With a little poetic license, the alliterative title works for this Pride of Barbados (a.k.a. Red Bird of Paradise) flower as the sun strikes it from behind. The lighting at this time of the day (late afternoon) augments the yellow tones in these beautiful flowers. All three of the Caesalpinia pulcherrima shrubs in the courtyard are doing their summer thing constantly making these delightful flowers that we love so much. Click on the image to enlarge.
Two very pretty cactus flowers opened up here over the last couple of days; a Star Cactus (astrophytum) flower and a Fishhook (Mammillaria grahamii) flower. Both are shown above with the star on the left and the fishhook on the right. Click on the image to enlarge.
Despite 102° temperature outside, we grilled burgers and roasted corn on the Grill Master today. We did have refreshing beverages to offset the heat, however. The burgers, corn and carrot salad were all delicious. Happy Independence Day!
Verna and I were visiting Arches National Park on July 21, 2008. This was when we were still considering retirement in about a year from then and deciding to use up some of our accrued vacation time.
The object in the background is a sandstone hill where three arches-in-progress graphically show the evolution of arches sculpted by wind and rain. There is a mostly completed arch on the left side with a just beginning stage in the middle and an intermediate stage arch-in-the making on the right.
Click on the image to enlarge.
This is the latest “Star Cactus” flower to open on the Astrophytum in the courtyard. We saw one of these open when we returned from our last California excursion. This one opened yesterday (when I snapped this photo) and opened again today briefly. Click on the image to enlarge.
We discovered a bird nest in our little palo verde tree by the driveway down near the road. It might be a hummingbird or verdin or other small bird since the entrance to the nest is rather small. When we first started building our house here, we found a verdin nest in this tree.
We haven’t noticed any activity in this nest, having only noticed it a couple of weeks ago, probably after the nesting season for this year. Maybe the little bird will come back next time so we can watch what happens. Click on the image to enlarge.
