Colorful Spring!

Corona de Tucson

April 15, 2026

Our walk to the park...

Since I last posted, Joe, Lucy and I have been home bodies.  Home is such a comfortable and comforting place to be.  Some days are lazy and some days are not.  It is so nice to be in this stage of life when it is our choice to make.  Busy days have included a few appointments...hair cut, the last of Joe's radiation treatments, teeth cleaning for me, eye doctor for Joe and completing and mailing in taxes, etc. 

The weather has been spring-like with cool mornings and mild afternoons.  It is nice to be able to take our walks whenever the mood strikes. The neighborhood has been a vibrant display of colors.

Mornings when the Palo Verde trees have a radiant glow against our Arizona blue skies... 

or evenings when it is glows against the dark hues as the sun sets. 

The vivid colors of the cacti is also an eye catcher this time of year.  

Cholla

 

Prickly Pear

And the muted colors have a "calm whispering" effect which can't go unnoticed either.

We had a nice Easter weekend.  Jamie, Andra and Ozzie came to visit.  

Ozzie is such a sweet boy!

On Saturday the four of us went to B&B Cactus Farm.

So many choices and this is just one of the huge covered sheds for all kinds of cacti and succulents from small seedlings to very large landscape plants.  It's not just a nursery, but an "attraction" for folks as well.  

Afterwards, we enjoyed lunch at El Charro.  

We chose the front porch for lunch...

Carne Seca  (the famous sun-dried beef) Burros filled our tummies and a couple of us sipped on a delicious mango margarita.  

So yummy!  And I can't help but think of Jeff and Fran Pierce when we eat here.  Jeff loved the Carne Seca at El Charro and we didn't miss a chance to meet them there every time they passed thru Tucson.  

At our little oasis, we have fun repotting some plants.  A few years back, I bought a tiny Queen Victoria Agave.  It has been in a small pot so this year we decided it needed a new home.  We also had a Squid Agave that needed a new home. Jamie suggested we transplant two of its "pups" to another pot which we did.  And last, we gave the Artichoke Agave a new home too.  I had a fun time choosing pots when we visited Son Silver West in Wickenburg. 

Queen Victoria Agave

Squid Agave

Artichoke Agave

And a new succulent this year...an Aloe "Blizzard" in my new favorite pot.

Our torch cacti have bloomed and new buds appear everyday.  

And the decorative cacti that Jamie and Andra have given my for my birthday the past three years also bloomed.

March 2024

March 2025

March 2026

Our feathered friends are slowly returning after having no food for a few weeks while we were gone.  A pair of Gila Woodpeckers, Cardinals, and Curved-bill Thrashers have been busy at the feeders.  The Gambles have been perusing the ground for tid-bits of food.  The hummers are in and out at the blink of an eye.  And of course...lots of sparrows, finches, dove and wrens keep a close watch from their perch on the fence.

And I managed a quick snap of this speedy little baby racing across the yard.  

The birds are great entertainment for Lucy.  She sits quietly and watches and only on occasion has she darted out into the yard to chase the dove forging for food under the feeders. 

Lucy is enjoying being home too.  

I am often awed by tiny birds. They are some of nature's most remarkable marvels.  

I'll close with a sunset...

Until next time, 

HAPPY TRAILS !

and SWEET DREAMS!

Saguaro National Park West

Corona de Tucson

May 4, 2022

I don't know about other bloggers, but I refer to the blog often when it comes to questions like... "when did we do that?" and "what did we see?".  I have been wanting to take the back way to Saguaro National Park West for awhile and when I checked the blog, I realized why.  We have driven Gates Pass a few times, but had not visited the west side of the national park since 2016.  So Sunday, we headed north and slightly east (avoiding the interstate and major highways) in search for saguaro cactus blooms.  

I always enjoy the drive on Kinney Road once we enter the Tucson Mountain District. This day was no exception as I was excited at the prospect of seeing those beautiful saguaro blooms up close and not just out the window.

I only had a vague memory of the Visitor Center on the west side and was pleasantly surprised at how pretty it is.  

The front... 

 

and the back...

We did learn something new at one of the outdoor displays.  Did you know saguaros have boots? A hard shell of callus tissue, heavily impregnated with lignin that the cactus creates to protect the wound, is formed that the birds can use for nesting.  The hard shell is referred to as a boot.  We have seen many saguaro cacti skeletons, but never knew to look for a boot.  Now we know !

The cactus wrens were busy eating the bees and other insects swarming around the blooms and never noticed they had visitors.  

A Ranger told us about a short walking trail a quarter of a mile from the VC where we might find more birds.  It is considered to be a riparian area as it has water during certain times of the year.  

We saw a pair of White-winged Dove.  In the Sonoran Desert, nesting White-winged Doves eat mostly nectar, pollen, fruit and seeds from the saguaro and are nicknamed "saguaro specialists".  Both the saguaro and the dove benefit from the relationship.  

And we saw a Curved-billed Thrasher...well, most of him.

Our auto hike continued on to Bajada Loop Road...the only scenic drive on the west side.  It is a 6 mile graded dirt road with pullouts for photographs, hiking trails and picnic areas.  It is a combo two-way and one-way road that begins about 1 and 1/2 miles from the VC.  

 The prickly pear cacti were glowing...

and the buckhorn cacti were radiant.

The dainty hedgehog cacti always catch my eye.

And then there are the magnificent Saguaro cacti that can only be seen in the Sonoran Desert.

And finally ...a turned down arm and low enough for me to photograph...jackpot !

Bajada Loop, like Cactus Forest Drive in Saguaro NP East is a beautiful and fun scenic drive.  Both never disappoint !

From there we took a few left and right turns, and found ourselves on another favorite road...Gates Pass.  Sundays and auto hikes just seem to go together sometimes and this was a really nice day.  

I had started out with the intention of blogging about the whole week, but this is too long and I have run out of time so I will have to continue later. 

By the way, I still haven't figured out why google will not let me make comments signed in to our account like I have done for the past umpteen years.  I have checked, double checked and triple checked settings, visited the google help site numerous times, and all updates for google and chrome are up to date.     So for now and probably forever, I am ANONYMOUS.  

We enjoyed the long way home !  Until next time, 

HAPPY TRAILS !