Retaining wall example

It's been how many months since the Lowe's wall fiasco? How many months that the matter is being studied to determine the Absolutely Best Possible Fix for the great hole in the non-retaining wall? Tho I don't have the answers right at hand, I was reminded of another approach to necessary cuts in the mountainside. Pictured here is an admittedly small cut in what looks like volcanic rock in order to create a delivery/parking area behind the Peridot over on Bradshaw.

A heavy-duty mesh holds back the inevitable collection of eroding rocks that would land on the pavement. It's held in place by a number of heavy-duty bolts right into the mountainside. Not only is the arrangement utile, but it's also rather photogenic, if the light is just right.

To be perfectly fair, volcanic rock is a lot more cohesive than the canyon full of fill dirt that Lowe's is dealing with. But they should have thought of that way back when!

A good bird day

How lucky can one get! I was about to photograph my happy sunflower plant, when lo and behold, a humming bird came visiting. Fortunately, a sunflower consists of many, many true flowers, so the hummer lingered just long enough for me to take two pictures. No, I didn't have time to think, so I wasn't using the sports setting!

And surely it was just coincidence, but friend Bob chose the same day to forward bird portraits he had taken as he sat on his front porch. Above, a tiny hummer, no doubt on the lookout for interlopers in his turf (there's almost no critter more feistily territorial than a pretty little humming bird.)

Two other birds at his feeders: above, a sparrow of some sort and, below, a handsome rufous-sided towhee.

Strawberry pot 'shrooms

It's official. Our world this summer is a lot wetter than last year at this time. According to an article in the Arizona Republic, Flagstaff has enjoyed 1.74" of rain since the official start of the monsoon season June 15 and we in Prescott have had 1.55". During the same period last year, it measured zilch. Zero. Nada. Furthermore, in the higher country this year, the snow pack lasted into March in places.

This may not sound like much to folk in wetter climes, but in the dry southwest, months with over 1" of rain are wet and welcome. All of which might explain the picture above. One morning last week, I saw little mushrooms cropping up in the cups of my aged strawberry pot. That's never happened in all the years that I've had this big planter.

By the next day, the little umbrellas had opened up and two days after their appearance, the 'shrooms were melting down, as many do. Coincidentally, the dotter displayed a fine batch of Alaskan mushroom pictures yesterday.

A local friend who is an old-timer in these parts once explained to me about the early monsoon superstition; viz., if the rains come too soon, the season will accordingly be a short one. I hope that science (and a long rainy season) prevail over the old wives and their tales!

X-Files Goodness!! Coming to a theater near you July 25, says the website for the new Mulder-Scully movie. The trailer here, and news about an on-line premier event July 23 here.

Strolling Downtown Prescott

After my lemonade at the library lizard unveiling yesterday, it was time to move on, heading for the post office, the Square and Whiskey Row. It was hard to miss this pale yellow hollyhock, prospering in the crack between the alley and the wall of my favorite court building on Cortez Street. It probably grew from a seed from the little rear garden at the upper right. I always applaud the local hollyhocks which manage to grow all over the downtown area if given half a chance.

On the other hand, the landscapers at the post office had another idea about how to cover ground in a small flower bed -- plant hens & hope for chicks later on. Not nearly as colorful as the semi-double old fashioned red roses blooming in many of the cross walk containers (below).

Another photo op along the way -- a very, very pockmarked utility pole in an alley. And, below, a sewer cover that tickled my fancy, in part because it was made in the USA. Antique, no doubt. I found myself wondering if we now import our heavy iron sewer covers from China, along with our computers, our plastic toys and nearly everything else.

Over on Whiskey Row at the Arts Prescott Coop, a cool flag had been painted on corrugated iron -- an idea that worked quite nicely. Also neat: the way that the Courthouse reflection merges into the field of blue. Nor could I resist the sinuous, sneaky Oaxacan tiger below. At Sun West Gallery.

Sticking my nose in another door revealed a display of modish crosses (above). The cute little moose below is dedicated to my daughter, whose Alaskan veggie garden has been invaded by moose who are not nearly as cute. She did, by the way, come up with an excellent moose take-off of those LOL Cats pictures which are so popular.

Oh yes, I happened to look up at the skull in front of Matt's and discovered his bright red LED eyes. You discover something new everyday, if you just keep your eyes open. (End sermon.)

This Friday, I was quite aware of visitors from far places; for example, accents from Spain, England and Scandinavia. But what would Whiskey Row be without some bikers to add color. Plus a touch of macho, aided and abetted by products such as jalapeño peanut brittle in one of the snack shops. Are you ready to try it?

There were other sights to be seen downtown. A curious example is the face in the tree above; more prosaic, the invitation to add one or two more to your collection of high tech goodies.

This car is a new sight, I believe. It is a good example of how people manage to survive in desirable Arizona mountain towns where good jobs are very few and far between -- create the right business or service.

And -- signs of the peak oil times? Of our future? Not one, but two folks with bicycles plus little yellow wagons, neither containing an infant. Can bicycle rickshaws be very far behind?

Cool Sites: Dagny managed to get a great shot of a Cooper's hawk that was stalking her bird feeders; Smile 'n Sigh laments the passing of old fashioned brick sidewalks.

Unveiling of the library horny toad

This poster hints at what what's hidden behind the burqa below -- the second new sculpture to be added to the downtown library's growing collection of art. Today was the big unveiling. Right at 1 p.m.

The new Prescott Library Lizard is a horned toad, which is, properly speaking, not a toad but a lizard. When I was growing up, it was always toad; of course, we're far more sophisticated these days, so horned lizard it is.

The young lady with the tail (above) is one of the mural mice, who is about to start work on the new mural at the back of the library.

The sculptor, Heather Johnson Beary, has lived in Prescott since 1993; another of her local works is at the Highlands Center for Natural History and her 8-foot collared lizard was created for the Escalante Grand Staircase National Monument.

Let the unveiling begin: so announces library director Toni Kaus to the crowd which had assembled despite the hot sun. If you look in the background, there is one woman who came prepared with a big umbrella for shade. (Below) The sculptor adds to the credits for the foundry and bronze patina work.

Voila! The horny toad appears. Hizhonor the mayor Jack Wilson is the tall guy at left.

I was impressed at how many cameras came out for the occasion. Four of 'em in this small portion of the crowd. Another photographer was shooting the event from the cool inside of the library.

So here's the literary lizard, complete with his very own cat, seated on two books. Titles: Wild Things and ('neath the cat) Lizards for Lunch. Oops! Now that I look more carefully at the picture, I realize that I didn't peer closely to see just what book the critter is reading. Careless GrannyJ! My one complaint about the sculpt is its placement: you can't see the horny one's carapace very well.

Lemonade and cookies from Grama's Bakery followed the ceremony and were, in turn, followed by lizard makings for the many kids present. I'd never seen this pleasant grassy lawn to the east of the library; a very neat place.

A Further Note on Event Photography: Tony, of Observations, was also at the event taking pictures and one of my anon readers posted a photo that includes me; FYI, I'm not the tall photographer! Also: check out Karoliina; she's been posting individual pix of the iron zoo out Iron Springs way.

Swings

Today was a lazy, warm summer day. No rain. Sun shining bright. I recalled a handful of pictures of swings in the archives. And I recalled Robert Louis Stevenson:

How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside--

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown--
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

A Grab Bag of Links: You may recall that a few days ago, an oldtimer posted a query about the Cornet store closing. I've now heard from a former employee of Cornet who tells a bit of its history here (scroll down to the last couple of posts.) We have a big election coming up; Jib-Jab has its own take on the whole bloody affair. And a PhotoShop job on Iranian missiles was recently in the news; naturally, the Iranian picture is being further PhotoShopped all over the place. Finally, a huge, linkable list of nature blogs and bloggers.

Flowers: the business parts

Let's face it. The colorful petals that so attract us to beautiful flowers are just that: good looks. Window dressing. Spin. Marketing. All designed to draw the eye of the pollinator, be it bird or insect, to the heart of the blossom where the next generation is in the making. This week I got caught up photographing the central portions of flowers currently blooming in my garden pots. (Technical note: I used my older Sony for these pictures; macro shots with the Canon are neither as close nor as satisfactory.)

Many of our wild penstemons feature lines directing the eye into the business works, where pollen from the anthers is rubbed off and deposited on the stigma or female part leading to the ovary. In some blossoms, such lines are in the ultraviolet, visible to many critters other than humans.

Two more local penstemon. Above, Palmer's or wild pink snapdragon and, below, beardstongue. It's pretty hard to miss the beard on the latter. I had to upend the flower so that you can see inside it; normally, it hangs with the innards facing toward the ground. Beardstongue is a bright red; not surprisingly, it's a favorite with hummingbirds.


And here is the tame cousin of the wildpenstemon -- a garden snapdragon. BTW, I had to do that old kid's trick of pinching the sides of the flower so that it opened for the photograph.

In the real world, the intense purple of this petunia (above) hides the fact that it, too, features lines directing traffic toward the stamen and the stigma. Unfortunately, all I got for my efforts with the purple morning glory (below) was a wonderful central glow.

My mystery poppy which popped into existence this year from seedings past starts out with the anthers growing tightly around the center, but as they begin to release pollen (below), they spread out and their supporting filaments lengthen. That central arrangement where the seeds are made turns into a neat pod.

The California poppy doesn't produce such a tidy arrangement, though the central portion turns directly into a seed pod, just like its cousin above.

Speaking of cousins... our wild globe mallow is a hollyhock family member. There's a reason that the petals and the central works weren't both in focus above -- the stigma and anther stick out at right angles to the flower, as is evident from the view below.


The grains of pollen at the center of this portulaca show up quite nicely, but the stigma (the "star" to the upper left) sits above them in a different plane of focus. Below, the center of an ice plant flower.

Note that the anthers of this dianthus are attached ever so flexibly in order to scatter the pollen even in a slight breeze. The odds are that some of the pollen will land on the stigma in the center.

Right now, I don't have many composites in bloom, tho my very own from-seed sunflower has just opened; it's too tall for me to photograph its big center. So we'll make do with the gallardia (above) and a coreopsis (below). Both plants feature ray and disk flowers in the center; each "petal" is actually a separate ray flower.