Your color name?
Thursday, 3 May 2018
These are tiny, delicate blooms in a lovely shade of kinda-pink. That’s an official color name IMHO.
Musings
May Day
Tuesday, 1 May 2018
I do enjoy the fancy-petals on this iris.
Wondered what this equipment was for. Had to be for a back yard project (but what?, asks nosy me). As I was snapping this, the contractor drove up in pickup with trailer with more equipment, so I had no chance to look up the driveway. He wondered what I was up to. Lotsa wondering during that interlude.
And…May is here.
Busy in the neighborhood
Monday, 30 April 2018
The ferns are forging forward.
The rhodos (in the shade) are abloom.
And this, I hypothesize, is AT&T fiber splicing equipment (and personnel inside).
Lookee lookee
Saturday, 28 April 2018
This flower spike is less that a foot high. If it keeps up with its neighbors, it’ll reach at least six and maybe eight or more feet, with, I expect, white blossoms. Next week I’ll check on its progress….
The red leaves are Acer palmatum/Japanese maple, while the green are some kind of oak. There are a “confusion*” of oaks in this state…. I especially like the lacy, serrate, palmately lobed, pointy maple leaves.
* My reality; my term.
Whitish blooms
Friday, 27 April 2018
I found a young magnolia, about four feet tall. It sported this magnificent blossom on top. Viva!
With an extra ration of Friday-humor, I titled this photo: bee-decked peony. 😎
Gardening choices
Thursday, 26 April 2018
As you may know, Dad was quite the gardener. His tendency was to tend (ha!) plants that produced edibles. He also grew some flowers, because he knew Mom loved them. He only kept one rose bush downstate, because they took too much fussing. The rose grew next to the grapes and on the same trellis.
Dad also wasn’t much for bulbs, like these iris, although we had wild ones that survived on their own on the property up north. Now, in the sense that you plucked them out of the soil in the autumn, and replanted in the spring, onions are darned similar to flower bulbs. And he did grow onions (and garlic).
The dogwood was totally in Dad’s wheelhouse, in that it takes no fussing once it’s established. However, the dogwoods of southern Michigan (that I remember) are swamp-loving red osier dogwoods, and so not suited for the downstate yard. Today, I was surprised to find this one in bloom; the others I saw were the pointy-petaled dogwoods—the rest of the round-petals have finished.
Progression of the dogwood blooming season…and today is 101 years since Dad was born. Me, I don’t garden much, but I’m good with photographing garden products, whether fruits, veggies, or blossoms.
What season?
Wednesday, 25 April 2018
Despite all the spring blossoms, I found these juniper berries today. I usually associate fruits/berries with no earlier than mid-summer for woody plants. [Turns out juniper berries are “fleshy cones;” live and learn.]
Making up for…deficiencies
Tuesday, 24 April 2018
I made yesterday’s post on the fly, which is theoretically “just fine.” Looking back, I didn’t draw from our full set of images-of-the-day, and blah blah.
As we sped east across OK, then AR, we saw far more spring vegetation than we remembered from westbound. This image shows more green than I remember from most of the hills and valleys, but, hey, pretty!
We saw towers that I hypothesized were for fracking, but this is an old-fashioned oil derrick. Plenty of them!
We found truck loads often unidentifiable (because: covered/closed), but this was all onions, all the way.
And this was what I think of as transformers, but maybe I have that wrong.
And, at home today, this flower was a tight bud with ants walking on it when we left. No longer!
The storm last night left traffic lights as mere flashing lights (folks, they become four-way stops—so STOP and WAIT on cross traffic for your turn), but things were fine at our house, judging from the microwave and coffee-machine clocks (nevertheless, Chummbeee was confused…).
Snow; yes, snow
Saturday, 21 April 2018
Darn. You can’t tell it’s snowing in the picture, even if you squint. But it was. Lazy drifting flakes. No accumulation. 😎
I nosed around outside after I finished my packing—first of suitcases and similar, and then of the car. I wanted to get pictures of the place, memory pictures we call them. I also found clear evidence that the plants have progressed into spring in this not-quite-a-week that we’ve been here. Poplar?
Our first stop was at Cerrillos, a boom town for a bit, and now a grid of unpaved streets. We walked from the visitor center a couple of blocks to this combination rock shop and natural history/history museum. The former was free and the latter $2. We just looked at the rocks.
Outside, we checked out the petting zoo, and this aggressive mama-to-be got plenty of happy pats from Nephew #2.
Returning to the car I found this just-opening lilac bush and happily shoved my nose into the bee-free blossoms.
Next stop was the Saturday packed-and-busy former ghost town of Madrid. Perhaps the best thing about the town was this bumper sticker. And that the main road was paved.
Our final sight-seeing stop was for us a return visit to Sandia Crest. Still ice on a few of the trees, but the wind wasn’t so stiff and the temp was much higher. We shared our watermelon (of course!) snack with other folk in the parking lot, then rebounded to descend to the city.
I think the nephews enjoyed the view. Down in ABQ, we said our goodbyes and they headed to the airport while we headed for first-class down time. Sigh. Such good times, with many laughs and a great week of getting reacquainted. Great weather, some fine food…. Lucky us.
Los Alamos and Bandolier
Thursday, 19 April 2018
From our rural rancho, we headed north, in general up the Río Grande Valley. Then we turned west, and descended to the river. This is looking up the valley before we crossed the river and began our ascent of the eroded flank of a extinct volcano.
As we climbed, we eventually reached elevations where we saw the tall pines I suspect are Ponderosas.
We stopped in Los Alamos. We recommend the Bradbury Museum. It’s not named after Ray. The displays are eye-catching and up-to-date. This is from the section on current research.
The nephews tried the thick-gloves and found it not-so-easy to pick up light plastic shapes and put them in large-ish test tubes.
After lunch, we headed over to Bandolier National Monument. Because the winds were kicking up, we headed off on the main train, near the visitor center, which goes to, through, and by kivas, room-block ruins, and cliff dwellings.
This is the room-block ruins of Tyuonyi (Qu-weh-nee) village today—I’m left in black.
For comparison: 1923 US government photo of Tyuonyi, before stabilization of walls.
Stabilized walls of Tyuonyi at eye level.
Here’s a section of wall that has rows of holes that held beams that were roof/floors (low in this shot).
Here’s a close-up of petroglyphs on the wall (a crop of the photo above).
Here’s another section of wall. The roof/floor beam holes are even more obvious…. At the base of the canyon wall are the ruins of rooms. Some of these rooms would have been for storing food, rather than for living in.
Farther up the valley is a high-elevation cliff dwelling; it’s in that ovate. Starting from the left in the lowest blob of tree shadow you may be able to pick out a gleam from a handrail. That’s already one ladder up from the valley floor. Visitors continue to the right to three more ladders, eventually reaching that large cave to the upper right. It’s large enough to have a kiva (closed) with ruins along the margins of the space (I’m told).
We also really enjoyed walking in the Frijoles Valley. The wind was kicking up, and we were glad we set off walking just after our arrival in the valley. It’s now several hours after we left Bandolier, and the winds are fierce—as they were last night. This is mildly concerning because the fire warning levels are “extremely high” and we are out in the bush (as it were), and the electricity has already flickered twice. But, it’s on now, so I’m going to get this up! Or at least try to.