Desert wildflowers

Our wildflowers are in full bloom and are carpeting the desert and roadways with orange, blue, pink and white! The patch above is in a parking lot with Pusch Ridge in the background. What you can't see is the busy highway between the two because I crouched down when I took the photo.

The next ones are from my hike yesterday on the Sutherland Trail in Catalina State Park. There are poppies, lupine, clover, desert marigolds, penstemon ...

Each turn in the trail revealed

more gorgeous views.

We had plentiful winter rain here in the Sonoran Desert, gifting us with a good spring wildflower season.

The rain also filled our washes and creeks, creating streams for hikers to negotiate where normally there is only dry gravel and dirt. We used stepping stones, logs and outstretched helping hands from strangers, but sometimes we just had to slosh through and get our shoes wet. The park was crowded with families on spring break.

 And last night, the desert sky was painted with other colors.

Have a colorful day

More spirit doll fabric

 

As I mentioned in my last post, I got the urge to pull out my fabric paints and stamps and make more  spirit doll fabric. Some of the paint is so old (as in 20 years) that it's all dried up, so I think it's time to go through them and dispose of the old bottles. But that's a project for when the summer heat makes it too hot to go outside.

I especially like using bubble wrap to stamp dots. You can sponge several colors of paint onto one piece of bubble wrap for extra interest.

Here's some of the fabric I made. I chose the two blue ones to use in spirit dolls. I think the one with the checkerboards is a mess, but maybe it can be redeemed with more paint.

To emphasize some of the stamps, I stitched around them.

This is where they are now:

I also made this one, and I think I'll call her "Spring Spirit." She needs a few more feathers before I take her to the gallery.

I gave her a necklace with rows of gold metallic machine zigzag stitching.

I'm also still doing the Mediterranean diet. Here's a mushroom/spinach frittata that I made for book club from a Mediterranean cookbook. I haven't lost any weight, but I am eating a lot more veggies and have cut out most of the white carbs. I still cheat with some desserts, which is probably why I'm not losing weight.

Have a colorful day

New spirit doll needs a name

I can't decide on a name for my latest spirit doll. Any suggestions? I made her from scraps that I thought looked nice when layered, then I added blue feathers and turquoise nuggets for contrast.

Maybe "Sunset Spirit"?

This was our sunset a few nights ago.

Or "Southwest Spirit"?

I have more scraps on my cutting board, and I'm thinking of stamping some of the orange with petroglyph designs.

 

I love this quote with the idea of using our own colors for situations life gives us.

Have a colorful day

Happy Spring!!!

Happy Spring Equinox from Oro Valley! Beth and I hiked today to mark the first official day of spring. It was a beautiful, sunny day with blankets of golden poppies. We shared the 50 Year Trail with hikers, horses, donkeys and dogs and got a good workout.

This year's equinox comes at 11:06 p.m. EDT today, which will be the precise moment the sun's rays shine directly on the equator. Today is one of two days a year -- the other being the autumnal equinox in September -- when Earth's axis is tilted neither toward nor away from the sun, resulting in roughly 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness almost everywhere on the planet.

Just for fun, I looked back at photos I took on the spring equinox one, five, 10 and 20 years ago.

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One year ago:

These two are from last year. I hiked and took a picture of the blooming cactus quilt that I had just finished.

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Five years ago:

It must have been chilly and cloudy on the equinox in 2019 in Sedona, because I was inside my rental house wrapping up this Sedona-inspired quilt instead of being outside hiking. For many years I spent the month of March hiking in Sedona. Now that I live in Tucson (Oro Valley to be precise), there's no need to make an escape to the sunny Southwest. (Sedona is only three hours away.)

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Ten years ago:

My son and his wife visited me in Sedona in 2014 and it was a good day for hiking!

Rachel did a Dancer's Pose at a restaurant later in the day.

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Twenty years ago:

Keith popped up again in my 2004 spring equinox photos. It was Spring Break for my two teens and on our last day of vacation we were at my sister's house in Denver with her dog.

Kathleen showed me some furniture she had painted with flowers -- very pretty and springlike!

Then we headed to the airport to fly back to Illinois, ending our vacation and ending this post! Hope you have a wonderful first day of spring, wherever you are!

Happy Spring

Desert art at the festival

I found some colorful desert art and met the makers today at a big art festival in Oro Valley under the Catalina Mountains. It was a lovely, relaxed way to spend a few hours. And I just realized that it's St. Patrick's Day and I forgot to wear green!

Stephanie Daniels' art was the first to catch my eye because she painted plants from the various life zones in Tucson, from the desert floor to the top of Mt. Lemmon. I love her happy, colorful style. I bought a framed print of the desert zone, because that's my favorite zone and the one I live in. It's already hanging on a wall!

She was fun to talk with because she also hikes (like me) and leads art hikes where there's a break for hikers to paint, draw, take photos, write, read, etc. I think it's a great idea! And her blog (on her website below) has entries about her hikes. Here's her card:

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Then I found Mary Spencer's desert art, colorful and whimsical. I bought a hummingbird mouse pad that will make me smile every time I use it. It replaces the mouse pad I've used for 20 years that's a replica of the rug in Freud's office that always reminded me that I might be a little crazy. Time to ditch that one.

I also bought these two 5x7 cards from her that I'll frame:

My final purchase was this very cool pair of earrings made from strips of old sari cloth wound around a hollow wooden ring. I've never seen anything like this before and I love it! And the colors coordinate with my other purchases, so it was meant to be.

And here's what I made this past week -- two more spirit dolls for the gallery:

Have a colorful day