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Posts tagged ‘Javelina Cafe’

Sep 19

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My Trusty Pink Fence Post Driver

Any time I’m using tools, I’m happy and I got to use one of my favorites today….my pink fence post driver! It’s exciting (to me, anyway) to be able to put a steel post into our dry/hard Arizona soil with not too much effort. My project turned out to be tougher than I thought, though. This tree has never been able to withstand the strong winds we get a couple of times a year so it has been tied down for the last 5 years. I got tired of tripping or falling over the wire tie downs so I asked my metal artist friend, Joan Waters, to help me figure out something a little less annoying. We put our heads together and came up with a tree collar with supports. The tough part was trying to get the driver over the poles because they were so close to the trunk but I did it. All in all, it looks a lot better than the wires. It remains to be seen if it can support the tree in high winds but I’m hopeful.

May 31

My Hummer Buddies

Hummingbirds are very curious and boy are they fearless! Within minutes of going out to photograph in my yard, there will be a Hummer inches of my head and flitting around me for a few seconds as if to be checking me out. I think they like my hat 🙂 Whatever the reason, I love it. That particular morning, I was experimenting taking photos of cactus blooms with my 300mm lens. Right next to the cactus is an Aloe and almost the instant I started to shoot, this guy came in and started feeding. Unfortunately, my 300mm lens only focuses to 3 feet which meant I had to back up to take its photo…hence no tail.
Captured May 1st with 300mm lens. ISO 400, 1/600th sec at f/5

May 19

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Echinopsis Hybrid

Yesterday morning, I could hardly wait to check on my hybrid Echninopsis (aka Torch Cactus) and it did not disappoint! The color of this cactus is really incredible and an overcast morning made it really pop. There are more buds so I get to enjoy another round of blooms in a few days. Almost makes up for no wildflowers…..almost 🙂

May 18

Echinopsis Surprise

I thought my cactus were through blooming but all my Echinopsis in Javelina Cafe are loaded with fat buds! The first bloom appeared yesterday morning on this Echinopsis candicans. There’s a good chance my two hybrids will be full of blooms next. I can hardly wait!

Converted to Black and White and a little color brought back.

Apr 30

Salmon Prickly Pear

Javelina LOVE non-native cactus so in years past, this poor Prickly Pear has not been allowed to fully bloom. But Javelina Cafe is now closed so all my non-natives finally have a chance to show off and they are making up for lost time. Besides what you see here, there are at least 25 more buds waiting to open on this Prickly Pear! I had fun photographing the blooms with various lenses yesterday. I couldn’t decide on just one image so here is a collage.

Apr 19

High Hopes

This marks the first year I’ve been able to fully enjoy my non-native cactus blooms thanks to Javelina Cafe. The first blooms were great! Up next and full of fat buds are the Echinopsis huascha (upper right – red), Echinopsis Hybrid (lower left – much larger salmon) and a couple of non-native Prickly Pears. One funky purple (bottom right) with extra long purple spines has yellow flowers. The other (upper left) has gorgeous rose-like pink flowers. I’ve only seen it bloom once! So far the (less than ideal height) fence has held off the Javelina but all these juicy buds will be a real test 🙂

Apr 8

Lady Fingers Day Two

We had a beautiful sunny day yesterday which this Lady Finger Cactus obviously preferred because the blooms opened a little wider and there were more of them than the day before. Sorry Javelina….you’re not getting them this year!

Apr 7

Lady Finger Cactus

This Lady Finger Cactus (Echinocereus pentalophus) is another of my discount finds. It was 1/4th this size but as you can see, it’s responded really well….especially since I fenced in Javelina Cafe. I knew it was about to bloom yesterday so in between doing taxes, I set my timer and went out every two hours to check on it. These photos were taken about 11am. It was heavily overcast yesterday which might explain why they didn’t open all the way but I was happy that I didn’t miss it totally like I usually do 🙂

Captured with Canon 180mm Macro

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