More Yard Art

Good morning, my friends. It was another lazy day here at the Traveling Three Cats Ranch. I spent some more time on my embroidery, filling in most of my hoop.

There's just a little left to do at the bottom, but I'll start here with the bird house this morning.

We got out for a walk. On this morning, we walked in one of the neighborhoods to the south of us. I was instantly taken with this tall palm. I love the pattern of their trunks.

This prickly pear cactus almost looks fake, but it is real.

Apparently, it's yellow's time to shine on the wildflower calendar. We're seeing the desert sunflowers in bloom virtually everywhere.

Yesterday I noticed one of the creosote bushes in bloom. The flower is yellow, just as I thought.

Here's a really beautiful Joshua Tree. Look up there at the tippy top and in the middle, and you can see it's getting ready to bloom.

In the fake plants category, this aloe plant. I'm not sure why you'd want a fake one when the real ones grow beautifully here. It's true it doesn't need water, however. It kind of fits with the astroturf lawns we're seeing around.

In this same yard, there were some potted fake flowers.

I love these frogs. Makes me think of our Portland frogs back home, fighting for truth, justice, and the American way

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Here was another frog. I had to mess with the saturation on this one to make the frog visible.

Also...turtles. Turtles are popular in yard art it seems. This one is made of wood.

What I couldn't see from that angle is that the chicken has a duck friend.

But here are some more turtles.

I thought this was another frog, but it's actually a warty toad.

Here's a saguaro cactus made from horseshoes.

To its right was this life-sized mule.

Walking back, we noticed this skeleton of a saguaro. My grandmother used to pick up the "bones" of cacti in the desert. We had a lamp she'd made from one.

Our shadow selves were hungry for lunch by then, and so we went back to the RV.

The seed-eating birds have discovered our seed feeder. The only one I've seen is a house finch. Having never seen one quite this close-up, I noticed the red stripe on his back between his wings.

I was trying to get a picture of his red breast, but my camera focused on the tree behind.

Here's a better image I found in the public domain. Pretty, huh?

(Image credit: "Roselin familier / House finch" by Eric Bégin is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.)

They'd like to drive Sadie crazy.

After lunch, Smitty's shadow self wanted to go out for a walk, and so my shadow self went out with him.

And wonder of wonders, we found some grass growing in a drainage ditch right here in the Paw-hrump desert.

So we had an early and light dinner of charcuterie and a bottle of wine at the Charleston Peak Winery, here at the RV park. The cheese choices could have been a little more imaginative, but it all tasted good, and we enjoyed it. 

The days get warmer and warmer. I expect it’ll be warm enough today to be out without a jacket. I’ll probably get out for another walk, but I’d also like to get in at least one more day of sewing. It’s early as I’m writing. It’s anybody’s guess what the day will hold.