We had beautiful weather this week. According to local meteorologists we should have had 90 degree weather already. Instead, we mostly were in the low 80s. That is perfect for going outside and exploring the desert plants that are part of our homestead.
We have many doves that live in our yard. I like to watch them fly around and listen to their cooing. We have found three nests that have a bird sitting on them. One of them is difficult to see so we don’t know if there are babies in that one right now. We have seen babies in the other two. One of the nests is in a Cholla cactus, that is the picture on the right. The cholla is nasty, if you brush against it you will have thorns all over you. Somehow the dove can make a nest in it.
The cacti have started to bloom. The ones below are prickly pear. This one is covered in buds, but only a few have opened.
The next plant is a Beavertail Cactus. It has vibrant pink flowers. We don’t have many of these cacti so need to work on propagating more.
It seems that everywhere we look we see flowers.
Palo Verde Tree 
Bottle Brush 
Fencepost Cactus 
Mexican Bird of Paradise
We release our Blue Red-Laced Wynadottes from the chick coop into the general population. Our Rooster, Smoky, was very excited. He wanted to get to “know” them. We had to pull him off of them and hold onto him to show him who is actually boss. All the hens were nice to the babies though, and eventually Smoky calmed down.
This is Peckachoo, she seems to be the alpha bird. She gets mad when she sees the other chickens sitting on this branch. It is her perch. Mostly, she is a benevolent leader though and only occasionally pecks the others.
The plants in my Covid-19 panic buy garden are starting to sprout. I planted many green and wax beans. Those were all older seeds, but they still seem to be viable as we have many seedlings. Now I just have to cross my fingers and hope nothing eats them.
Beans 
Beans 
Kale
Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Hopefully next week there will be many more. I think we will try to have a post just crammed full with cacti pictures next Sunday.
-Joshua
Peckachu!!! Bwahahahaha! “Gotta peck em all!”
That was our 15 year old. He thinks he is clever.