From September 8, 2010: Verna posed for this photo while we were visiting Arizona and checking the progress of our new house. Click on the image to enlarge.
Today, we had our Thanksgiving Dinner on the table currently sitting approximately where I was standing when I took this picture over five years ago. Happy Thanksgiving!
Despite cooler temperatures and some of our summer birds migrating south, our little hummers are still coming around to sample from Verna’s feeders by the back patio. This little guy paused to sip several times before flitting away. I was out the back patio door taking pictures of other birds at the other feeders out back when the hummer showed up. Click on the image to enlarge.
We bought this nice Sugar Skull decoration in a post-Halloween bargain pile at one of the supermarkets here in town. Other than a Halloween decoration, this could be used to celebrate “Dias de Los Muertos” or Days of the Dead that starts on October 31st through November 3rd to coincide with Halloween and All Saints Day celebrations.
The really hot days of summer are now over, it seems, with forecast highs ONLY in the 90’s. Some of the cacti around the yard are opening flowers like spring has sprung. This is typical of this time of year which the locals (and that includes us) refer to as “second spring.”
The photo above is the last flower of many that opened on our Devil’s Tongue Barrel cactus over the summer. We brought this cactus from the old place in California, put it in the ground here and it has been happy ever since, having grown to twice the height and a significantly larger diameter than when it arrived. Click on the image to enlarge.
Verna and I were doing some minor outdoor chores today. I was spraying to kill some weeds that had cropped up over the summer, and she was snipping off the “sucker” branches from the palo Verde and some Mesquite trees on the property.
After surveying some of her work, she snapped this photo of the house as it appears today. Our new retention wall in front has done its job this summer and kept the property from eroding in spite of a millennium rainfall and runoff last July 18th. Click on the image to enlarge.
After more than a week away from home, the birds that usually gathered beneath and on the bird feeders were mostly shopping elsewhere. It took a day or so for them to gradually start coming back to the (now replenished) feeders.
This is a shot of a woodpecker that snatched a tidbit from the seed bell and is (apparently) headed somewhere to either eat it or to share it with a mate or offspring. I’m not sure which.
The birds (quail, woodpeckers, curve billed thrashers, etc.) have returned, but not yet in the droves as before we left on our trip. I am sure that the numbers of birds will return to their previous state in a few days. Click on the image to enlarge.
