F and F-ing (Flora and Fauna-ing)

September 14, 2012 by Susan Shay 8 Comments

Remember reading about The Great American Desert in school? I found it. 🙂

We’re in Tucson today. (Hi y’all!)

Talk about a whole new world. Know what they’ve got here? In spades? Cactus! Saguaro to be precise. The ones that stand TALL and have arms, reaching up to pray! The REAL thing, like you see on movies.

Isn’t that cool? I snapped that out the car window with my phone. They’re everywhere. Kind of like cedar trees in Northeast Okie Land. 🙂

This looks like a hillside full of tree stumps, but it’s actually . . .

A hillside full of Saguaro cactus. (Surprise!) Some look as if they’re growing right out of the rock, don’t they? Perfect for this part of the world. Interesting how God knows exactly where to plant things, isn’t it?

There are also a lot of short fat cacti that look like a pin cushion on steroids, and most of them are blooming!

From what I can tell on the Internet, they’re called Barrel cactus.

If memory serves, they’re the ones that you look for if you’re dying from thirst in the desert. (I think I saw that on a movie or in a book, so don’t take my word for it if you’re planning a hike in the desert.)

When I took the Barrel Cactus pics, I also saw this.

Can you read it?

YIKES!

I hot-footed it out of that little garden right fast. (A rattlesnake might hide in the gravel, but they can’t hide on concrete. I hope.)

I’ve seen tons of these flowers, blooming in gardens.

I don’t know what they are, but I have a feeling they don’t take a lot of water. (There’s not much of it in this part of the world.)

Here’s a close up. Anyone recognize it?

Whatever it is, I hope it has a pretty name, like Angel Eyelashes or Flutter Hearts and not something awful like Skunk Britches.

Can anyone tell me?