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Posts tagged ‘sonoran desert’

Jun 27

Mesquite Tears

I owe the capture of today’s photo of the day to my friend and Ethnobotany expert, Alice D. She joined me on my walk this morning with a goal of checking for Saguaro fruit up here that she could use in her recipes. Not much fruit ready yet but she had a successful morning anyway collecting other fruit and beans which she’ll use in her presentations. One huge Velvet Mesquite not only provided welcome shade for us but it was a oozing more sap than either of had seen at one time. Alice collected some bark with the sap…also for education. All in all, a very educational morning! Thanks Alice 🙂

The most fascinating for me were the drips which I named “tears”.

Jun 25

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Infrared Desert

More desert. This time in infrared. (not smartphone this time)

Jun 24

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I Love Heat

It was 102 up here yesterday (113+ in the valley!) but for the first time since I’ve lived here, I’m not complaining. OK….love might be an exaggeration but I’ve really come to appreciate it over all the natural disasters the rest of the country has to endure 🙁

Captured with my Droidx on my walk yesterday morning.

Jun 22

Peniocereus greggii

Arizona Queen of the Night is our most illusive flowering cactus. The majority of the time, it looks like dead sticks so they are almost impossible to spot. During my many hikes and also while surveying flora in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve , I have found several specimens. It’s been extremely dry so a portion of this one has already become dehydrated but, as you can see, there are several buds so I’m hopeful. Although they start blooming at night, the flowers can last til early morning as evidenced by a friend who captured one during the early morning at Tohono Chul Park in Tucson.
CLICK HERE to watch a video from there.

 

Jun 15

Harvest Time

I look forward to harvesting Foothill Palo Verde bean pods every Spring. They have a similar taste and texture to peas but being offered by nature, makes them so much more special, don’t you think? CLICK HERE for last year’s harvest.

Jun 9

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Beware of Cholla

New hikers to our area are first and foremost warned to stay away from Cholla.
Cholla creatures seem to give warnings too 🙂

Jun 8

Visiting Frankenstone

Sunday’s hike took us past many of my favorite boulder faces including Frankenstone.
CLICK HERE to see more of my boulder faces.

Jun 6

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High in the McDowells

With help from my favorite hiking partner, Chris, I finally made it to the highest point in the McDowell Mountains yesterday (4069ft). We started at 4:45am from the North Access and followed a climber’s trail through Mesquite Canyon, up over the 3 Svens, past Marcus Landslide and then up to East End. There’s a Geo cache hidden in the rocks up there with an “I made it” book and I was stoked to be able to add my name 🙂 Rather than go back the way we came, we then followed another climber’s route over to the Tom’s Thumb trail which took us back to the trail head. Four hours and a little more than 1500 ft elevation gain….it was awesome!

We saw deer and the remains of a deer which reminded us there are Mountain Lions up there but we didn’t see one (I was disappointed!). We did, however, see this guy which was pretty cool too. We had stopped to look at the view and after a few minutes, I did what a good photographer should always do and that is to turn around and shoot in the other direction too. This is what I saw. I was so excited I could hardly hold my camera still and wished I could have stayed to see him take off.

Sigma 18-250mm OS (perfect lens for long hikes), ISO 400, f/8, 1/640th sec.

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