Photos and comments from Arizona and around the world
In 1957 a replica of the original Mayflower sailing ship was built in Devon, England and sailed across the Atlantic. The ship, now a museum, is located at the Plymouth Plantation, in Plymouth, Massachusetts. There are daily tours of the ship. I always...
With an empty lake to navigate, these geese are acting like they are in rush hour traffic. But the explanation is simple, they are just lazy. The first goose in the row breaks the surface of the water and the following geese then have to use less effort...
This lovely vine reminds me of some people I know. They are lovely, wonderful people but they go virtually unnoticed because they are neither flamboyant nor are the intrusive. This small vine does not have any showy flowers and it is not trying to take...
We first got interested in the aloes because of the medicinal qualities of the juice from the thick leaves of the plant. It is good for burns and especially sunburns. But it smells awful. For a while, adding aloe juice to things, including food, was all...
Sometimes the edge of things is the best place to see the transitions. This photo is a study in the transition between the dry land of the shore and the water of the pond. Sometimes I try to live on the edge and it isn't very comfortable.
How do you tell if it is Spring in the desert? Because if it were summer, I wouldn't be out there walking around taking pictures. Well, granted, it could be Fall or Winter, but in this picture there are some lovely annual flowers and we know that they...
Some places are more interesting in theory than in reality. Cape Cod is one of those places. You would think that following a narrow piece of land out into the Atlantic would be an experience. It is. But a different experience than you might imagine....
I hope to get up to the Grand Canyon sometime in the next month or so. Hopefully, the weather will be really bad with snow, but that isn't very likely. You get the best shots of the Grand Canyon when there are clouds and bad weather. But, it isn't too...
It seems that the columnar cactus are the ones that most commonly have night blooms. They are generally large and light colored. This is likely because of the night pollinators, such as bats. They make an easy to see and echo-locate target. I also note...
I guess if you lived out in the desert with all the cactus or worked everyday at the Desert Botanical Garden, you could see all the cactus as they bloom. But not being in that position, I am always seeing the blooms right after they have faded or right...
These lovely night blooming cactus flowers are already starting to close by the time the sun gets above the horizon. You literally have to get up early even to see them in bloom. By mid-morning all that is left of the flower is the wilted stalk which...
In this time of trouble, we should look to the light of liberty.
I have been hiking up a canyon and looked up on the cliff face to see an abandoned Indian structure. They are usually almost invisible and blend right in with the rocks of the cliff. Sometimes they are inaccessible because anciently, they were reached...
This unusual plant clings to the side of a cliff in a canyon in Northern Arizona. Despite the arid conditions, these plants seem to thrive in a difficult environment. I enjoy its tenacious individuality. In a past post, I quoted the old saying "bloom...
Fall comes to the desert in more subtle ways than in the north or east of the U.S. In the high country, the leaves change in dramatic colors and then fade. In the desert, the leaves turn more subdued colors and begin falling but never quite seem to complete...
Walnut Canyon, in northern Arizona near Flagstaff, is one of the premiere locations for the compact, under the rim, cliff dwellings. It is a National Monument now, but was known from the time of the earliest European settlement of Arizona as a place where...
Monument to Women, Statue Garden, Nauvoo, Illinois USA in USA Nauvoo, Illinois is a town with two personalities. On one hand it is a typical Mid-Western town on a big bend in the Mississippi River and on the other hand, it is a recreation of a town from...
Although by no means do we live in the "country." We live in a very large city. But we are close to areas that are zoned for horses and cows. It is not unusual at all to hear a rooster crow early in the morning as we are out walking. This particular morning,...
The boundaries between things are particularly interesting. The boundary between night and day, and lake and shore are similar transitions. Here is an interesting interface, between the still waters of a small lake and the gravel and the detritus of the...
You can feel light. Well, I guess technically, you are feeling the warmth of the light, but when I am walking I like to feel the light. Sometimes I see things the make me feel the light. These exploding seed pods are a prime example of what feeling the...
It may seem anomalous to have shore birds in Arizona. I never remember seeing them until I was fully grown. I have speculated previously about whether or not there were any or if I was just not aware of their existence. I remember red-winged black birds...
Sometimes as I have been hiking through the back country, I find a quiet reminder that there have been many people who have gone this way before. In our rush to modern technology, sometimes it is refreshing to return to the past and think about life when...
Cactus flowers fall into two general categories; those that bloom at night and are only open early in the morning during daylight and those that bloom during the day, but are only open in the mid-day or early afternoon. This means that to take the photos,...
What would a world be like without butterflies? I might try to imagine a world without mosquitoes or scorpions, but butterflies fall into an entirely different category. They are a like flying flowers.
For so long I cannot remember when, we have had this saying prominently displayed in our kitchen, "Bloom where you are planted." I thought this poor, almost buried Claret Cup cactus was a good example of this admonition. We could all do well to take a...
