It’s St. Patrick’s Day today, so Ted brought me something green. I enjoy his tradition of bringing me a blooming spring plant just before spring actually arrives. It helps me believe that winter is really nearly over.

The burning bush and the sweet gum trees in our neighbors’ yards are gorgeous right now.

Jeff is taking some very nice pictures with his new camera and posting them on his blog.  His pictures are inspiring me to look for interesting things to photograph, so when I saw this purple flower in the sun, I thought it was a perfect opportunity to experiment with my skills.

 

In real life, the purple blossoms stood out in brilliant sunlight compared to the surrounding shaded marigolds, but my cell phone camera automatically adjusted the lighting.  Now I’m wondering if I need a better camera like Jeff’s so I can take better, more interesting pictures.  The down side is that Jeff said the camera cost more than his first car.  Granted, it was a well-used car that he bought in the mid-1990s, but the question is whether I really want to invest that much time and money in photography.  Food for thought . . . .

We have lots of red salvia in our back yard, and it attracts hummingbirds.  While I was sitting on the patio reading a book, a hummingbird spent almost two minutes darting its beak into individual pods on the salvia bloom.  I wished I had my camera with me to take a picture of the quick-moving tiny bird, but I knew if I moved, the bird would fly away.  I just enjoyed the moment and watched it work.

Imagine a hummingbird darting around these flowers.

Drawn like a moth to a flame.

I had this citronella candle burning while I sat on the patio under the party lights last night.  When I blew out the candle, I noticed the unfortunate moth.

Back in May, when I was taking a walk, I noticed that a good Samaritan had planted irises around the rocks that border one of the common grounds in our subdivision.  We have over 70 acres of common grounds in our subdivision, and I saw no other irises or other flowers in any other areas.  I therefore assume it was not the Beautification Committee, but someone who lives in the area, who planted these just for the love of springtime beauty.  Thank you!  I enjoyed seeing these flowers every day they bloomed.  Given the hardiness and the rapid proliferation of irises, there should be even more beauty next spring.

This guy has been visiting us regularly.  We haven’t seen him in the water yet, so maybe he’s only sunbathing or looking for girl ducks in swimsuits.

I’m not imagining it.  It’s true.  We’ve had so many cold, gray, and rainy days since February, that we’re a month behind on spring.  The normal high and low temperatures for today are 67 and 47 degrees, but we had a high of 43, with snow flurries and a freeze warning forecast for tonight.

After snow last Sunday, we had two days in the upper 70s last week.  That was just enough to convince our magnolia trees that they should open their long-ready buds–a month late.  The blooms, however, are proof that spring is late and that the weather has truly been as crummy and as cold as it seemed.

Normal spring

This is one of our magnolia trees on March 16, 2016.

 

2018 spring

This is the same magnolia tree today, April 15, 2018.  The outer petals of the buds froze several weeks ago.  By staying closed, the frozen outer petals protected the blooms, but the color suffered.  They’ll freeze completely tonight.  Note also the rain-wet streets–again.  (But the grass looks good.)

It seems that spring has forgotten Missouri.  We had a few hours of warm weather this morning (a high of 73 degrees), but the cold front moved in around 2:00 pm and the temperature is rapidly falling to a predicted low of 27.  Tomorrow’s high is forecast to be 40 degrees–and so goes the rest of the ten-day forecast.  Missouri and I are not the only ones disappointed by the absence of spring.  I found this news blurb back on March 22, but the weather hasn’t improved since then, so it’s still timely.

Thank you, National Weather Service, for observing meteorological seasons, making today the first day of spring.  I love spring!

Ted knows that winter is my least favorite season, and he also knows how much I look forward to spring.  He has established a tradition of bringing me budding bulbs each year as soon as they are available in the stores so that I have spring flowers before the weather is really ready for them.  This year, he brought me some powerful, magic tulips.

It was winter when I put the tulips in the window this morning . . .

. . . and by afternoon, the snow was gone.  Magic!

Look what I saw outside today.  “It must be spring!” said the woman who dislikes winter.  Pay no attention to that man on TV who forecast snow for later this week.

 

Today was Ted’s and my first day of what Utah tourism calls “the best week of your life.”  It’s a seven-day road trip that includes Utah’s “Mighty 5″® national parks–Zion, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, and Arches.  Ted and I are including Grand Staircase/Escalante National Monument and Natural Bridges National Monument in our itinerary.  The best week of our life includes driving the All-American Highway, Utah SH 12, which is so beautiful, it’s a destination in itself.  (Really.)  We’re looking forward to starting that tomorrow morning.

Today, we spent over five hours hiking in Zion National Park.  We started by following the Emerald Pools Trail to see three emerald pools-so named because at certain times of the year, the algae in the pools makes them look green.  As pools go, they weren’t very impressive, but in Zion NP, there is no such thing as a bad view, so we saw nothing but spectacular scenery during the entire time we hiked and rode the shuttle through the park from stop to stop (no private vehicles allowed from March 1-October 31).

The steep red cliffs in Zion are a result of the uplift associated with the creation of the Colorado plateaus that lifted the region 10,000 feet 13 million years ago.  The canyon itself was created by the Virgin River.  The stone cliffs are mostly sandstone, which erodes quite easily, so maybe that’s why the walls are so vertical and form a canyon far more narrow than that of the Grand Canyon.  The cliff walls rise 6,000 feet above the canyon floor and are breathtaking.  It’s probably impossible to take a bad picture in Zion, so scroll down and enjoy some of Ted’s and my favorite scenes from our hike today.

We gave our new hiking shoes and trekking poles a good workout.  It’s great to be our age and buying items like that!

 

There are no words to describe the grandeur and impressive size of the rocks in Zion NP.

 

Definition of a pool:  a small area of still water.  Here is a view of the first Emerald Pool from a higher point on the trail to the second pool.  All three pools definitely fit the “small” part, although they were larger than puddles.

 

The fall colors are at their peak in Zion.  I think some of these pictures are pretty enough to put on a calendar.

 

Ted and I thoroughly enjoyed the Grand Canyon, but we agree that it ranks second to Zion for grandeur, majesty, and just plain natural beauty.  Imagine our pleasure hiking through all of the above scenes today.  Mm-mm good!

Identifying plants

The Sonoran Desert surpasses all other North American deserts in lushness and in variety of life, even though it is one of the hottest and driest regions on the continent.  The pictures below are some of the plants I’ve learned to recognize.

Here is a picture of one of the seven varieties of cholla (cho’-yah) cactus.  This one is the teddy bear type because it looks soft and cuddly.  Prickly pear are on each side, and the tall spire is a young saguaro cactus.

This is a close-up of a jumping cholla.  You can see how the dried stalk would break at a joint and “jump” onto you if your clothing brushed against it.

Here’s a barrel cactus with some drying blooms.

Look at that network of protective thorns the barrel cactus puts around itself!

This is an ocotillo (oh-koh-tee’-oh) cactus.

Here’s a close-up of the ocotillo’s vicious thorns.  The ocotilla sprouts leaves within days after a rainstorm, then drops them as the moisture disappears.

The bushes with the tiny green leaves on each side of the prickly pear are creosote.  Creosote can leave black marks on your pants legs if you brush against it.  I didn’t brush against any creosote, but I touched a prickly pear thorn very, very gently to test its sharpness, and it pierced the skin on my fingertip.  Yikes!  Those thorns are really sharp!

The large, multi-spired plant in the center is an organ pipe cactus.  The low, whitish one in the foreground is an agave.  Agave roots are used to make tequila.

The palo verde (green stick) tree looks very lacy, probably because of its tiny leaves.

The palo verde got its name because all of it is green–even its bark.

City gardens in the desert (this one is at a museum) don’t look at all like Midwestern gardens.

 

The saguaro cactus

Saguaro (sah-war’-oh) cacti grow only in the Sonoran Desert in California, Arizona, and Mexico.  Saguaros grow very slowly and might be only 1/4-inch tall after the first year.  At about 30 years, they begin to flower, and they might begin to sprout their first branches (arms) at about 75 years.  The saguaro bloom is the state flower of Arizona.  Saguaros can live 150-200 years, reaching 50 feet in height and weighing 8 tons.  They are the largest cacti in the United States.

Saguaros must begin their lives under the shelter and protection of a nurse tree in order to survive.  This center saguaro is as tall as its nurse tree.  The one on the left is just beginning to grow its first arm (above the tree), making it about 75 years old.

Saguaro cacti can grow in forests.

Here’s another saguaro forest.  The accordion-like pleats of the saguaro cover a spongy center.  The saguaro collects water with a network of roots that lie about three inches below the desert surface.  When it rains, the spongy center of the plant fills with water and the pleats expand and flatten as the stalk swells.  A saguaro can soak up as much as 200 gallons of water–enough to sustain it for a year.

 

The desert is a fascinating place, but I’m a hard-core Midwesterner.  It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live here.

This morning, Dan and Vernie took Ted and me to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum–a definite “must see.”  It’s an outdoor museum with paths that took us through true desert.

A variety of cacti are visible in this photo. The center plant is an organ pipe cactus; the lower center is an agave cactus (they make tequila from these roots); and just above the agave is the stalk of a young saguaro cactus.  I don’t remember the names of the leafy one on the left or the bare-looking one on the right.

The short plants are cholla cacti, but Vernie said they are called “teddy bear cactus” because they look fluffy.  (They’re not.  They’re sharp!)

The cactus on the left is called a “jumping cholla” because if a branch dies, it will “jump” onto your clothing if you brush against it.  It doesn’t really jump; it breaks off of the plant and sticks to your clothing.  How do you get cactus out of your clothes?  Vernie said you use a comb.  In the center of the photo is a prickly pear cactus, and behind it is a saguaro that is probably over 100 years old, since they don’t sprout arms until they are about 75 years old.

Here are many young saguaro cacti (no arms), some prickly pear, a cholla on the right, and the mystery (to me) cactus that looks like a bush of sticks.

 

There is a hummingbird house on the museum grounds.  I didn’t know until today that hummingbirds are found only in the Western Hemisphere, and in the U.S., only west of the Mississippi River.  (The docent admitted that with climate change, there might be a few hummingbirds just east of the Mississippi.)  Arizona has 18 kinds of hummingbirds; Missouri has one, maybe two kinds.  There are about 300 species of hummingbirds.

The hummingbirds fly all over in the hummingbird house and are easy to spot, but getting a picture is harder.  They move very quickly and they are hard to see when they alight on the dense foliage.  I got a lucky shot of this one.

 

Finally, here’s a photo of the people with whom I had a wonderful desert museum experience.

Over the years, we’ve lost some trees to weather damage and needed to have them cut down.  We simply had the tree company cut them down, grind them into mulch, and take the mess away.  People living in one of the subdivisions adjacent to ours were more creative when they had two large trees removed from their front yard.

The long shot.

This was the tree on the left in the long shot photo, above.

And this used to be the tree on the right.

Our two tulip trees are blooming.  The one in my pictures is Paul–Kari’s fourth grade Arbor Day tree that she named for her Grandpa Schroeder.  It’s the only one of the four Arbor Day trees the kids brought home that survived to maturity.

A close-up of some of the tulip-like blooms

A close-up of some of the tulip-like blooms

The walker I inadvertently caught in my picture is apparently admiring the tulip blooms, just as I am.

The walker I inadvertently caught in my picture is apparently admiring the tulip blooms, just as I am.

Magnolia tree

Magnolia tree

It’s spring!  I love this tree in our yard.  We have two like this and three of a slightly different variety.