The bottlebrush bush that I posted Friday has many more blooms a few days later.
The bees sure enjoy bottlebrush blooms.
This is a vine growing up and over our front gate. I got an app to identify plants and discovered this is Pyracantha koidzumi, also called Formosan Firethorn.
Formosan Firethorn growing over our front gate.
This will be a beautiful flower soon, but will only last a day. I don’t remember the name of this cactus and the app gave me five choices that don’t fit. It looks like Hedgehog Cactus but the images on google have massive spikes.
Lantana. We had this plant in Palm Springs and it wanted to take over our backyard. I found out that Lantana is considered an invasive species in many places, including neighboring states. I may remove it.
Barrel cactus are blooming, too.
I’ve never seen this Yucca in our front yard bloom before. Amazing!
It has beautiful blossoms.
I’ve also never seen this tree in our courtyard have so many seed pods. My new app calls it Ebony Blackbead.
And finally look at this Silver Torch cactus is busting out all over!
This is a cactus in bloom that I spotted on my morning walk. I walked back home, grabbed my camera and beelined to the blooming cactus with my Macro lens. I’m using this for week nine’s photography assignment, which is called “Seeing the Light.”
This week we are going full manual mode. That means that we are adjusting the aperture, shutter speed and setting the ISO. Part of this week’s assignment was to choose a subject and bracket the photos. Yes, you and me both. I was stumped at “bracket.”
I learned it means to take a photo with settings I like. Then take a photo of the same subject with the f stop up one stop and then take a third photo with the f stop down one stop. Hence making “brackets” around the original photo. That way we’re supposed to get an exposure that we like.
Here’s an example:
This photo is taken at f 11, which is lets in more light than the first photo which was taken at f 16 — one stop higher. I prefer the first photo which is darker, because I like the way the flowers pop.
That’s half of my assignment. I’m also supposed to take a photo of another subject — inside with light coming in from a window — or in varied light like a tree backlit from the sun.
Last week, the photography professor told me I’d see dramatic improvement in my photos by investing in higher quality lenses. He said the kit lenses that came with my camera are poor quality. The Macro lens I used for the two photos above is higher quality. It was a Christmas present and this is the first time I’ve used it for an assignment. I can see the difference in these two photos already.
Here are a few other photos I took this week:
This may make it into my assignment this week. The day after I took the cactus flower photos, I was on my walk and spotted this yucca in bloom. Once again, I had to hightail it home, grab my camera and walk back. Maybe I should walk with my camera?
This scene fits the assignment criteria by having varied lighting. A tip the instructor offered was to include shadows. This was taken at f 11. The following photo is f 8, one stop lower and brighter.
Which do you like better? I like the composition better in the first yucca photo, but the light in the second one better.
Here are two photos I took for fun with my telephoto lens:
I’m learning how to use it. It’s a higher quality lens than the one that came with the camera. However, my hands are NOT very steady and I need to use a tripod or the photos come out blurry. I like the light in my Bird Buddy feeder and the sharp focus of the birds. The photo above I used a tripod. Photo below handheld. But in the second photo — featuring Mrs. Red — I was sitting inside the casita balancing my camera on the kitchen table.
That’s me standing next to a giant Saguaro that must be several hundred years old — at least.
Sunday morning we woke without plans except to go for a walk. I suggested going out on the hiking trails at the preserve across the street. It’s been a while since we’ve been out there. That’s because the weather has been literally freezing cold with strong winds.
It was a perfect temperature Sunday, around 60 degrees with clouds in the sky to block our strong sun. I can’t express my joy at getting out of the house, being in the middle of nature. We’ll try to get out on the trails twice a week until it’s too hot and snakes come out.
Here are photos from Sunday’s hike:
A view of a saguaro framed by two distant mountains. Staghorn cactus in the foreground.
I couldn’t believe how green it was. Grass was everywhere thanks to our rainy days.
I think this is a Soaptree Yucca.
The McDowell Sonoran Preserve has signs everywhere so you can’t get lost. They are numbered so if you need help, you can call and tell someone what number sign you’re near.
I wanted a picture of my husband. This was all he agreed to.
We spotted two Harris Hawks checking us out at the top of two Saguaros near the end of our hike.
The trailhead starts and ends near Power Line Trail. Notice the Harris Hawks followed us back to the end of the trail.
When I got home, I stood in our freezing cold pool for as long as I could, then elevated my legs on the gravity recliner and watched the birds in our backyard.
P.S. I changed my avatar photo. My old one was at least nine years old when I started this blog. I felt it was time to update it. The new photo is from last Christmas.
I’ve been waiting to see this Century plant in bloom. This photo was taken two weeks ago.Still waiting for the blossoms….Look how much it grew. This photo was taken a couple days ago. My husband said he thought he could watch it growing taller right before his eyes.
I’m enjoying the blossoms on cactus, but they are very short lived. One day there are furious blooms and the next day, they’ve expired.
I’ve been keeping my eye on the neighbor’s Century plant and wanted to make sure I wouldn’t miss the flowers.
Look at the gorgeous blossoms on this hedgehog cactus. Tomorrow they’ll be gone.
You can imagine how sad we felt when we went on our morning walk today and saw this:
We will never get to enjoy the blooms. We felt like we lost a friend. It also reminded me of our saguaros we lost.
The nature preserve across the street with 130 miles of trails
Here are a few photos from my morning walks this week. The weather is so much cooler. We went from too hot to walk to 48 degrees in the mornings. Unfortunately, my pool is too cold to use now. I was enjoying it until a week ago. I asked the pool man how to turn on the heater. He looked and couldn’t find a pool heater. Oh well. We didn’t heat our pool in Palm Springs, either, but we lived one mile from the city pool. I need to get in the car and drive 30 minutes to a pool to swim laps here. I’m spoiled and it’s tough to get motivated to drive that far to swim.
This is the stalk of a yucca in a neighbor’s yard. It once had gorgeous flowers Did you know that yuccas are in the lily family?I thought this was another yucca. But after some research I think it’s called a sotol.This is a skeleton of a saguaro cactus. Indians used them for building structures and tools.A silhouette of a saguaro cactus in the morning sun.
I mentioned that I was interviewed for a survey of American Families recently by writer Jennifer Graham. Here are links to two articles where I have a quote. Click on the headlines to read:
Only about 1 in 10 Democrats worry about cultural issues, but there’s widespread concern about the costs of having a family By Jennifer Graham@grahamtoday Oct 12, 2021, 12:01am MDT
Trust in institutions has been declining for years, but Americans generally give them high marks for their response to COVID-19 By Jennifer Graham@grahamtoday Oct 12, 2021, 12:01am MDT
What do you think are some of the biggest problems facing families in 2021?
I answered: the cost to raise a family, too much social media and screen times leading to depression and anxiety — and political divides within families.
