 |
| Starting around Tortugas |
 |
| Looking west from the high foothills of the Tortoise |
 |
| Devil's Head Cactus (Echinocereus horizonthalonius) |
 |
| Higher on the mountain now |
 |
| In the distance the Organ Mountains |
 |
| Tarantula |
 |
| I called it "creepy," but it doesn't creep me out at all |
 |
| About the size of your palm with fingers outstretched |
 |
| Devil's Heads in the process of blooming |
 |
| Usually the Devil's Head has one flower |
 |
| Much-needed break in skimpy shade |
 |
| Ripe pears of the Prickly Pear Cactus (I've eaten them after de-spining) |
5 comments:
I don't know if I mentioned that I finally found someone to take care of the "yard" around our retirement house in Colorado. You have no idea how much relief this gives me. The "yard" doesn't get out of control with growth (it's too dry up in the mountains), but there are a lot of weeds that grow in and amongst the flagstones of our walkways and patio. When Kali and I go out to the house, we spend about two days just dealing with the weeds. I finally identified a local person who will come to the house periodically and control the weeds; finding someone was a lot harder than I thought it would be because we're so far outside Fort Collins; the regular landscape maintenance crews don't want to spend the time coming out to take care of one yard.
We've got short, stunted trees around our property, but nothing that would interfere with access if they died and/or fell over. We have all our trees sprayed professionally each spring to protect them from the western pine bark beetle.
Glad to hear you've got your yard situation under control, Scott. I know what you mean about fretting over the weed control issue; even though we're only 1 1/2 hours away from our place in the mountain I'm constantly monitoring the weather reports to see how much rain we're getting in High Rolls. When it's raining up here (where I am now)I know the weeds and grasses are just sponging it up in order to spur more rapid growth. Just bought a battery-operated string trimmer so I can whack weeds even further away from the house.
:)
Catching up on your blog- hailstones and wet weather are very familiar to me, but I was taken aback by the tarantula! I did meet one recently in an educational setting and stroked his furry legs to appear brave in front of the five years olds but seeing one in the wild like that is incredible!
I'm not looking forward to encountering any tarantulas in the near future.
Thanks for dropping by, Liz. I seem to be missing people's comments of late even though I try to make a point of checking back on my posts. You have one over on me; I have never stroked a tarantula on any part of its body.
:)
Post a Comment