Saguaro superbloom

The saguaro cactuses are really pumping out the flowers and seeds this spring! Instead of just flowering in a crown at the tips of the branches, the flowers are also growing down the sides.

The last time I saw this happen was in 2021, when scientists here speculated that it was in response to the record dry summer in 2020. They figured that after that stress, the saguaros were trying to put out as many seeds as possible in case of another bad year. Since we had an unusually dry winter this year, I wonder if that's why we're having another saguaro superbloom.

Every flower turns into a red fruit that contains about 2,000 tiny seeds. A full grown saguaro may generate as many as 200,000 possible offspring, although very few actually live to grow up.

 

The best examples I've seen of the flowers growing down the sides have been in the median strips when I'm driving, so I couldn't get photos. It's been too hot to get out hiking much to photograph them in the desert.

Have a colorful day

Art with natural desert materials

 

I went to a class today taught by the Pima County master gardeners on making a wall hanging from natural materials. Here are some of the dried plants I used, and below is my finished wall hanging. We simply hot glued the dried materials to a board.

The class leader lives on seven acres covered in a variety of trees, shrubs, cacti and flowers. She collected all of the materials from her property and divided them into bins with labels and photos of the plants they came from. There was an enormous selection!

The cholla skeletons are my favorites. You'll find a lot of art in Tucson made with these.

It was a fun way to pass Saturday morning when the temperatures were too hot to do anything outside.

Have a colorful day

Flowers and Mom

My mom, 93, loves flowers so much that she even wears them! My sister Kathleen gave her the pretty flowered top that she wore on my visit when Dad died.

She received some beautiful flower arrangements ...

... including one with this yellow Nodding Pincushion.

Her name is Rose, so some cheerful yellow roses were apropos.

My son sent the pink arrangement above because I told him her favorite color is pink. She got more pink flowers, below, from us kids.

We also pampered her with food on our visits. Terry was there for her Mother's Day brunch, which included mimosas and a mountain of fluffy biscuits with scrambled eggs and bacon. And she got treated to many pancake breakfasts and her favorite treat -- hot dogs!

We had a nice routine of having ice cream sundaes every evening before she went to bed. I can't afford to continue that now that I'm home or I'll inflate like whipped cream coming out of the can!

I got my fill of flowers on my walks around her neighborhood, like these Hot Lip Sage blooms, above, and the golden Treasure Flower, below.

These pink beauties are Pinkladies, and the blue/purple stalks below are called Pride of Madeira.

There were some spectacular succulent gardens, too.

And no visit to Palos Verdes is complete without walking down to the cliffs above Lunada Bay and looking out over the ocean.

 Have a colorful day

Rest in peace, Dad

 

My mom and dad, young, in love and pregnant with me in 1955.

My father just passed away at age 93. I'm home now from LA, where I gathered around him with family as he rested unresponsive in the hospital for four days after falling at home. He passed peacefully on April 25, as the spring flowers in his beloved Palos Verdes Peninsula neighborhood were in full bloom.

The day he died, we bought a beautiful sparkling hummingbird from the hospital gift shop to give to our mother when we broke the news to her. It's hanging where she can see it all day from the chair where she has her coffee, reads the paper and does her crossword puzzles.

I can't tell his story without including my mom. They were in love for 70 years, meeting at a Pittsburgh dance hall while in college and marrying soon after they graduated. They had me, the first of their five children (one died as an infant) while he was stationed in Germany with the Air Force.

Our family in the LA  back yard 30-some years ago, when we were all trim, taut and tanned -- and much younger. 

After earning his pension from Bettis Westinghouse in Pittsburgh, he finally moved to San Diego, which was his dream because of the climate. A few years later, his new job having been downsized, he took another job in Los Angeles and my parents settled in to their final home to enjoy the sunshine, Mediterranean climate, ocean sunsets and flowers. Quite a change from where they grew up in Pittsburgh!

At the International Quilt Festival -- Long Beach,

where they went to see one of my quilts on exhibit.

He was always the life of the party and loved being a jokester. He also loved wine and was quite the gourmet cook. He and my mom played tennis regularly in LA until a back injury sidelined him. 

I remember them taking nightly walks after dinner, holding hands, for many years. In recent years, they sat together on their couch every night after dinner, his arm around her shoulders, watching the stars, moon and passing airplane lights while listening to music.

Here he is above, opening the nightly dinner wines with my son, Keith. Below he's with my daughter, Julia. He was the grandpa who spun tall tales for bedtime stories when they were young rather than reading from a book. I remember him reading me bedtime stories when I was little, with "Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox" and "Winken, Blinken and Nod" being our favorites.

He majored in journalism, loved to write, hoped to be a sports writer but decided he would be  better able to support a growing family with the Westinghouse job. He was in charge of procuring parts for our country's first atomic submarines. I remember visiting his workplace once for family day, but because of the sensitive nature of the work almost everything was covered with big tarps.

When my mother was recuperating in a nursing home after suffering a seizure many years ago, he was frantic to make the long drive to visit her two times a day and to be there to say good night until his sweetie came home. She recovered and they had many more good years. She's still going strong at 93.

He never got to meet my little granddaughter, Juniper. We had been planning a family reunion there this summer, but he didn't quite make it. My daughter chalked this message on their sidewalk from Juniper.

It was a true love story.

Rest in peace, Dad