Adventures Close to Home: The Short Loop

The pack sets out!

For a couple of different reasons, we hadn't planned an arduous or excitingly difficult hike for Saturday morning, just an easy saunter by way of what Therese calls "the short loop," following a cow path overland to a wash, turning from one wash to another (back where we encountered the cows another day), and back across open range to the dirt road. Our dogs don't care where we go or how exciting the expedition is from the human point of view: they are just happy to be out with us, running free, leading happy dog lives.

And actually, there is never an unexciting walk in my Dos Cabezas surroundings. Being out in the open air is exciting all by itself. Looking around at the high desert scene. Walking! Scrambling through the sandy, rocky washes and stopping to inspect the flowers at our feet, tracks in the sand, nests in trees, or simply to appreciate an old twisted tree silhouetted against the clear, cloudless sky. It feels good to be outdoors, far from anxious shoppers wearing masks in town or even yet another mess on my kitchen counter from the latest bread experiment.

Above is one of my favorite southern Arizona flowers, the little ground-hugging bajada lupine. Bajada is the feminine past participle of the Spanish verb bajar, to descend, and a bajada is an alluvial slope, or a series of alluvial fans, formed by debris brought down from higher elevations and deposited on flat land at the foot of a mountain. Please excuse the quality of today's images. Once again, I gave myself a camera vacation and then resorted to using my phone's camera when we came upon the day's floral jewels. Below is another view of the lupine, closer up but still hardly doing it justice. You really have to see it "in person" to fall under its spell.

Another plant flowering in close vicinity to the lupines in and along the wash was this little mystery:

I had to photograph the mystery flower so I could look it up in my books when I got home, and what I found was a delightful surprise. Wild heliotrope, Phacelia distans, is related to (same genus as) Phacelia arizonica, the much more modest and easily overlooked phacelia that challenged my botanizing last year. (See the latter in this post.) But wild heliotrope! What a wonderful name! Audubon does caution us, however, as to that common name: "Although called 'Heliotrope,' this species is not related to those Heliotropes in the garden." 

But the morning prize for "Most Beautiful would have to go to the penstemon. Penstemon is its genus name, a member of the Figwort family (Scrophulariaceae), but I'll have to investigate further to determine the species of this lovely wildflower, and that's okay. It is always good to have a quest, a pique to one's curiosity, something more to learn about our beautiful world.

Don't Look for Ocotillo Here Today

A friend back in Michigan asked me what is blooming right now in Arizona. Soon there will be some big, fantastic flowers along the highway, but prickly poppy seems to be taking its time this year, and I don't have a new photograph of the showy Western wallflower, so I thought we could just tour scruffy mesquite country and take a closer look at what there is to see.

There are so many yellow composite blooms in the Southwest that some people call them all, in exasperation, DYCs -- for damned yellow composites. I will never learn them all, but they are as cheery as Michigan dandelions when they first appear.

in sun

The image above shows a globemallow blossom. Globemallow was one of the first Western blooms I learned to identify, drawn to it by its spectacular color, but I don't know which species this one is. Even the field guide (Audubon) admits that members of the Sphaeralcea genus can be "difficult to identify," and before the flowers appear, the plant is weedy and somewhat unattractive. But then comes that salmon-orange blossom, and I forgive completely! Here is a second photo of globemallow, just to show that I hold no grudges and do, really, appreciate having it around. 

in shade

While we're on the subject of weedy plants, we might as well address also the question of Western peppergrass, Lepidium montanum, a member of the mustard family (Brassicaceae). Like so many of the mustards, peppergrass lacks large, showy blossom size, but it makes up for that in abundance.

And a closer looks shows that the flower is attractive, in its own quiet way.

Another small, inconspicuous but abundant plant flowering now in mid-April has sweet, tiny faces that remind me of little flowers I saw dotting the grass in the parks of Paris, France, in the month of May (on my first, long-ago visit). See how they look pink when closed and then open to show white rays around a yellow center, like miniature daisies?

My field guide tells me this plant is spreading fleabane (Erigeron divergens), not the most appealing name for such a darling little flower, while the pâquerette I came to know and love in Paris is Bellis perennis. Oh, the mystery of botanical nomenclature, how two plants can look so similar and be only distantly related! Another mystery to me was why the translation given for pâquerette is 'daisy,' while I always new daisy as 'marguerite.' Anyone interested in the difference between large daisies and the little Easter daisy (hint: latter grows in the grass) can find information -- in French -- here. 

Here is one more easily overlooked high desert April bloom. Phacelia doesn't even have a common name, which tells you how much attention is paid to it, but when the dusty, lavender-grey blooms are at their fullest, the air around this ground-hugging plant buzzes with active pollinators. 

I said this post would not have very showy flowers, but my last one for today is showy indeed. Here in Dos Cabezas we don't have it carpeting entire acres, but a little patch of Mexican poppies shouts with joy, and anyone seeing it has to smile in response. 

And there you have it -- another lesson in looking carefully at the world, so as not to miss any of the gifts, however small, that are all around us.

Close to Sunset

Adventures Close to Home: Ocotillo Forest

So often what I show you in these adventures must seem repetitious, but today's mountain hike went in a different direction. Our destination was high ground where the ocotillo is getting ready to open its flowers to the sun. Here is the point where we really started to climb --

-- and maybe the photograph directly below will give some idea of how far from the road we ventured. Can you see our ghost town home at all back there in far distance?

One thing I know you can see in that last image is how open the ground is, compared to lower down in Dos Cabezas. We had gradually left most of the mesquite behind and now encountered more barrel and prickly pear cactus.

The old girl (dog girl, that is) had been staggering around earlier in the cabin, as if her legs could barely keep her upright. She can be like that in the mornings. Once outdoors, though? She is a new animal! Rambunctious as a puppy, eager to run and explore! I do keep an eye on her, of course, to make sure she doesn't get dehydrated or exhausted, and when she seems to be looking for water, I stop and we both have a drink. I also suck on a lemon -- for the electrolytes -- and Sarah has a couple of dog treats for energy.

Despite many stops for purposes of hydration and photography, the humans were on a mission this trip. Here is Therese (Sarah standing by), showing me why we made the arduous climb. 

But you still can't see how very tall they were, those ocotillo. This picture Therese took of me, standing right next to one of the plants, may give a better idea.

And here is Buddy in the ocotillo forest. Can you see him? He's a big dog but looks little here!

The ocotillo flowers are not yet fully open, but before long every tall wand ends in a bright red flame. They're getting there....

The forest of ocotillo had been our main objective, but it was not the only gift the mountains gave us. What has Therese spotted here on the edge of a deep ravine?

If we were back in Michigan, I'd call these black-eyed Susans, but what are they called here?

Then there were these brilliant mounds of color, such are also blooming along the roadsides right now, and I took the opportunity (far from roads) to get a good closeup. Now do my friends want to argue about what this flower is?

Once again, it was a beautiful and exciting day in the mountains -- and this time we humans refrained totally from political discussion. Not a single word! That was the icing on the cake.

Dead Pig in the Middle of the Road

This, Michigan friends, is a javelina. Or, it was a javelina. Now it is a carcass, drawing flies. It is not and never was a pig, but people here call them pigs. The javelina is related to the wild boar.

Did I want to stop and photograph a javelina in the middle of the road? Like the skunk in the 1966 song? Is the pope Catholic?

Javelinas do not prey on human beings, but they have very poor eyesight, and if one is charging your way at full speed, say a prayer fast! Really, you don't want to run into one with your car, either. They are not as tall as deer, but hitting one can be dangerous to driver and passengers. 

From the looks of this guy, he was more sinned against than sinning, and no signs in the road indicated that a car suffered injury.

End of story.

Feathered Neighbors Cheer Our Days

That bird above would show up better if I'd shot from a lower angle, so as to catch him against the blue sky rather than the mountain, but it isn't easy to sneak up on birds. I stand in the shade with the camera held to my eye and hope to catch something quickly.

I'm also working without the telephoto lens that I had on my last camera, the lens that made capturing flighty images so much more successful for me. What I've done instead is to extend my lens as far as it will go, then crop the images afterward. It is a makeshift solution, but it works, as long as you the viewer don't zoom in and lose the resolution.

Today's shooting was an experiment. Rather than wait for the showy cardinal or ladderback woodpecker, I just decided to shoot -- with my camera, that is -- the birds that came to the feeder -- finches, sparrows, whatever. I think these little rosy guys are house finches. My neighbor calls them rosy finches, and that name suits them much better, don't you think? Finches, anyway, are sweet birds. They are like pets and don't need a cage. I like that.

Sometimes there is an excited flurry, a flutter of wings --

Sometimes it seems a little competition is going on. Other times some stay back and wait their turn.

The two below seem reconciled for the moment. And there is no warfare in their kingdom, anyway, no fights to the death among these little creatures. They squabble from time to time, but in general things work out pretty peaceably. 

Little birds make good neighbors. They are a welcome distraction from larger global events.

Wordless Bagels