it has been a long time

Yesterday, after sitting with a sketch on it for two years, this canvas finally got some paint. Everyone has been patiently waiting to see this painting unfold. To take on color. To come to life. To remind us of so many memories in that big ol' green pasture with that big ol' white horse. With that view to the mountains that we all love.

This guy is good with a paintbrush and it is about time he picked it up. We are happy to see these layers of paint develop into something really special and we can't wait to see it completed. Let's just hope another two years don't pass before this painting is finished and another gets started.

Besides... I think being Rembrandt Man is less dangerous than being Reptile Wrangler.

remembering

our troops and their families and what Memorial Day means for them.

Thank you to them for their service.

cactus blossom tour

Get a cup of coffee, or some iced tea, lemonade or just a cold glass of water. Because, you will be here awhile. This is a post with pictures. Lots of them. Last summer, when my sister was here visiting, we got up really early and went to the Desert Botanical Gardens. You can read about that tour here and here, if you have some extra time...and a refill on your beverage.

When we went last summer it was in July and it was really hot. There were still some blossoms on the cacti, but most of them had already bloomed. We were told that May was a better month to go, if you wanted to see a whole lot of bloomin' going on. So, I've been patiently waiting for May and a day that the Reptile Wrangler had off so he could go too. He missed our visit there last year.

We took Grandma while she was here last week. It was a nice day, not too hot and perfectly sunny. Guess what? We were not disappointed. There were cactus blossoms everywhere. Although, it seems that perhaps we were a bit late for some varieties, as it looked like they had their show earlier. I have said this before and I will say it again..."how do some of the weirdest looking plants have such beautiful flowers?"

See what I mean? It is a pretty one isn't it? It almost makes you want to smile.
Hee. Go ahead, you can smile!
It is interesting how some of the largest cacti have some of the smallest blossoms. And some of the smallest cacti have some of the largest blossoms. Some just have one flower and some have a lot. These are bright red and form a ring around the cactus.
This one, tall and skinny, has one bloom just at the top.
But it is one of the prettiest. So very white and the petals are so very delicate.
Here is the Century Plant. They are blooming everywhere right now. They are the ones that shoot a big stalk up that look like a giant asparagus. Then it opens up and the blooms look like pom poms on the ends.
This one was interesting. Again, just one flower on the tip of each arm of the cactus. It probably would have been nice if I could remember all the names of these to share with you, but I don't. This one just had pretty red flowers.
Here is a close-up.

No blossom's here. Just a very interesting cactus. It looked like a brain.
Another century plant.
This is a barrel cactus, I believe. These blooms have their work cut out for them opening up through all those sharp spikes. See the ones way in there just getting started?
This is one of my favorite's. We were there a day or two early, but I think it was very beautiful just starting to open.
These are perfectly cute little pink flowers. This is a random tangent. Looking at these is bringing back a memory. These remind me of a toy we had when we were growing up. They were little plastic flowers that looked like this, they went with a plastic board and you pushed them in to make patterns. I'm not sure I can remember it exactly. Any one remember something like that? I do know that they really hurt if you stepped on them.
Another red one. So very bright.
If you like orange, these were very intense.
And full of blooms.
Another tall spike.
And these beauties. There are not very many that are variegated in color.
I just loved how this one swooped over into a very pretty arch.
Another view. The buds on the ends are just about to open.
Love it.
And here is the top of a saguaro. They are blooming everywhere right now. It seems to me that they are blooming more this year than last. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that last winter was so rainy and this winter it was so cold. Or, if they just cycle and bloom more every other year.
No flower here. Just an interesting long arm on this one.
So, that concludes your mini tour of the Desert Botanical Garden. We really enjoyed it and gave our visit a big... thumbs up! Ha!

Well almost. You know...the day wouldn't have been complete if we didn't see this...
It slithered right across the path in front of us. Seriously? Evidently there was a sign that I didn't see that said, "warning...snake crossing". Thanks for the warning... I'm glad the Reptile Wrangler was there to protect me! Although, he didn't point out the sign. That is his shadow right there in the corner. Facing danger, putting himself between me and the snake.

I didn't know going to see the blossoms on the cactus would also be a wildlife adventure! Sheesh.

kaleidoscope thursday

I have a couple of these that I have found that I took before my little camera decided to take blurry pictures. So, here is the kaleidoscoped image:

And here it is before:
It is one of the cacti that were blooming on our yard. The plant itself does not look very good because of the freeze, but it did still manage to shoot up this flower stalk. I can't remember if I even know what this one is called. I think it is an aloe of some sort.

Happy thursday!

gone for awhile

...but back again.

Blogger-the hosting site for this blog has had a problem for a couple of days, so I have not been able to access my blog. I wasn't sure if it was a situation just on my end (novice that I am) but I was given a little help from a friend and found out that Blogger was having some trouble. So, it seems to be back up and running and I'm just glad they fixed it, instead of me having to stumble my way around the technology juggernaut that is in my head.

Speaking of back again. I had some little visitors the other morning. I saw this guy first, standing tall on one of the chairs on the back patio. He has bobbing his head back and forth, keeping watch out for predators. Kind of like me, when I am outside.

Remember this little guy with the wobbly legs? I bet he was looking at his dad wondering... will my little fuzzy mohawk ever look like the great plume on my dad's head?
And the rest of the little quail family. Remember them?
They are growing up.
It looks like only five are left, assuming it is the same family. I have not seen them since the day they hatched and did their crazy four foot free fall to the ground. What did happen though is something got into the pot and feasted on the left over shells. It is a rough wildlife world out there.

The big male bird that was keeping watch from the edge of the chair was an extra. Maybe he is a grandpa or an uncle, because there was a female and a male(mom and pop) that stayed with the little ones on the ground. The extra guy just kept watch, mumbling and squawking once in awhile. Which by the way, these birds are noisy! Especially at 4:45 every morning. I will not complain about it though because the nights have been so pleasantly cool that we are able to leave the windows and door open in our bedroom. I love sleeping like that. So, even though they wake us up very early, I just put a pillow over my head and go back to sleep. I dread the long hot summer with everything closed up and the air conditioner running. We have been lucky, we have only put the air on once so far.
It was cute to watch the young quail pecking around in the grass. It is surprising how big they have gotten in such a short amount of time. A little while later they all took off over the fence, so yes...they did learn how to fly. As much as quail fly anyway. I was glad I spotted them at least once again since they left. I'm sure that we will see another nest next spring.

As for other wildlife sightings...it has been pretty quiet around here. Leah saw another gila monster on a friend's driveway here in the neighborhood. That puts her count up to five! The friend, who has lived here a long time, said that was the first one he had ever seen. Like I said...hang around us and you will see them. I think we are gila magnets.

Well, like the baby quail, I think I pecked around here long enough... time for me to fly!

the graduates

The sister.

The brother.
She graduated from high school. He graduated from college. It was requested that I show them both in their cap and gown attire. It was a pretty big week around here. Okay, four years for each of them is a long time, but for us...we say it went by pretty fast. Not to mention all those years before that. As I said, we think it went by pretty fast.

Because for us...

...this just doesn't seem that long ago.

Ummm...yep they were cute!

another shiny tassel turned

Last night, another proud moment for this dad and mom. The second tassel was turned, marking the end of high school for the oldest daughter.She had the biggest smile.
And so did we.

In our hearts and on our faces.

Two graduations in less than one week. How much can our hearts smile?

As much as they want to.

Way to go Rachel... now we can't wait to see how the next chapter in your book reads. We know you will write it well...because you are you and you have the ability and the skills to keep making us proud! Shine on girl.

Shine on.

kaleidoscope thursday-revisit

Hello thursday. Because my small camera is all out of its picture taking skills...I'm doing a revisit of an earlier kaleidoscope experiment. If you missed it the first time, not to worry, here it is again. If you saw this before...well, I think it is worthy of a second look.

The kaleidoscoped image:

And before. Or technically speaking, because this was a pretty technical shot, the before and the during...all at the same time.
Miss Leah created this technically executed kaleidoscope image.

I like it.

It has been a full week around here. The theme is graduation and it is going strong. It is also finals week for one and finally done with high school for the other. Whew!

Happy thursday!

turning the tassel

We had a very proud moment last friday.

The college boy walked the stage and turned his tassel from the left side to the right side, making him a graduate of the 2011 class. Turning to a new chapter in his book of life. We hope it will be a good chapter. The rest so far have been worthy of a best seller so we can't wait to see how the next one turns out. We will be anxiously waiting to turn the pages!
And we couldn't be prouder.

As we boarded the plane I couldn't help but think about all those chapters. It was all I could do to not get all sappy and become that tearful mother that I'm pretty good at being. So, I just closed my eyes and took a much needed nap.

When I woke up I was told to look out the window.
There at the end of the wing, above all the clouds... was the moon.

And then a little while later...

Sunset alert!

A perfect ending.

kaleidoscope thursday

It's thursday...in case you didn't know.

The kaleidoscoped image.

And before.
It is the sundial in the little town of Carefree. You can actually tell time by it, on a sunny day of course. This day, it was very cloudy and a little rainy... no telling what time it was when I was there.

Enjoy your weekend everyone!

because we see things

On Mother's Day we packed a picnic dinner and drove up to the lake that is near here. We have been there before, mostly just on the lake boating with cousins, but have not explored the surrounding area very much. So, we thought we would look for a nice spot for a picnic dinner and watch the sun go down.

There were two directions that we could choose to follow. Our driver chose the one to the right of the lake which meandered around and very soon looked like it would be taking us down near the river. We kept following it and found a couple of guys fishing. There were a couple of remote campsites but mostly the area seemed pretty desolate. We decided we would go back up by the lake. As the road winded around, the driver and myself had our eyes on the hills and dam in front of us. From the back seat a loud... "there's a gila monster!" came spouting out of the youngest girls mouth. Followed by..."there are two gila monsters on the road!" and then "stop the car!"

I handed the camera to the oldest daughter, thinking she would just lean out the window, but no...a closer view was in order. So, with cautions of "don't get too close" and "if they bite...you will die before we can get to the hospital" and "they are so poisonous" came from the daughter in the back seat. The dad and I were watching saying "that is close enough" and "quick...get a picture." She with the camera was saying... "how fast can they run?"
Not very fast.... is what I read here when I did a little research about the one we found in our garage. Slow moving and kind of lethargic. So, we figured she would be safe, at a good distance away, using the zoom on the camera. The smaller one did turn and look at her, but then proceeded to amble off into the brush.
It took a little effort to get up and over the hill.

This bigger one was more interested in getting into the grass and brush. Camera shy I guess.
So off they both went. They were in the road when we first drove up on them and as quickly/slowly as they could move they were on their way. Now, if anyone is counting, this makes 4 gila monsters that we have seen since moving here to Arizona. Four. So for everyone that tells us..."I have lived here my whole life and have never seen a gila monster"... hang around us. Because in the sixteen months that we have lived here, let me remind you, we have seen four. Four.

We followed the road back to the lake and this time took the road to the left, which brought us to an area that overlooked the lake. We carried our stuff and found a nice place to sit. Other than just a few people here and there, and a flock of vultures flying around eyeballing our sandwiches, we had the place pretty much to ourselves. After our picnic by the lake we strolled around the shore a bit. We took a few more pictures. And, why yes, the girls caught some fish! Did I think they might just try to toss them on me?

Does it look like it had been out of the water for awhile?

Do you think someone was using them as bait and left these three behind? Do my kids know that just the littlest thing they find is a perfect opportunity for a photo? Do you think it is time for a manicure?

And then, as the sun was going down, a celebration along the shore was just what we needed to end the day.

I love sisterly love. It makes a momma happy.
Oh ya! Happy.

Go ahead jump!
Jump a little higher!

Although we felt a bit like the slow moving gila monster... the dad and I managed to celebrate the sunset too.
Go ahead...jump!

disclaimer: the fish were someone's bait that they had left on the shore. they were already past the living stage...we were not the ones that kept them out of the water to die an untimely death.