red Bird of Paradise Flowers in the courtyard here. I managed to capture this photo of one of the tiny birds as it was sipping nectar from one of the brightly colored flowers on the Pride of Barbados shrub nearest the Plum Tree by the gate.
Canon T6i camera settings: 1/1600 second, F5.6, ISO 640, Focal Length 135mm.
Click on the image to enlarge.
One of our transplanted Cherry Red (Trichocereus Grandiflorus) cacti has three new flowers today. These are the second to bloom on our cherry reds, the first having opened in late April.
These three flowers opened today on the “mother” cactus from which we separated several “pups” last October. A couple of the pups are also showing signs of flowers coming soon. Click on the image to enlarge.
Elsewhere in the xeriscape are flowers almost ready to open: two queen of the night flowers and a couple of Argentine giant buds will likely be open soon. Pictures to come for those as well.
Aside from a couple of minor chores, we relaxed and enjoyed the Independence Day Holiday today. We ate pulled-pork sandwiches and Cole slaw with a root beer float. It was an excellent dinner! We’ll be watching fireworks this evening from the courtyard, where we have a limited view of the Sunset Park fireworks exhibit five miles west of our place.
I took this picture of these patriotic flowers back in July of 2007 (sorry, no larger image available), which are shown here on throwback Thursday in honor of the Independence Day celebration.
May God Bless and keep our Freedom in America!
Now that summer is here, my gorgeous Red Bird of Paradise Flowers are everywhere in the front courtyard. The shrubs are about mid-size to how large they will be at the end of summer in into the fall.
The flower in the photo is one of the larger ones currently in bloom out front. The shrub on which it lives is the largest of the three in the courtyard. Click on the image to enlarge.
A beautiful butterfly came into the courtyard this morning and was busily browsing the flowers on our Red Bird of Paradise (a.k.a. Pride of Barbados) shrubs. All three of the courtyard Red Birds now have flowers, so the little guy had a good selection to browse.
More about these flowering shrubs from Wikipedia:
Caesalpinia pulcherrima is a species of flowering plant in the pea family.
It is a shrub growing to 3 m tall. In climates with few to no frosts, this plant will grow larger and is semievergreen. Grown in climates with light to moderate freezing, plant will die back to the ground depending on cold, but will rebound in mid- to late spring. This species is more sensitive to cold than others. The leaves are bipinnate, 20–40 cm long, bearing three to 10 pairs of pinnae, each with six to 10 pairs of leaflets 15–25 mm long and 10–15 mm broad. The flowers are borne in racemes up to 20 cm long, each flower with five yellow, orange, or red petals. The fruit is a pod 6–12 cm long.
Caesalpina pulcherrima is the national flower of the Caribbean island of Barbados, and is depicted on the upper left and right corners of the Queen Elizabeth II’s personal Barbadian flag. Claire Waight Keller included pride of Barbados to represent the country in Meghan Markle’s wedding veil, which included the distinctive flora of each Commonwealth country.
Click on the image to enlarge.
