How Does Your Garden Grow?

The title to this post is not as misleading as it might appear. This impressively large agave would be considered a food plant in Mexico and even here in the United States if you know where to look.

A Desert Bloom

Even in the Winter, there are flowers in parts of the desert. I don't think that this flower is indigenous, but it is delicate and beautiful.

Chihuly Number Thirteen

I have taken some shots of the Chihuly Exhibit in the afternoon sun, rather than at night. This is one of many yellow structures.

An Open Wound

You can clearly see the structure of this saguaro cactus with a huge hole in side. Around the edge of the wound, the cactus is slowly growing over the missing part of the plant.

Company for Lunch

I guess this is a series about butterflies. But there are few things more entrancing that a fluttery winged creature with brilliant coloration.

Monarch contrast

This monarch butterfly or Danaus plexippus is having a nice lunch on this lantana flower. We often see butterflies on the lantana in our front yard, but getting a photo is another thing altogether. I got this one at the Desert Botanical Garden where the butterflies were in captivity.

Hitchhiker

You don't see this too often. Monarch butterflies are usually a little more skittish than this and harder to get into a photo. I could not pass up this little guy taking a break on a walking shoe.

Monarch Gathering

The Monarch Butterfly or Danaus plexippus is one of the best known butterflies in North America. It was first classified by Linnaeus back in 1758. I take every opportunity I can to shoot photos of butterflies. They are usually too active to get a group shot like this.

Glass Flowers

One of my oldest memories comes from when I lived on the Harvard University campus in student housing that has long since disappeared. My father was in law school and we lived close enough to the campus that I could visit the Peabody Museum, now called the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethology. I was very young, about six years old and the thing I remember the most were the glass flowers. I guess I am still fascinated by glass flowers.

Monumental Glass

This is one of the largest and most complex of the Chihuly glass sculptures at the Desert Botanical Garden. I suppose that I would think it nearly impossible just to transport these glass spheres, much less stack them on top of each other.

Petroglyph on a rock

Petroglyphs usually are on the sides of cliffs. There are places such as the Three Rivers Petroglyph Site in New Mexico where the petroglyphs are all over rocks scattered across the landscape. This one could be a "fake" that is, done by someone other than a paleoamerican. It is hard to tell.

Spines at Night

Night photos produce an entirely different set of colors, light and shadows. This photo was taken handheld without a flash. I almost never use a flash because I spend three times longer than I do trying to fix the mistakes I make without one.

Not quite a cactus

By definition this glass sculpture is not a cactus. I certainly looks like it is right at home with those large cactus standing around.

Blue Star

I cannot understand how you would go about making something like this out of glass. Especially when it is really large and heavy. I guess that is why Dale Chihuly is famous and I am not.

Into the night

The variety of glass sculptures in the Chihuly Exhibit at the Desert Botanical Garden is truly impressive. It takes quite a bit of time to walk around and look at all the sculptures, even if you don't spend much time at each one.

The Forum

This group of glass sculptures from Dale Chihuly reminds of a small group discussion. You could stop by anytime and see them since they don't move. Oh yes, the exhibit closes in 2014.

Floating in the night

This is the second visit of these Chihuly glass sculptures to the Desert Botanical Garden. They are more impressive at night than they are in the daytime when they are competing with everything around them. They are a remarkable sight.

Strangely Iconic

The cactus are sculptures in themselves and when combined with glass sculptures, there is a very surreal quality about the whole view. This is a very remarkable photo.

A Tower of Light

I guess that one of the attractions of the Chihuly Exhibit at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona is the anomaly of a huge glass sculpture in the middle of a cactus garden. This photo gives you some idea of the size of these sculptures.

Another Strange Photo

This is another very strange photo from the Chihuly Exhibit at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona. It is almost surreal.

Crowded Boat

This is one of the strangest photos I have ever taken. I doubt that you could figure out what was going on here without having seen it yourself. This is a boat full of blown glass from Dale Chihuly at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona.

Chihuly Number Ten

This is the first illuminated glass sculpture I have seen by Dale Chihuly. It is on the side of a steep hill next to the Desert Botanical Garden. The colors are striking in real life as opposed to the photograph.

Chihuly Number Nine

I wouldn't say that this glass sculpture blends in with the cactus but it does provide a startling contrast to the gray-green cactus plants. It almost looks like something alien. This is the Dale Chihuly Glass Exhibition at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix.

Chihuly Number Eleven - Dancing in the Cactus

This grouping of glass sculptures by Dale Chihuly look like dancers in the cactus. There is a lot of movement in the glass and very little in the cactus.

Peak-a-boo

 Just before this photo was taken we were in a terrific rainstorm. These clouds were a foreboding of another huge storm which came shortly after this visit to the mountains. Living in the desert you get out of the habit of carrying coats and raingear and the other necessities of living where it is cold and wet. As I am writing this, it is the middle of December and will be about 70° today with clear skies and soft breezes. I'm sure that this location in the mountains would look considerably different right now with huge piles of snow everywhere. I am not certain which is better.

High Mountain Valley

 Once you get to a certain altitude in the mountains the entire landscape begins to change. It becomes a different kind of desert. Not a desert lacking in water, but a desert created by the extreme temperatures and abundance of winter snow. This photograph was taken just below the tree line in the Rocky Mountains National Park in Colorado. In this photo, the treeline is very distinct. In Arizona, the tree line is about 11,600 feet and there are only a handful of peaks that extend higher.

Rushing Water

Many times, the views that appear in a photograph created an abstraction of reality. This is one of those photographs. It was taken looking down into a deep canyon with a very fast mountain stream crashing over the rocks. Without the perspective of the canyon walls and the surrounding hills, the water turns into an abstract pattern. The camera sees something that we never actually see in real life and that is frozen movement of water.

Rock Mosaic

Sometimes we get so used to seeing fabulously colored rocks and cliffs, that we forget how unusual they really are. I have driven thousands of miles in Arizona and Utah, much of it on dirt roads and I am still amazed at the rock formations. I still cannot believe my eyes when I see the colors and the ways the rocks change with the different levels. I have a mental list of places I must go see again and another list of places I haven't seen yet. Both lists are pretty long and almost all the places I really want to see are in Arizona and Utah. I guess I was born in the right place.

Dinosaur Quarry

 One of my dreams when I used to wander the Colorado Plateau was to find a dinosaur skeleton. This was entirely possible since many fossils have been unearthed just few hundreds of yards from my summer home. One notable fossil was taken from a gravel quarry just a about a half mile south of my house. They took out a complete mammoth skeleton. I used to walk by there all the time, not knowing that the fossil find was buried just a few steps away. Mammoths are OK, but I was really wanting to find a dinosaur. I thought I found one and hauled the rocks to show the State Geologist, but he couldn't tell what they were either. Some dreams fade away with old age.

Cataract

The magic of rushing water cannot be equaled. This is especially true for a dyed-in-the-wool desert dweller. I just can't imagine all that water just running down a mountainside and not doing something. Most of my interaction with water has been in the form of irrigation and sprinklers. We either have no water or too much, there are seldom times when there are pleasant interludes with just enough. Watching a mountain stream roar past makes me doubt all that I know to be true about the scarcity of water. It reminds me of the old Colorado Plateau farmer who was rescued after being stranded by a flood. All he could say was "It is a pity it won't last."

Chihuly Number Eight

With the cactus and the purple reeds, you might overlook the large glass balls that are scattered around the Chihuly Exhibit at the Desert Botanical Garden. If you look really carefully, you will likely see my reflection in the glass.

Chihuly Number Seven

This is a collection of shots I took at the Desert Botanical Garden's Chihuly Exhibit in 2013. There are some very interesting and colorful glass sculptures that challenge the eye and the imagination. The colors change throughout the day, so you might want to visit at different times during the time the Exhibit is available.

Cactus at Sunset

Evening is one of the most beautiful times in the desert. The oblique light brings out the shapes of the cactus and the color of the sky. There are few times when this combination is as dramatic as in the early Winter when the skies are clear and the sun is low in the South.

Desert at sunset

The yellow band in the sky may look colorful but it is really the smoky haze over the huge Phoenix Metroplex. It is a lot less than other places in the world but is most noticeable in the evenings with a low sun.

Chihuly Sunset

This is one of the permanent Chihuly sculptures at the entrance to the Desert Botanical Garden. We sometimes go to the Garden in the evening to see the lights on the sculptures and see the garden with the lights. In daylight these particular sculptures are greenish colored.

Chihuly Sunset Number Two

These extraordinary glass sculptures are Chihuly masterpieces at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona. In the evening they pieces are all lit up but just as the sunsets there is still the natural light from the sun to give a warm glow to the desert setting.

Instead of Snow

At certain times in the Fall, the Desert Broom or Baccharis sarothroides sends out its seeds floating across the desert. Where there are enough of these huge bushes, the seeds pile up and cover the ground just like snow. One thing is certain, these plants will not disappear any time soon with the quantity of seeds they produce.

I couldn't do that

How these birds can go to sleep standing on one leg defies imagination. If you look around, there doesn't seem to be anyplace comfortable to lie down, so I guess standing up was the only option.

American Coot

We do see some different kinds of birds This is an American Coot or Fulica americana and it is related more to Sand Hill Cranes and rails than ducks. As I learn more about the different birds in our area here in the desert, I am impressed by the variety. My rule is until you learn about it, you don't see it.

Naptime

I went to a preschool at Harvard University and they had a naptime. We had mats to lie down and graham crackers and milk to drink. I don't think my Harvard education prepared me much for the real world, but these birds reminded me, for some reason, of that very early school experience. I think I would have liked graham crackers and milk and nap in graduate school which also didn't prepare me much for the real world.

A Message on the Wind

Along with the algae, there are a lot of things that have blown in on the wind in this shallow pond. I don't think anything there looks too appetizing but you never know. I might think differently if I were a bird or some such.

A Log with Character

It takes some time for logs (and people) to acquire some character. You can pretend to be different but you only become different as you persist in being different. This is not always negative. Being different in our world today can mean having a good character and sticking to it. I don't think this log had much choice in gaining some real character.

Mud Flats

There are some places in the world that hold a special magic. This is one of those places. Mud flats are neither earth nor water. They inhabit that place that cannot be easily defined.

Blue Heron

This is a classic pose for the blue heron or Ardea herodias. It is waiting for something edible to swim by or crawl into range. They can stand still like this for a relatively long time. It makes them a very good subject for photographers that can get close enough to get a photo. I enjoy having this riparian area only minutes from my house.

Great-tailed Grackle

This is a female Great-tailed Grackle or Quiscalus mexicanus. Grackles are one of the most common birds in my neighborhood. They live in large flocks and spend time eating bugs on my lawn. The males are black and quite aggressive.

Turtles on a Log

These are likely escaped pets or even more likely deliberately abandoned when they got too big to be cute. They seem to be regulars on this particular log. It was a little bit late in the year and I doubt I will see them again until Spring. The bits of white on the water are seeds from Desert Broom plants.

Backlight

Looking at this cactus into the sun, I was interested in the shine on the spines. As a result, I also got a lot of sun spots on the lens, but rather than take them out with Photoshop, I decided to leave them in since they were all in the dark shade of the plants.

Stopping for Drink

I have taken the bait and I am determined to photograph hummingbirds. They usually choose a shady branch to rest for a while, so I was lucking to catch this one out on the feeder. I did this with a handheld 500 mm lens at some distance so as not to scare them away.

Among the Reeds

When I get a chance, I like to take photos around wetland areas of Arizona. Wetlands are one of the few environments where you can see large numbers of birds and other animals without spending time in the remote desert camped out on a rock. I can usually find these Mallard ducks at any time of the year.