Just a little blue

I was digging through my cedar chest looking for something else when I came across this embroidered dress that I bought in Mexico around 1980. I had totally forgotten about it, but I used to wear it a lot back then in my 20s when I lived right on the Mexican border in El Paso. I didn't think it would still fit, but I managed to get it on and it looks pretty good! Of course, it's a little tighter now. In my 20s it fit like a loose knee-length caftan, but 44 years later it's more like a fitted sheath.

The embroidery is all done by hand, and the back is as heavily embroidered as the front. It's a cool cotton, so now that I'm living near the Mexican border again I think I'll wear it when it heats up this summer.

That ties into this quote, which qualifies for this post because the background is blue.

I also just finished two blue spirit dolls made from my hand painted and stamped fabric. I'm still debating what to name them, but I think it will have something to do with dreams.

I came across this blue bike yesterday at the Tucson Botanical Gardens. It's planted with succulents!

My sunglasses that I wore there were blue and so was the sky.

Speaking of plants, I bought the most beautiful deep blue hydrangea at Trader Joe's about a week ago. I don't have much of a green thumb, but I'll see how long I can keep it going in the house. (It would die in a day if I put it outside in our desert sun. It's already been up into the 90s.)

Have a colorful day

Happy Earth Day from saguaro land!

 

To mark Earth Day, I thought I'd show you some of the most amazing plants on the planet -- the giant saguaros of the Sonoran Desert where I live. The saguaros are only native to this desert, which includes southern Arizona, adjoining northern Mexico, and a little bit of adjacent California. Those Westerns showing saguaros anywhere else didn't do their research.

To give you an idea of how massive they are, look for the string of adult hikers in the photo above and then compare them to the saguaros! This is in Catalina State Park, just a few miles from my house. 

How tall do they grow? Record height: 78 feet. Average mature height: 18-30 feet, but often reach 50-60 feet.

I stand in awe of them.

What about those arms? They don't grow arms until they're about 12 feet high, or 40-80 years old, although some never grow arms.

What I most love about them is how expressive their arms make them, just like people! Some days I feel as tired as the one above.

Other days I'm as energetic as the Michelin Man in Catalina State Park.

This one wants to hold something.

This one, in Tohono Chul, has issues. You can see all the cavities drilled by birds that have turned it into a cactus hotel.

The street crossing guard is in the Tucson Mountains.

This one doesn't know what it wants!

The one with the big head is a crested saguaro -- only one in 200,000 is a crested and scientists still aren't sure what causes it.

The spines are actually leaves modified to guard and insulate a cactus.

Very few saguaro seeds grow into plants, but the ones that do usually start out being protected by a "nurse tree" like the one above. The babies only grow a fraction of an inch in their first year, so the nurse tree protects them from predators and provides shade and moisture. They grow very slowly -- in general, about three feet in 30 years. A healthy, lucky saguaro can live to about 200 years!

Saguaros bloom with beautiful white flowers in the spring.

In the summer, the crimson fruit appears and the desert animals go wild at the feast! Native Americans still harvest the fruit, knocking it down with long saguaro ribs from dead cactuses.

This one might have been struck by lightning or ravaged by disease, but judging from its height it led a long life, providing food and shelter for many desert dwellers. My hat is off to these magnificent plants!

Have a colorful day

The desert keeps blooming!

 

Linda Vista Trail, half a mile from my house.

I can't get enough of our desert wildflowers this spring! Every time I go out to hike I think surely they must be fading by now, but they're not. They've painted the land with swathes of yellow, gold, blue and purple and splashes of pink and red.

I've taken all of these pictures within the last few weeks on hikes in Catalina State Park, Saguaro National Park East, and the Linda Vista Trail by my house. They're all in the Sonoran Desert, which encompasses Tucson.

The purple flowers are on a cactus.

The feathery flower below is a pink fairy duster.

The bright red flower above grows high on the tips of the ocotillo. That's an ocotillo on the left in the picture below. It looks like green leafy sticks and the flowers grow on the tips (although this one isn't blooming yet). They can grow over 15 feet high and wide and their fiery flowers look magnificent against a brilliant blue Southwest sky.

These cute yellow blooms that look like pineapples grow in a circle on the top of the barrel cactus, below. The barrel always leans to the south.

It's a real treat to find a running stream in the desert. This one is at Catalina State Park, and I spent a long time sitting on a rock listening to the water and enjoying the shade on my last hike there. Most of Tucson's winter residents have left and spring break is over, so the crowds are gone and I had this beautiful spot to myself.

I saw the horses at Saguaro National Park and love how the clouds are piled above them. I think it could be a scene from a Western.

Have a colorful day