Magic is all around us!

I believe there is magic all around us if we just open our eyes to it, so today I pulled out some photos that I took in the last couple of years that I think are magical.

 

Sunsets always blow me away, and the ones I see from my front porch since I moved to Tucson are the best. Every night it's a magical show of color and light.

And plants!

The closer I look the more unbelievable they become.

Who pulls the magic out of us better than babies in all their innocence and perfection? When I met my new granddaughter in January I couldn't stop marveling at the perfection of her tiny fingers as they grasped mine. Pure magic!

I'm always in awe when I'm out in nature and a sunbeam suddenly pierces the sky and touches the ground.

So here's wishing you a weekend of magic!

Have a colorful day

Yellow -- the happiest color!

I love yellow! It's such a happy color. My daughter used AI to create yellow flowers behind her and my sweet granddaughter, who is almost four months old now!

Everywhere in Tucson plants are bursting with yellow, like this voluptuous Palo Verde tree in my neighborhood. The one below is next to my driveway, and that's my red ocotillo flower in front of it. 

The barrel cactuses are wearing their yellow crowns ...

 

... which look like little pineapples.

Lemons hang low over the walls on my neighborhood walks.

The prickly pear cactuses are starting to bloom.

My neighbor's yellow roses are spectacular!

Yellow spines make this cactus look almost cuddly.

Wild poppies volunteered in my friend's yard two years ago, starting with just a couple of plants. This spring they cover most of her front yard and have jumped into her courtyard next to her bunny statue.

And my front yard drifts of yellow flowers are still going strong.

All of this yellow inspired me to start another yellow bowl today. I'm adding shots of pink and orange to make it sizzle, like our temps.

 Have a colorful day

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