May Flowers, Arizona Style

For the Round Robin Challenge: May Flowers, I asked to see fresh photos of flowers from this brand new month, if possible. Just in case I didn't manage any decent shots in May, I started a few days early, myself. But I'm happy to say I did get out for some actual flowers actually photographed in actual May 2014. Let's take a look!

I'm beginning to think there's a 90% rule in Tucson flower identification, as in, "90% of the floral hedges are oleanders." Here are some examples from the hedges lining the park behind St. Michael's:

The flowers don't look very similar, but the leaves do. The white ones are along the back boundary of the park, while the pink and red ones are along this hedge between the park and the library (and St. Joseph's Hospital):

By the way, about a minute after I took this photo (and these were all on the iPhone, hence the iffy quality), I stepped in a rut and sprained my ankle. Again. Not a bad sprain, this time.

Later that day, when I visited my dad, I photographed a few small but interesting flowers outside the Memory Care unit, this time with my Canon:

That was all on Thursday. On Friday morning, I took a moment in a bank parking lot to get you some real Arizona specimens. This is a Yucca. I think it's a Soaptree Yucca, which is native to Southern Arizona.

And I really should show you the Arizona State flower, which was in the same parking lot! It's a little early in the season, but here are the flowers of the Giant Saguaro!

All in all, I think I did pretty well for someone who doesn't even like flowers!

Karen

Please check out all this week's entries:

Linking List
as of Saturday, May 3rd, 2014
1:41 AM MST

Karen - Posted!
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Carly - Posted!
Ellipsis
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Jama
Sweet Memories
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EMPS: A Long Way to Go to See a Bush

My participation in the Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot has been spotty lately, largely because of how busy I've been, working six day weeks with lots of overtime, and then running around all day on Sunday on behalf of friends. So when I left work a little earlier than expected today - yes, on a Saturday! - I decided to take a little field trip in search of my least favorite photo subject in the world: flowers. Carly's asking for fresh pictures of Spring Blossoms And Flowers, which aren't the easiest things to find in Tucson in late May, when the temperature often tops ninety degrees and significant rain is a month and a half away.

So instead of heading south on I-10 East (yes, you're reading that correctly), I drove the ten miles or so in the opposite direction, toward Picacho Peak. On years when there are good winter rains, which this wasn't, early spring, which is long over, sometimes sees Picacho Peak State Park covered in wildflowers. But when I got to the park gate, this is what I found:



Yes, the park was closed, and not just because it was late in the afternoon. Let's zoom in closer:



The park is "closed for the season." What season is that, exactly? Probably "State Budget Cutbacks Season," combined with the eight month season in which the snowbirds and tourists stay away from Arizona.



Clearly, nobody but me is running up to Picacho Peak these days, particularly in search of flowers. But wait, what's that white bush?



That's it, my glorious bouquet of wildflowers, which I sought out 50 miles from home, at the end of a 59 hour work week, assuming I don't work tomorrow. Which I probably will. It's no horticultural or photographic masterpiece, but the background scenery is terrific! I just researched what it is, this pale shrub with yellow flowers, but without success.

Come to think of it, we just came to the end of a season of yellow, allergy-inducing blossoms on the local mesquite and Palo Verde trees, which greatly afflicted a number of people I know. But I didn't think to photograph those.

Karen

Round Robin: Signs of Growth

Yup! It's time for another Round Robin Photo Challenge. This one, "Growing," comes to us from Jan, AKA Whammy, of the blog The Ellis Family Cincinnati.

I have no baby birds or kittens to show you, my dogs came to me fully grown, and obviously I have no kids. What growth can I chronicle, then? The obvious answer is plant life. But before we go there, let's check out a different kind of growing.

Here's part of the crowd at the first game of the reconstituted Tucson Toros baseball team, just before game time. Pretty sparse, right?

When I looked out on the same stands later, it was obvious the crowd had been growing. John pointed out that at any given time, a lot of the people in attendance were wandering the concourse, or in line for beer or hot dogs or whatever. This was especially true before the first pitch!

Okay, now for the plant example:

Here is the rose garden at Reid Park as I first saw it on February 28th. The plants were all cut back for winter. The only roses in evidence were a very few found on two rosebushes that were growing through the garden fence.

By April 26th the roses were definitely growing, and definitely in bloom.

May 29th, and it's safe to say they're still growing.

Is it just me, or have those rosebushes grown unusually tall?

I have other plants I could show you in time lapse, plus freshly green grass in the park and embarrassingly long grass at home, both growing in response to last week's rain. But for once I'm going to show some restraint, and end this entry after "only" five...er, six photos.

Now let's go see what's growing before the cameras of the other Robins!


Linking List:

Wammy - Posted!
The Ellis Family Cincinnati
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Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
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Cashjocky and the Old Salt
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Karen

EMPS: Roses in Waiting

For Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot #29: Winter Meets Spring, Carly gives us the option of either looking for signs of the upcoming change of seasons, or else, for places like Tucson that have less pronounced seasons, to design a calendar page for March. As is usual for me, I stubbornly refuse to let Tucson's lack of winter weather stop me from posting a seasonal entry. I'll do the March calendar thing, too - later.

New growth on a tree in the dog park.

I took all of these photos in Reid Park after sunset tonight. Dusk has kept the camera from managing sharp images, but I kind of like the effect of that.

It's a rosebud! No, wait, it's not.

When the dogs and I left the dog park this evening I led them on leashes to the Rose Test Garden in Reid Park to see how the roses are coming along. Mostly, I can't tell that there are any flowers present or imminent. I thought for a moment that the red thing on this bush at the garden fence was a rosebud, but up close it looks more like a crabapple or a mini-pomegranate. I don't know what it actually is. Rose hips? What are rose hips?

They're blurry, but the only for-sure roses I saw.

Here's another plant at the fence line. This one provided the only actual roses I saw for sure.

A tree, or maybe a bush, in bloom. But what kind of flowers?

I have occasionally heard of "rose trees" out here. I don't know if a rose plant as such can be a tree. If so, is that what this is?

The Test Rose Garden at dusk.

Inside the garden, which was locked, the roses of rose bushes are starting to show signs of color, if not necessarily buds or flowers.

Be sure to check Ellipsis each week for the Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot. And I'll be back tonight with Part Two of my entry for this week.

Karen

Another Reid Park Ramble

As I mentioned in my previous entry, the dogs and I did some more exploring in Reid Park yesterday. I've finished editing the photos, and here are some highlights. First, a quick recap: Gene C. Reid Park is a largish city park in the middle of Tucson, AZ, between Broadway Blvd and 22nd St., between Country Club Rd. and Randolph Way. The other side of Randolph Way is the much larger Randolph Park, which is basically a golf course, tennis venue and some buildings for Parks & Rec programs. (Randolph Park goes all the way from 22nd north to Broadway, while Reid Park gives way to a nice older neighborhood at the halfway point between 22nd and Broadway.) Randolph Park is where in past years I met William Windom, Patrick Warburton, Richard Herd, Mickey Dolenz and others when the annual celebrity tennis tournament used to be held there. But Reid Park has my heart. It's the once and future home of the Tucson Toros baseball team at Hi Corbett Field, the spring training home of the Colorado Rockies, and the site of Miko's Corner Playground, the best dog park in the city.

There were two places in Reid Park that I wanted to track down on Saturday, partly so I would know where they were for future access, partly as possible photographic opportunities. The first was the George Demeester Outdoor Performance Center, better known as the Reid Park bandshell. I once waited there for nearly an hour on my lunch break from Worldwide Travel, waiting for John Kerry to arrive and speak. He was late, and I only caught a few minutes of speech before I had to leave. That was in 2004, obviously, so I'd had plenty of time to forget exactly where it was.

From the Picasa album Another Reid Park Ramble

It wasn't hard to find, though. It was over a bridge and then right up the hill from the dog park. The structure looks as though it's seen better days. Nevertheless, it seemed like a pleasant place to spend a warm winter Saturday afternoon. There were a number of people scattered around, and I couldn't tell at first whether they were lingering from an earlier event, arriving early for an evening one, or just enjoying the day. It was about 5 PM.

As I got closer, I saw definite clues as to the nature of the event. I learned on Sunday that it was a Peace Fair, at which at least one member of our congregation had a table.

The event was over, but a number of very interesting people were still handing out. I'm sorry to say that within a minute of my taking this photo, the dogs you see here were having a rather nasty disagreement with Cayenne and Pepper. There was no biting, however.

This gentleman, who I think introduced himself as Brian, is with the Lovin' Spoonfuls vegetarian restaurant. This was the first time he had used his hot dog cart in a while, but he was pleased, because there had been quite a few people at the event "who really wanted to eat vegetarian food." He was amused by the names Cayenne and Pepper, which he said went together "like Ramalama and Ding-Dong."

The dogs and I found the gopher holes I showed you last night, walked past the edge of the Hi Corbett practice fields and all the way to the edge of the northernmost parking lot off that particular entrance; but didn't find the other landmark I was looking for, a rose garden. I consulted an outdated park map at the entrance, and discovered that the rose garden was off the southeastern lot, on the other wise of the dog park. It's been nearby all along! A tree is obscuring the word "Rose" on the sign over the entrance, which may be part of why I didn't notice it the only time I drove past it.

It's still winter, though, even in Tucson, and the rose bushes were cut back for the winter. It was easily the ugliest, most rose-deficient rose garden I've ever seen. Another park visitor assured me that in a month it will be a different story. The city's Parks and Recreation website has this to say about it:

The Reid Park Rose Garden boasts 1,080 different color rose beds, with more than 100 species of roses. The Rose Society of Tucson has been a partner with the City in the development and promotion of the garden for many years. A layout plan, available free at the garden, indicates the location of the various rose species in the garden and lists the best rose varieties for our desert climate. The garden also contains a large gazebo and is very popular for weddings, birthday parties and other special events by reservation.

The Rose Garden is always a special place to visit, but the most impressive display of roses in bloom occurs each March-April and October-November.

The only flowers I saw were a foot or so outside the garden, outliers on a bush the was poking through the bards. This one had ants on it.

And of course the dogs had to check out the spot after I showed photographic interest.

The last place on our itinerary, other than a quick second visit to the dog park itself, was to one of the duck ponds, the one with the fountains.

Near the pond we met a couple who liked Cayenne very much. It was mutual. Pepper, of course, was more standoffish.

Two things I didn't know about the "urban lakes" at Reid Park: they are connected by a little feeder canal, and the one with the fountains has a man-made waterfall. But I'll save those pictures for Tuesday night.

Karen

In the Dark

Saturdays are nearly always a little discombobulated here at Casa Blocher, the Museum of the Weird. It's my day to sleep in, and if I have no other obligations I don't get up until about 4 PM. Add to that the fact that I accidentally left my "Sleep is good!" Away message on all day and all night in AIM, and it means that even when I was awake, you may not have known about it.



After an hour or two online I ventured out to buy dinner. John's requests involved groceries instead of take-out, so I conceived a bold plan: I'm going to cook this week! Well, okay, like the character in Sibling Rivalry who said "I don't cook; I reheat," I'll mostly be reheating, but still, it means we'll forego the nightly question of where I'm picking up dinner in favor of a nightly question about what I'll be pulling from the fridge.

This is one time when going to the store while hungry was probably a good thing. I actually managed to fill the cart with several kinds of meat (frozen, fresh, and cooked), veggies (fresh and frozen), soups, frozen entrees, pizza and salad and, inevitably for spring in Arizona, numerous beverages. John doesn't like me to cook meat, because the fan over the stove doesn't expel the smoke anywhere. But I bought a London broil for once, and lamb and pork and mesquite-smoke marinade. Now all I have to do is pay attention to what urgently needs to be cooked, and not get lazy about it. So far we've mainly had just the pizza, to which I added freshly sauteed mushrooms.



I needed John's help bringing in all those groceries in a timely manner, so when I got home I tracked him down. He was in the back yard, looking over his accomplishments for the day. Having built this garden row thingy, he planted flowers in it today, from those pots I've been photographing by the firecracker bush out front.

Pepper hangs out by the nearly-complete path.

John is also nearly finished making a concrete and gravel path to the back gate. His next project will be a porch-like enclosure by the back door, similar to the one he built by the front door but wider. He hopes to finish it by the time the monsoon arrives.

Tuffy is wary of the remaining building materials.

This evening was that Earth awareness / hour of darkness / reduce your carbon footprint and show we can make a difference thingy. Oh, all right; it's called Earth Hour. I made a half-hearted attempt to observe it, sitting in the dark while typing away online. But I left the kitchen light on for the sake of John and the dogs and not bumping into things. Eight minutes into the hour I discovered the bedroom light was one, and thirty minutes in John went into his office and turned on the light there, and forty minutes in I discovered a light on in the front room. Not a good performance!

Eventually I went outside to see whether I could tell any difference from a normal evening on Calle Mumble. I couldn't. Tucson as a city didn't participate, so the street lights were on. Many porch lights were on as well, including ours, which has a motion sensor and came on when I stepped outside. I'd wondered whether Tucsonans would make enough of a difference for the stars to shine more brightly, which would be a boon to the astronomers at the many observatories in Southern Arizona. But no, only the brightest stars and planets were visible at all to my eyes.


The most fun part was identifying the dogs in the dark. Here's Tuffy, caught in my camera flash as she scrounges for dropped pizza toppings. Later I recognized Pepper by her longer, thicker fur and the scabby, dandruffy spot on her back.

Speaking of identifications, I had an apparent wrong number tonight from someone called Pete. I pretty much despise text messaging on cell phones, largely because it's clumsy and tedious and I can't find any indication that punctuation is available. Usually I only get texts from my brother, and they're rare enough that I don't mind them at all. But tonight I receive the following:

This is pete, I hear you are out drinking

I wrote back,

I dont know a pete and i dont drink alcohol ever and im home 0 for 3

He replied,

Ouch

and that was the end of it.

I see from "pete's" text that capitalization and commas are available, at least to some extent. But I don't care enough to try yet again to find such things on my phone.

Hi there!

Two bits of media / celebrity news for the day. First the good news: there is a profile of David Tennant in The Independent, which appears to be one of Britain's more reliable newspapers, in contrast to, for example, The Sun. The article extensively quotes Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies as he heaps well-deserved praise on Tennant for his acting skills and personal niceness. The article also claims that Tennant has agreed in principle to continue his role as the Doctor when the show returns for a full season in 2010 (we get only specials in 2009). Huzzah!

The other news isn't so much bad news as weird news. For quite some time there's been an edit war on Wikipedia over whether someone named Zachary Jaydon was on MMC, the 1990s update of The Mickey Mouse Club that famously launched the careers of Brittany Spears and a few other pop icons. I know, I know. Why should I care, right? It's not as if I ever watched the show in its MMC iteration; the 1970s version was bad enough. But I've done work on the 1950s section of the article, and settled a previous dispute among MMC fans over whether the show ended in 1994 (when it was last made) or 1996 (when the last new show aired), by simply listing cast members by season number instead of by year. At that time I cleaned up the MMC cast list in the article, pulling out vanity and joke additions in favor of the list in a reference book on Disney television.

Since then, Jaydon has been added to and removed from that list numerous times, with a note that he appeared in the show during all seven seasons, something very few of the more established cast members did according to Bill Cotter's book. An article about Jaydon has been written and deleted at least once, possibly twice, and it currently being written again by someone called TragedyStriker, aka Skyler Morgan. But as far as I can tell, virtually all online references to Jaydon being in MMC are in user-editable sources, and may well have been added by Jaydon himself. Ranged on the other side are numerous fans who say they never saw the guy on the show, and one aspiring musician in Florida who claims that Jaydon is a thief and a scammer who worked briefly with some other musician I've never heard of, currently manages some Ohio band or other, and is almost certainly the pseudonymous Skyler Morgan. Myself, I don't really know or care whether she's entirely right, entirely wrong, or somewhere in between. But it would be nice to see the question resolved.

Karen

Dead Flowers: The Sequel, and a Tiki Update

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Last call for shots of live flowers! This is it for 2007, because after that for lots of places in the US, live flowers will be done for the year (unless, of course, they're inside your house. But never mind that).

Harrumph. Flowers again. All right, I took new flower photos for you. But I got home after sunset, and didn't take them until well after dark. So they're illuminated by flash - which made them interesting to edit, actually, so I don't mind at all. First up: the firecracker bush, as usual. It blooms all year, but sometimes more than other times. You can tell the middle is flashed out a bit. I wasn't able to correct that completely.


In front of the firecracker (hummingbird) bush are some annuals John bought a few months back. The grasshoppers discovered them right away, so they didn't do very well.

Something about that shot reminded me of Monet, so I've used some effects to make it more so. The "Impressionistic" filter didn't look good, but here's some saturation, an oil painting effect, a canvas texture and a frame. This is for you, Carly!

I went looking for Flat Earth Trading company at lunch today. I misremembered which side of Ajo it was on, and did a lot of driving in industrial park alleyways and cul-de-sacs, but I found it eventually. It didn't look like it was set up for in-person retail customers, though, so I took this photo and drove away. Love the Easter Island-style tikis! There were four or them, I think.


Back home, after dark, I got this shot of the two outdoor tikis together.

I have had no luck at all on a Tiki mask. Party City discontinued its luau stuff, Yikes! had nothing relevant, and I didn't do any further shopping tonight because of the NBC Monday sf shows. Unless I luck onto something tomorrow, or work very hard making something, I may have to fall back on Black Rose Kate to bail me out again this Halloween.

Karen

Dead Flowers

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Take a snap of some of the latest blossoms and blooms near you. If for some reason it's still too chilly where you are, one, you my sympathy, and two, go ahead and use a picture from your archives. But everyone else should go out and take a fresh picture if they can.

Oh, this is so not the year for flowers in Tucson! Remember that rare Tucson snowfall I was going on about in January? I loved it, but it was devastating to a lot of the plants around here. Here's the bougainvillea in front of our house as of last summer:


But here's the same plant in January 2007, right after the snowfall:


And here it is as of today: dead, dead, dead. There aren't even any buds or tiny new leaves to offer hope of the plant's survival:


Similarly, there's an office building at Fifth and Wilmot where I've photographed flowers before. Last summer it was positively lush:



But look at it now:


Yes, one of the palo verde trees is in bloom. But look at the brown bushes. Bougainvilleas, I think. Dead, or nearly so.

One more. Back at the house, we have a firecracker bush, a kind of hummingbird plant (which is to say, a plant whose tiny, bright flowers attract hummingbirds). It's grown and spread considerably over the last decade, even poking runners under the yellow wall John built. But this, too, was covered in snow in January:


It's not dead, but it hasn't exactly recovered, either.


Personally, I don't mind the dead flowers. I'm just not a flower person; in fact, I'm allergic. I'm sure people and companies around here will replant, and maybe next year the right weather at the right time will produce a lush crop of spring flowers. But it's all one to me.

Still, if you like flowers, I hope you have lots of really nice ones to enjoy, like John Scalzi's extraordinary cherry blossoms. Happy Spring!

Karen