This precious kitty was inches from our bedroom sliding glass door.
I was wondering what I was up to five years ago. I looked at my blog and this is what I found:
My husband called to me from the bedroom. “The bobcat is here!”
“Where?” I asked scanning my view past the fence in the backyard.
“Right here.”
Wow. The bobcat was lounging inches away from our sliding glass door. She looked hot with mouth open breathing. But instead of panting, she was scenting her next meal. My cat Olive used to do that when scouting for birds in our backyard — before we moved to the wilds of Arizona.
The bobcat nonchalantly grabbed a bird midair and took it behind a potted plant to munch. She climbed a tree and came down with another snack of a baby bird. Another baby bird was hopping on the patio oblivious to the danger. That life ended quickly.
The bobcat moved into the shade and fell asleep on our patio, sated with an afternoon meal.
Climbing into a tree to fetch a baby bird snack.Acting casual before catching a snack.
She looks like she owns the place!
I’m a little nervous to go outside after dark. You don’t know what’s out in those trees or under our patio furniture. It’s literally a jungle out there!
Thanks to my sister-in-law for the amazing videos.
Here’s Olive our wild cat who is hanging out on the bar.
My husband took this photo of our saguaro with his iphone. It’s amazing to watch the changes the season brings to a saguaro. Here’s a growth chart that I found to guess the age of this saguaro in our backyard. It has its first arm and is taller than 15 to 16 feet, so I bet it’s 100 years old or older.
Here’s another photo my husband took:
The birds are loving the flowers! The flowers look like the inside of a pomegranate. Before the flowers turned red, the blossoms were white and looked like crowns. Here’s a photo when the saguaro began to bloom.
The saguaro with more blossoms. Unbelievable how they turned red!
Here are saguaros I took with my iphone from across the pool, while writing my morning pages. I thought this would give some perspective of how majestic and tall they are.
Did I mention birds? Yes, the birds are always landing on the saguaro and have also built nests inside. You can see the holes in the saguaro in the photo above that have had nests and baby birds. Once a bird abandons a next, another bird may move in.
A White Winged Dove enjoying the view.
A Curve-Billed thrasher on a saguaro before it bloomed.
Two much water can kill saguaros and with our last gardener we lost three. Over watering can cause root rot and collapse. Saguaros have accordion-like ribs and a stem succulent that allows them to store hundreds of gallons of water during rainfall. As more water gets stored, the skin of the saguaro starts to expand to make room for more storage.
To be fair to the gardener we had, two saguaros were over-watered and fell on their own. One was rescued and it survived, one died. Two others were infected with some sort of disease.
We hired a cactus doctor who inspected all our cacti and told us to remove the two diseased ones or it could spread to others. Then we were told before you can remove saguaros you have to get a permit from the county! We had a knock on the door and a county inspector arrived. The cactus doctor had called him. After we got the permit, we were told to hire a crew to remove the saguaro. After the entire ordeal, my husband thought he could have handled it on his own. However, there were two men taking down the saguaro. If my husband decided to do it — I would not volunteer for the chain saw — nor making sure the saguaro fell in the right place by holding a rope around it.
What an ordeal. We didn’t know much about saguaros when we moved here, but we are learning!
What are some special native plants where you live?
Not completely wordless Wednesday. These are photos from the McDowell Sonoran Preserve from our Sunday hike. We’ve had rainy weather which means lots of green grass and plants.
I liked this hawk watching us from atop a saguaro. Here’s more info about Saguaros. I’m trying to guess the age of the ones in my photos.
Saguaro Growth
The saguaro cactus is the largest cactus in the United States. The saguaro cactus grows as a column at a very slow rate, with all growth occurring at the tip, or top of the cactus. It can take 10 years for a saguaro cactus to reach 1 inch in height, but these mighty cacti eventually grow to reach an average height of 40 feet, and the tallest saguaro ever measured towered over 78 feet into the air! By 70 years of age, a saguaro cactus can reach 6 and a half feet tall, and will finally start to produce their first flowers. By 95-100 years in age, a saguaro cactus can reach a height of 15-16 feet, and could start to produce its first arm. By 200 years old, the saguaro cactus has reached its full height, reaching upwards of 45 feet tall. Some saguaros have been seen with dozens of arms, while other cactus never produce a single one. Why this happens remains one of the desert’s mysteries.
Unfortunately our nest of quail eggs did not hatch. It makes me sad, because I was looking forward to our own hatchlings. We do have a couple families of quail visit our backyard. I also was thrilled to see deer yesterday morning.
I’m not sure what to do with the nest of eggs. I’m leaving it alone for the time being, but think I should throw them away?
I never get tired of the wildlife in our neighborhood. Across the street we have the McDowell Nature Preserve with more than 130 miles of hiking trails. That’s probably why we get deer, coyotes, javelina and bobcats waltzing through our backyards and streets. There’s so much building going on in Arizona, it’s reassuring to know the 30,580 acres of Sonoran Desert across the street will not be developed.
Here is one of the quail families that visit our yard. The babies look like teenagers.
Another deer in a neighbor’s yard.
Here’s a video of a mule deer walking across a neighbor’s driveway.
What is your favorite thing about your neighborhood?
Sitting in our backyard, I’ve noticed a change. Flowers are beginning to bloom!
Leaves are beginning to sprout on once bare branches. Color catches my eye as I rest in the backyard, enjoying the sun and soft breeze.
Springs is officially here. Time to get rid of the styrofoam cups protecting our cacti from freezing.
Here are a few photos of flowers in my backyard:
I love the honeysuckle climbing our wall.
I used my plant app and it said this is an aloe vera. It’s wrong about 50% of the time, so I’m not sure.
I’m working on identifying the flowers and plants, but I had very little luck! I have a wildflower guide from the McDowell Sonoran Preserve, but I bet the plants in my yard aren’t wildflowers found in nature, but plants bought in nurseries.
If you have any idea what these plants are, please let me know!
It’s so hot I’m taking my walks at dawn to beat the heat. The clouds are blocking the sunrise.
We’ve had a hot week and I’ve been swimming rather than walking each day. Our pool in the backyard is a nice temperature so I jump in and kick or swim. I swim laps at the Y a couple times a week too.
It’s weird not to walk every morning after not missing a day since I recovered from knee surgery.
The other morning I woke up at 4:45 a.m. and got out the door for a walk at 5:15 a.m. It was beautiful with birds singing, but I felt a little unnerved with coyotes howling nearby. It sounded like a large pack. I almost turned back to the house, but courageously kept moving on. I actually turned back momentarily only to discover the coyotes howling sounded near my home. Onward and forward seemed like the prudent choice.
Here are the photos I took during my early morning walk.
I love the colors of the mountains and desert in the early morning.A saguaro topped by a bird.I had been watching this century plant waiting for it to bloom. This was a sad sight.This was the century plant two weeks ago.
The oldest quail babies hanging out with their mom and dad in our pool bar. We have three families from wee babies to these teenagers.
If I wake up early enough to beat the heat, I go for my walks at sunrise. If I wake up later and it’s too hot — I jump into the water. Thankfully our pool gets a lot of shade during the day, so the water temperature is still cool.
What is your favorite way to start the day? How are you getting exercise?
I’ve noticed a variety of toppers for cacti around our neighborhood. The purpose to top cacti is to give them a bit of insulation. They can die from the exposure to cold from the top down. I wonder if it’s going to freeze? Last January we got two days of snow. My iphone tells me the cold temps will be in the low 40s at night. Maybe that is cold enough to harm cacti?
This is all new to me at this end of the Sonoran Desert. Palm Springs, where I lived for 30 plus years, is the same desert technically, but it is so different with landscaped grounds with grass, ficus trees, eucalyptus and of course palms. It wilder where I am now.
Here are the cacti toppers in my neighborhood:
Our backyard. We went for the standard white styrofoam.Our neighbors went for the Santa look.I’m not a fan, but I’m sure it’s effective.Hmmm.Our homeowner’s association uses green cups. I’ve also seen red solo cups at a neighbor’s house, but I didn’t get a photo.My favorite are different sizes of weaved baskets. I may look into this for another year.
Which toppers do you like? Do you have any creative suggestions? It seems like this could be something to have fun with.
