We do not know the name of this cactus variety. It is in a pot in the courtyard in front of the house. When the flower first started to open this morning, it looked like a rosebud. When it fully opened this afternoon, it was clearly typical of cactus flowers. Click on the image to enlarge.
When Hurricane Newton entered southern Arizona, it brought a lot of cloud cover to our area and a few very minor sprinkles of rain. But last evening and this evening’s sunsets were vivid red as the sun set in the west.
I took both of these images from the courtyard with my Canon EOS Rebel. Click on either image to enlarge.
Labor Day is here and with it come some cooler temperatures. It only got up to 97° here today and it was good weather for cookin’ on the grill. We enjoyed grilled beef tenderloin steaks (Filet Mignon), steamed broccoli and a baked sweet potato.
We are going to miss the summer, but here in our town, second spring has begun and will last until almost Thanksgiving. The mild Wickenburg winter weather attracts snowbirds from the arctic states from Labor Day until Memorial Day next year
Click on the image to enlarge..
Since late spring, the eastern most of the three Red Bird of Paradise (a.k.a. Pride of Barbados) has outpaced the other two shrubs in the courtyard by quite a lot. Last year, this one was also the largest after getting a slow start, but this year, it took off right at the start to be the biggest of the three.
The big shrub looks to be about six feet tall by eight feet (or more) across. We planted some small bottle brush shrubs late last year to replace the sage bushes that didn’t do very well. At this time, the one bottle brush shrub is almost completely covered by the giant Red Bird.
The Red Birds will start to fade out this fall and we will, as usual, chop them nearly to the ground to await their return next summer. Click on the image to enlarge.
You can already see the mid-afternoon cumulus clouds building up over the house in this panorama. Two hours later, it was pouring rain on this sunny location as the clouds continued to build into what turned out to be a nice, but badly-needed rain shower.
So far this summer monsoon season, we have only had the bare necessity rain without the flash flooding in our area. We think that if the heavy monsoons hit that we will be OK with our retaining walls and the new little creek that Verna and I fashioned out of rocks on the west side of the lot.
I was looking for rainbows in the area since the rain was falling all around us. When I went out of the courtyard, I saw this dove light atop our big saguaro cactus. We have several species of dove that come around; mourning doves, the most common, white wing doves, not as many and collared doves, few and far between. Click on the image to enlarge.
