. . . get out of the kitchen. Now that the outside temperatures are regularly above 90° and frequently above 100° (see inset in photo), I moved the baking chores to the patio. Meet my new best friend, the TOAST-R-OVEN.
We prepared our meal this afternoon mostly outside; I baked three potatoes in this oven and Bob grilled steaks on the outdoor portable grill. No heat in the kitchen!
At long last, some of the ocotillo flower buds have opened. It turns out that the little birdies like to eat the flower buds, so it took a while for me to post opened flowers since I promised to a month ago. Anyhow, click on the image to enlarge.
This nice specimen is up the street from our road at the top of the hill overlooking north Wickenburg. Ahhh, spring in the Sonoran High Desert – just beautiful . . .
Two years ago, when Bob and I were just buying the lot to build our retirement dream home, the wild cacti on the hill and in the wash behind the graded part of the lot were teeming with cacti flowers. That’s still true today. I walked up the hill a bit to get this image of a beautiful cholla flower. If I recall correctly, a reader and commenter on our other website says this is a buckhorn cholla, a.k.a jumping cholla or a dozen other names. Whatever it’s called, the flowers are gorgeous. Click on the image to enlarge.
Ron, one of our friends on the River, made this cute little yellow birdhouse for us. Today, I took it out to my “musical mesquite” tree, where I hang wind chimes and other colorful decorative things, and hung it on one of the branches. We want to hang it higher in the tree to encourage birds to occupy it, but we left it where it was when a wind gust came up and knocked over my mini-greenhouse up in the courtyard. We ran up there and cleaned up the mess in the courtyard. Amazingly, we did not lose any of the plants in the courtyard or in the greenhouse. Click on the image to enlarge.
We bought this Bishop’s Cap cactus near Chandler, Arizona way back in 1998 or so. We had it in California for those many years before bringing it to our Arizona home last year. I must say it is very happy here having almost constantly producing these beautiful flowers, not only in spring but several other times of the year. Click on the image to enlarge.
