May Flowers

There's an old saying: 
April showers bring May flowers. 

We seldom get ANY rain in Yuma, Arizona, and this year we got none in April but we still have the May flowers.

I, however, grew none of them. While my Mom had a green thumb, mine is brown. I can even kill fake plants. Many of my neighbors do have green thumbs and since most of them have already left to go back North for the summer, I get to enjoy the fruit of their labor on my morning walks. It's a shame they do all the work and never get to see the blossoms.

All of these beautiful cacti have bloomed in the last few days. The flowers open very early in the morning and by mid-afternoon, they are already dying. The flowers are huge, but only last one day. Some will bloom again in the next month or so, others won't bloom again until next year. If I didn't walk every morning, I would miss seeing them. 

This is the Sleeping Cactus from a couple years back. It sure has grown and to think the nursery was going to throw it in the trash.

This is the cactus that my photo won a Facebook Contest and was featured in the University of Arizona's Co-op Extension brochure a few years ago.

I have to be very careful when I take these photos, because one false step and I'd end up with prickly needles stuck in me. OUCH!

Today, on my walk, I noticed a different kind of tree, one that perhaps, even I could grow myself. It's a bottle tree...

Have a Happy Parkie Day!  

PS:
As luck would have it, the neighbor with the bottle tree left a few days ago. As he was leaving, I jokingly said, "I'll keep an eye on your bottle tree while you are gone." We both laughed and he headed north for the summer.

Well, guess what? I walked past his place today on my morning walk and this is what I saw:

Yup, all the bottles were gone off his tree! 

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