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Maybe it’s because I grew up in Phoenix, where trees either don’t lose their leaves or lose them very late (like in the middle of our “winter”), but I think there’s something kind of lovely about bare winter branches.
When we were at Boyce Thompson Arboretum in mid-January, I kept taking photos of plant shapes silhouetted against the afternoon sky.
How are the trees looking in your part of the world right now?
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According to the Nine app, these were my best 9 Instagram photos last year.
I don’t know why, but I was a little surprised by the results. While I like these photos and they bring up good memories, it doesn’t feel like they sum up the year or represent the range of things I posted. It’s pretty heavy on the desert scenery.
Of course, the app doesn’t – can’t – measure those things. It just makes a collage of your photos that have the most likes.
What people like, apparently, are hot-climate plants. And whipped-cream-topped waffles.
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Location of collage photos (l to r): 1. Silly Mountain Botanical Walk 2. Usery Pass Park 3. My back porch. 4. Silly Mountain Botanical Walk 5. Cabazon Dinosaurs 6. Usery Pass Park 7. Center for Creative Photography, Tucson 8. Summer of the Waffle party 9. Tucson, before heading up Mount Lemmon
“Wait…that’s a real thing?!”
People from outside of Arizona have been surprised or skeptical when these 5 things have come up, but they’re all for real.
How many of these have you seen?
1. Tumbleweeds – Not just the stuff of western movie lore, they’re actually Russian thistle plants. When they’re alive, they’re green and grow like weeds. The dead, dry ones break off and roll around in the wind. It’s not like I have to stop my car for tumbleweeds rolling across the road every day. But it has happened.
Also, the city of Chandler builds a big tumbleweed tree for the holidays every year.
2. Gila monsters – They’re more fat lizards than monsters. Yes, they have a poisonous bite. However, that’s not a big concern, since they’re not particularly quick or aggressive or likely to chase you down (or meet you at the airport). In fact, it’s rare to even see one out and about.
We felt lucky when we spotted a Gila monster sauntering through the shadows at Boyce-Thompson Arboretum.
3. Desert monsoons – A friend from Taiwan laughed when I mentioned monsoons in Phoenix. While what we call “monsoon season” isn’t what you’d see in South Asia, it comes with bigger storms and more rainfall than we get other times of the year. Sonoran desert storms are dramatic – and beautiful – in their own way with downpours, thunder, lightning, wind, and dust storms (see #4).
4. Dust storms – If you saw Mad Max Fury Road, that’s not what a dust storm is like inside. Think fog made of sand, and you’ve got the picture. When it’s dry and very windy, blowing dust forms a cloud you can see approaching from miles away. sometimes an eerie orange color in the afternoon light.
5. Roadrunners – Although they look nothing like the Wile E. Coyote’s nemesis, they are an actual type of bird. That runs. Sometimes on roads.
So there you have it: the real story behind Arizona’s mythological-seeming creatures and phenomena, which are, in fact, the real deal.
Of course, the jury is still out on the Phoenix Lights.
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Photos:
1. Willcox, AZ
2. Tumbleweed Tree, Chandler, AZ
3. Gila monster. Photo by Blueag9. CCL.
4. Gila monster at Boyce-Thompson Arboretum.
5-8. Phoenix area during monsoon season.
9. Roadrunner. Photo by Ralph Arvesen. CCL.
10. Sierra Estrella Park.
Mount Lemmon doesn’t have a website.
Which, I guess, makes sense, since it’s a mountain. Although that didn’t stop Mt. Rainier or even Camelback. Maybe the difference is that they’re both the main event in their respective parks. Mt. Lemmon, on the other hand, is just one impressive part of the impressive Santa Catalina Mountains and extensive Coronado National Forest.
It’s right outside Tucson, but, as much as Phillip and I like hanging out in that area, I’ve never been on Mt. Lemmon itself. Tucson is a 1.5 hour drive, and then it takes another hour to wind your way up the mountain, so it kind of requires its own designated trip.
Which is happening soon, because my dad thought we (he, Mom, Phillip and I) needed to take a day trip before Phillip goes back to grad school and disappears for 9 months / can’t do anything fun / gets much busier.
We decided to go to Mt. Lemmon since my mom hasn’t been there either. We’ll drive around, picnic, and maybe take a hike. But probably a short one, because the elevation at the top is about 9,000 feet. That is significantly higher than Denver. It’s actually closer to La Paz, Bolivia’s 11,000+ feet.
Side note: Thinking about this made me wonder about all the high-altitude places I’ve been and how they compare to each other. So I made a little, roughly-to-scale chart. Maybe I’ll do a better one later, where I actually write legibly and measure the lines. Maybe.
Side note to the side note: I’m thinking of titling my chart “Great Heights” or “Altitude is Everything” or “Elevations I Have Known and Loved” or maybe just “Places I’ve Been High.”
Really, the point is that I’m gonna be moving slow up there in the thinner air.
Driving from the Tucson desert to the pine-covered top of Mt. Lemmon takes you through climate zones equivalent to driving from Mexico to Canada.
Mt. Lemmon is one of the sky islands, a poetically-named category of mountains in the Southwest U.S. and Mexico that have dramatically different environments than the areas around them. They have remarkable biodiversity, including plants and animals you normally wouldn’t find in the region.
My favorite is the coatimundi, a mammal that’s native to Central America but also inhabits the sky islands. When we went to Chiricahua National Monument (also sky island territory) a few years back, I got kind of obsessed focused on trying to spot one in the wild. It hasn’t happened yet, but, during the trip, I’ll definitely be on the lookout.
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PS I’ll be posting info from my Craft Camp presentation soon.
I keep coming across neat cactus-related ideas and thought you guys would like to check these out.
Simple yet fabulous-looking paper cacti project via The House That Lars Built!
Plastic bottle cacti by Veronika Richterová. While she has special processes for creating her cactus art, it’d be fun to try making a simpler version of these.
We featured these upcycled water bottle planters by A Beautiful Mess on our Facebook page in a Try Today Friday post, but I wanted to make sure you didn’t miss them!
Sewing Lab has a tutorial for a cute stuffed fabric cactus that’s the perfect place for pins and needles.
C2C Gallery in Grand Haven, Michigan suggests using cactus seeds in artwork. What they had in mind were Helen Otterson’s botanical-inspired ceramics. (Like Succulent Blossom.) But it made me wonder about using seeds in collage to add some depth and texture.
Have you ever created something inspired by cactus or using actual parts of a cactus plant?
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Top photo taken by me at The Farm at South Mountain. Other photos via their respective sites.
