The first four flowers on one of the hedgehog cacti have opened. There will be dozens of them this spring according to the number of buds I see on both cacti. This one is very pretty. Click on the image to enlarge.
Arizona
High Desert Wildlife Drama
A few days ago we saw our first snake of the season. Our buddy, Crotalus, advised that it was a Sonoran gopher snake and that it preys on rodents and is non venomous. Today, the same snake appeared out back. As it climbed up the embankment by our driveway, a curve-billed thrasher and its mate showed up to encourage the snake to go elsewhere. The bird in the photo pecked at the snake’s tail several times before the snake hurried off into some underbrush on the neighbor’s property. Click on the image to enlarge.
Beavertail Prickly Pear Flowers
None of our beavertail cacti are ready to show flowers just yet, but this more mature cactus belonging to a distant neighbor has pink flowers in abundance with more on the way. I can hardly wait for our beavertails to start early flowering.
P.S. My hedgehog cacti will be showing pink flowers very soon.
BBQ Season Back
Now that the weather is turned to (mostly) spring weather, the grill comes out of storage to active use. Today, we enjoyed pork baby back ribs with Verna’s killer potato salad and bake beans. Yummers! 🙂
Tomorrow, we’ll be grilling rib eye beef and salmon steaks for surf ‘n’ turf Sunday. Click on the image to enlarge.
First Cardinal Sighting of 2012
After the rain subsided this afternoon, I spotted this male cardinal sitting on a power pole across the road. This is the first sighting of a cardinal for us this (almost) spring. he was whistling his mating call so I believe he’s in the market for a mate. Click on the image to enlarge.
Scenic Panoramic View from US60/BNSF Railroad
It’s a real shame that only freight moves along this section of BNSF’s rail between Surprise and Morristown, AZ. A dome car on a passenger train traveling along this route would be treated to this scenic panorama of desert vegetation (Teddy Bear Cholla, Saguaro Cacti, Palo Verde and others) with jagged Arizona mountains in the distance.
If the hypothetical passengers were to continue along the BNSF route to Las Vegas, they would also be treated to scenes along the Hassayampa River and then on into the Joshua tree forests of northwest Arizona. If you don’t like the scenery (who wouldn’t?), just wait five or ten minutes and one kind of beautiful scenery will be replaced by another.
I can’t take credit for the panoramic image since I cropped it from one of Verna’s photos from yesterday. Click the thumbnail above to see the full-sized panorama.
