Friday flowers…dying white

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, old Time is still a-flying. And this same flower that smiles today, tomorrow will be dying.
Robert Herrick

for Life in Colour: white and Cee’s Flower of the Day

Wordless Wednesday…white by the ocean

for Life in Colour: white

Friday flowers…peonies

I arrived back home yesterday about noon after having a perfect time (with the exception of coming down with a bit of a cold the last couple of days.) I managed to avoid both the rain and Tulsa on the way back, the rain through none of my own doing and Tulsa because President Biden was visiting on Tuesday when I would have arrived to spend the night and when the President comes to town, major roads close down. So I made like an Okie from Muskogee (lyrics follow), heading there and then to Oklahoma City for the night without ever going near Tulsa. Worked like a charm. The next night Albuquerque and tonight home and I got to watch Stanley Cup hockey playoff games in the motels. 🙂 Tomorrow it’s back to the real work and blogs as well. Happy Friday.

Merle Haggard

We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee;
We don’t take no trips on LSD
We don’t burn no draft cards down on Main Street;
We like livin’ right, and bein’ free.

We don’t make no party out of lovin’;
We like holdin’ hands and pitchin’ wool;
We don’t let our hair grow long and shaggy,
Like the hippies out in San Francisco do.

And I’m proud to be an Okie from Muskogee,
A place where even squares can have a ball.
We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse,
And white lightnin’s still the biggest thrill of all.

Leather boots are still in style for manly footwear;
Beads and Roman sandals won’t be seen.
Football’s still the roughest thing on campus,
And the kids here still respect the college dean.

And I’m proud to be an Okie from Muskogee,
A place where even squares can have a ball.
We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse,
And white lightnin’s still the biggest thrill of all.
In Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA.

Friday flowers…wild iris

While walking one of the back paths of the park, I glanced towards the river to see three high, thick clumps of yellow irises. I waded through deep grass, over downed branches, around bushes, and then across what felt not like quicksand but quick mud. I could see where deer hooves had sunk in and my shoes were rimmed with mud when I reached the flowers but it was well worth it. I don’t know if they were wild or if someone for some reason went all that way to plant them but it was a stunning surprise especially with the sun behind them.

also for Cee’s FOTD

Friday flowers…purple

for Life in Colour: purple

Simple

for One Word Sunday: simple

for Life in Colour: purple

Friday flowers…purple

There’s just something about a coneflower.

Monday morning addendum: I see Jo’s calling me out on the pink/purple issue. While I understand where you’re coming from, Jo, I accept the challenge and refer you to the site “40 Shades of Purple“, NOT a site for erotica about kings and other wearers of purple, but where you can see the various, well, shades of purple. To adapt another phrase that had some popularity at one time: One person’s purple is another person’s pink…or vice versa. 🙂

for Life in Colour: purple

Costa Rican pink

After my parents giving me a horse when I was in grade school, probably the best, most unexpected present I ever got was a week-long trip to Costa Rica with our older daughter. Besides spectacular scenery and unusual animals, there were all sorts of interesting, beautiful plants and flowers, like this one. I have no idea what it is, but it’s pretty cool AND it’s pink. However, if you ever come across something like this on another planet or somewhere in outer space, get away from it as soon as possible!! If you’ve watched enough sci-fi movies, you’ll know this but just a reminder.

for Life in Colour: pink

No idea what we’ll be up to today, but coffee is likely to figure in there somewhere or perhaps today’s the day we’ll go to the tea house.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #143 – Colorful April in our backyard

Color in April is different in Arizona than in every other place I’ve lived, starting from ground level up. Except for Steamboat Springs where April was mud season, April almost everywhere else starts with a carpet of green grass covered or at least dotted in many places by innumerable wildflowers. Not so in Arizona where in populated areas grass is replaced by a layer of rocks with individual or small groups of plants dotting it, and in the desert, not much of anything with the same individual or groups of plants. There is grass, but it requires large amounts of water, something I find irresponsible when you live in a desert.

Be that as it may, we were blessed in our rental house because we have a great variety of plants. Most of the other rentals I viewed had nothing in the backyard and I mean nothing, nothing but “dirt” and “dirt” here is a cement-like thing called caliche, nothing like in the Midwest where you can easily sink a shovel into the earth almost anywhere. One of the nicknames of caliche is “hardpan” for a reason.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t beauty and color, such as this yellow trumpet bush which just showed up one day in a corner where it appeared nothing was growing, a welcome surprise! We have another much larger bush of these and an enormous one with orange flowers.

Red yucca isn’t really yucca (go figure) but its flowers are beautiful. There are streets with a row of these along the side which makes for very attractive landscaping.

As far as I can ascertain, this is Britton’s wild petunia, one of the flowers the bees love but one that can be invasive.

You can’t have a colorful April in Arizona without the spectacular flowers and fruits found on the cacti that are everywhere. There may be thorns on many plants but there’s also luxurious beauty and sometimes food, as in the case of the fruit of the prickly pear cactus you see here. These will open up.

Finally, there are these short-blooming, one day, flowers found on the trumpet cactus. Our cactus is small, but welcomed us with three rounds of gorgeous flowers when we moved here just over a year ago and has already has two flowers this year.

Now that we’ve seen some of the April color in our backyard, have a seat on the patio and just relax for a bit. I’m always happy when you stop by and I have some delicious jasmine green tea if you’re so inclined or some iced English breakfast.

Friday flowers…light, glorious light

And bright glorious light for today’s “Square” entry, once again from Descanso Gardens in southern California.