We have had some hot days the past week, but the desert plants have been loving the weather and have been blooming even more than the week before. Because of the heat, we haven’t done much on the property besides watering the plants that need it and making sure the chickens are tolerating the heat. We have, however, done a few things inside the house like replacing our refrigerator and dishwasher!
One morning before it became too hot, I was able to go outside and take pictures around the property. There was so much to see that I was outside a little longer than I had planned. Josh has been working pretty late this week and since I took these pictures, he asked me to write today’s summary post.
We have had roadrunners on the property for a few weeks now and will sometimes see up to five running around. I was so happy when I saw one of the roadrunners on this blooming saguaro and I was able to snap a few pictures!
Josh was able to take a few videos of our resident roadrunners. They are so much fun to watch. We aren’t going to complain about their being on our property because they will hopefully keep the rattlesnakes away!
We weren’t expecting any of our saguaros to bloom but this one by our front driveway is blooming and another two back behind our house have flower buds. And the flowers are all where we can see them! Usually they are too high to see well because of the height of the saguaro. Josh is hoping we will have enough saguaro fruit later to make into a jelly or syrup.
Our fruit trees from the Trico Tree program through Trees for Tucson are doing very well. The tree program is sold out for the rest of 2020, but we will probably be buying more trees next year when the program opens up again!
Our fig tree is the newest of our trees and is a little smaller than the others, but it is doing well and has large green leaves. We are looking forward to its shade!
This is the pomegranate tree by our chicken coop. We are looking forward to its shade also but mostly we are looking forward to the pomegranates! It really loves where it was planted.
This pomegranate tree is over by our rain runoff pond (currently dry of course). It is also doing well.
The next two trees are the Anna apple trees that Josh bought at Home Depot. They flowered earlier in the year.
There are quail that come visit us often, especially at the bird feeder. They are more shy of people than the roadrunners so they are more difficult to catch in pictures.
We also have bunnies that live on the property. They tend to stay in the front yard, but sometimes we will see them in our fenced backyard and have to chase them out the gate.
The palo verde by our front porch just exploded in yellow flowers this past week. The bees are loving it. Every time I walk by I can hear them buzzing around.
This desert ironwood is right outside our kitchen window and it is full of little purple flowers.
We also have many, many mesquite trees on the property. This particular one also outside our kitchen window is awash in tiny yellow flowers. At first, we thought they were pollen clusters. Gwen calls them yellow cones.
The prickly pear are still blooming as well. The orange flowers are on the prickly pear by our front porch. They are full of sunset colors and are easy to pick out from the palo verde flowers.
Pink flowers on the cholla outside a living room window
There are so many doves here that we can’t count them. We have three dove nests that we know of on the property.
Texas ranger, a type of sage, blooming in front of one rainwater storage tank.
Sadly, our rainwater storage tanks are currently empty. That will change in about 45 days when monsoon season begins.
Roadrunner on the front porch, trying to figure out how to jump onto the roof and not sure about jumping down to the ground from the railing
Back deck planters with tomatoes and kale
A curve-billed thrasher on the dead saguaro in our backyard. Every time a bird leaps off of this dead saguaro, you can hear the dry saguaro ribs click together. It’s an interesting sound!
This little hummingbird visits us often and loves the bottlebrush growing off the back deck. It’s so quiet here sometimes that you can hear its little wings beating the air.
The shade in the chicken run and coop changes depending on the time of day. The chickens hang out in the coop for part of the morning then move into the run to chill by this dead tree stump.
What’s new inside? A new refrigerator and a new dishwasher! The big pluses to each of these: on the fridge, it’s the ice and water dispenser (we’ve never had a fridge with those and the kids are loving it!) and a time delay on the dishwasher. Our old dishwasher didn’t have a delay and we’d have to remember to turn it on before bed; sometimes we’d forget and there’d be no clean dishes in the morning!
I have to say that I am thankful for a very handy husband. Josh is very good at installing or repairing pretty much anything in the house. He had a lot of practice with our 60-year-old house back in California!
I’ll end this post with some sunset pictures. We’d been missing them lately because of being busy after dinner, but the last sunset of April was one not to miss. We will see what May brings! Hopefully, it will bring good news and good things.
-Lynn
