The Mama got us both new harness rigs today. The old ones were straps that were wearing off our fur (we pull at our leashes a little – or, maybe a LOT). anyhow, the new ones are padded and feel comfortable to us as we pull our Mama and Daddy around. Click on us to make us big.
Bird House
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.
Solar Photography Practice
The 2012 annular solar eclipse is just two weeks away. We are still scheduled to witness this magnificent event from Page, Arizona, almost exactly on the centerline of the annular eclipse path. The eclipse will occur about an hour before sunset, so the sun will be low in the western sky at the peak of annularity.
I took a minute yesterday afternoon to check the SOHO website for active sunspots and found that large spot 1472 was showing midway between the center and the limb of the sun. I went outside with the SX-40 and the solar adapter to take some practice shots. For the image at the right, I used the filter (of course) 1/1600′ shutter speed and F8.0 aperture with a film speed of 3200. Sunspot 1472 shows up at about 7 o’clock on the solar disk in the image.
I wanted to make sure that my earlier experiments would work when we are in Page on May 20th. I think that using the filter, a very fast film speed, a fast shutter speed and a normal aperture will enable me to capture the lunar/solar images just fine. Now, if the weather will cooperate, we have it made. 😉 Click on the solar 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.
Return of the Red Bird of Paradise
Since the Red Birds are coming back to the courtyard, it won’t be long until the beautiful flowers start appearing. I posted this item exactly a year ago today explaining why I just LOVE these plants and their flowers . . .
This is probably my favorite desert shrub. The shrub is called “Red Bird of Paradise” or “The Pride of Barbados.” They are native to Central America, parts of South America and the West Indies. Desert Tropicals, a Phoenix based garden information website, has information on cultivation and care of these pretty shrubs. They recommend planting them six feet apart and after summer in November or so, to cut them almost to the ground to keep them compact. In mid-spring, they will grow quite rapidly to between six and fifteen feet high.
I took this photo today while we were in Glendale, AZ, doing some shopping. Very soon, we will be having our landscape contractor install several of these around our house. Click on the image to enlarge.
