Cactus in the Alley

We found these spineless prickly pear cactus in the ally next to a dumpster earlier this spring. Someone had been trimming and were throwing out these cuttings. We just stuck them in the sandy gravel outside our fence and "Voila!"


When we returned from Alaska earlier this month, we notices a few bumps on the paddles, and now they're flowering.






The flowers smell a little like watermellon, according to Annie. It's hard to believe something as rubbery, tough, and dead-looking can produce such a beautiful flower, but here's the proof.











Our bird-seeded sunflowers continue to bloom and we're seeing a few more ripe tomatoes each day. Last night we had chard from the garden and today we're having store bought corn on the cob for breakfast. Coughed up $19.95 the other night to listen to the Red Sox games streamed from WEEI in Boston. Great to sit outside in the cool of the evening and watch the birds while listening to the Sox stumble along. Last night they beat the Giants despite yet another addition to the disabled list.
We played music at the Farmer's Market yesterday morning for tips and handed out a few business cards. Might get a few actual paying jobs out of the exposure. We're aiming at pushing the envelope so far toward the square that we're actually hip. Lots of Old Standards and Western Swing. The locals seemed to enjoy it so I guess we'll be doing it again.

It Hatched

We returned from shopping this morning to find that our swallowtail chrysalis had hatched. The caterpillar moved from the parsley, where it had been feeding, to the blue sage plant next to it. Nine days later, voila!

You can see the discarded chrysalis in the picture below. We've planted lots more parsley, so hopefully the next crop of caterpillars will have lots to eat.

Avian Ant Destroyers

We went for a walk the other day and saw a curved bill thrasher sitting in a cholla cactus. I think this might be the one that visits our yard and scoops up ants.












Closer inspection revealed a nest with two babies. I don't see how the adults can navigate onto the nest without impaling themselves on the cholla spines.

OTHER AVIAN NEWS
Here's a young white-winged dove we found in the yard. Don't know if he fell out of the nest or was pushed out because (s)he's sickly. He can barely walk-shuffle along, so we kept him in a box over night and put him out under the bird feeder this morning in hopes an adult might try to feed him. We'll keep you posted.

Caterpillars have eaten our parsley

But what the hey? they are making beautiful chrysalises (chrysalae?). Summer is definitely here, no matter what the calendar says, but our swamp cooler is keeping the house a comfortable 76 degrees and we've been spending an hour a day in the municipal swimming pool a half a block away. We're watering every day and have already eaten a few tomatoes out of the garden.








This is a poinciana, also known as a bird of paradise bush. A bird dropped a seed in the garden and we didn't have the heart to pull it out. They grow everywhere around here, and it's taking up room that could be growing tomatoes, but, as with the caterpillars, we hate to get rid of something that beautiful, just to make room for more food.














Another volunteer from our bird feeder, this sunflower has over 20 flower heads on it. We've got sunflowers all over the yard now. They're very cheery and the birds will thank us later.


We sit out on the porch in the evening and watch the finches, sparrows. doves and red winged blackbirds at the feeder. We also have a thrasher that visits the yard to gobble ants. As the sun sets, nighthawks and bats come out and scoop up whatever flying insects are around.









I've been slowly putting down landscaping cloth under the rock borders of the gardens in order to keep the weeds down. Eventually I'll put pea gravel down in the yard. Having a hard-scaped yard makes sense in this heat... NO MOWING... no watering the lawn... and no goatheads (a noxious weed that has a thorny fruit that looks like a caltrop (you can look it up) and sticks in your feet.

We arrived in T or C last year at the end of June and didn't get anything planted until sometime in July. We still had plenty of tomatoes and peppers, along with lots of flowers. With the jumpstart we got this year, I can't wait to see what the yard looks like by the end of summer.

Back in the Garden

We returned from Alaska to find a few extra weeds, but mostly our house-sitter did a great job watering. The cauliflower is just starting to head up, there are flowers on the zuccini and there are volunteer tomatoes, melons and sunflowers everywhere. The sunflowers came up from the bird seed and some of them are amazing. This one must have 20 flowerheads. The peas didn't survive the heat, but the tomatoes are flourishing. We spent yesterday in the desert gathering dried yucca stalks to make more trellises for them to climb on. (The ladder leaning on the porch is made of dry yucca tied together with wire.

Here's a picture of our sacraficial parsley. We came home to find it covered with caterpillars. They're black swallowtails and we're waiting for them to form their crysalis cases. They've eaten all the top leaves of the parsley but haven't touched anything else. It's the second year for the parsley, and we don't need the whole plant anyway, so we're sharing with these beautiful creatures.

More baby pics

There are more pictures at
http://picasaweb.google.com/homerhorns/FoxwellGeorgeStrobel#slideshow/5481597211605484178