I took a walk at the Desert Botanical Garden Sunday morning to see what was blooming there. There are an abundance of both palo verde and mesquite trees in the garden so it was ablaze in yellow. The yellow and green part of this Chihuly sculpture almost disappears into the yellow background.
It appears that I am in a flowery mood these days. I've posted flowers three days in a row. This is the time of year when the desert is in full bloom. When I was out photographing palo verde trees, I also came across a few blooming cactus with some pretty spectacular flowers. I love these giant pink ones.
Here is another pink one with a bee about to check things out.
A little further down the street, I found one with giant white blooms. It looks like the cactus have sprung to life. I need to have my eyes wide open these days.
I have a new post on Sharon's Sojourns today. Keeping with my "flowery" mood, I have photos of gorgeous California blooms.
Palo verde trees along with mesquite and acacia, all bloom at this time of year and they all have yellow blooms. It makes everything look so bright and fresh.
Yesterday's sculpture resides on the grounds of the Scottsdale Artists' School in a historic building that was once the Loloma Elementary School. The elementary school closed after the 1980-81 school year.
The art school has programs and events for artists of all ages and all artistic disciplines.
I found this sculpture in Scottsdale on the grounds of the Scottsdale Artists School. It is called "Ziggy's Sister" and was created by Al Beadle (Alfred Newman Beadle, 1927-1998), a well known modernist architect from the post WWII generation.
There are many Beadle designed homes and buildings in the Phoenix area.
Beadle would always include a sculpture on the property of all his projects. Most of them were painted red or yellow or some were just rusting steel. This is one of two that was painted blue.
There is no explanation as to how this sculpture got its name.
Tomorrow I'll show you the school where this sculpture resides.
Last Saturday, my friend Julie treated a group of us to a cooking class with a chef that Julie knows. The chef's name is Maggie Norris and she owns the business called Whisked Away Cooking School. She teaches in her own home where she has a kitchen large enough to host about 8 people at a time. She spent the first 30 minutes of the class showing us techniques we would be using and then working in pairs, we were assigned specific parts of the meal. My friend Glenda and I worked on the Caesar salad. I had never made a Caesar dressing from scratch before and wow, what a difference that made.
Julie and another friend, Danny worked on the Three Cheese Mac and Cheese. It was so delicious with cheddar, parmesan and fontina cheese in it.
My friends David and Riley were seriously concentrating on the Bernaise sauce for the grilled steaks. I don't think I'd ever had a bernaise sauce with steak before and that was another delicious revelation.
Julie's husband Dave and another friend made the chocolate mousse for dessert.
After preparations were done, we all sat down at the table in the top photo and ate our creations. Apparently I was so involved in eating, I didn't take any photos of the finished food.
It was great fun. I'll never make a Caesar salad with bottled dressing ever again.
Those are some scary looking bike riders! I found this mural behind the Landis Cyclery bicycle shop. It's hidden from the street. I only saw it because I parked back there to go to a different business nearby. I'm not sure it would entice me to buy a bicycle. Perhaps it's aimed at a younger crowd.
Taking part in Monday Murals.
Driving around the hilly roads in Paradise Valley, I spotted this round room jutting up from the hillside. I wondered what it was attached to.
When I rounded the curve in the road, I was looking up at the structure but still couldn't make it out. I had to drive on and get a little further away to get a good view of the house with that round room at one end.
So, I zoomed in to get a better view. It looks like a very nice house and since that round room faces south toward the city, I'm guessing the views are pretty spectacular.
I have a new post on Sharon's Sojourns today. I'm featuring some favorite photos from Europe.
The arrival of April always makes me think of spring and of course, spring always makes me think of blooms. So, here are a few blooms I've been enjoying lately. Above is the bloom on the Texas Mountain Laurel shrub.
The City Daily Photo Bloggers theme for April 1st is "Symmetry" a subject that was very easy for me to depict. I see symmetry displayed in all our desert plants. The above plant is a perfect example. It's a Lion's Tail Agave and I'm sure it got its name from the tall, bushy blooms it produces.
The Queen Victoria Agave is another great example.
The Blue Glow Agave also grows in a symmetrical pattern. This is one of my favorites. I love the way its 'leaves' look like they are painted with watercolor paints.
This last one is a variegated agave and it also grows out in a symmetrical pattern. I guess if you think about it, nature is full of symmetry everywhere you look.
If you want to see how other bloggers depict Symmetry, click here.
Here are three more photos from the garden tour a few weeks ago. I mentioned that the house with all the land had a small orchard. The apple trees were blooming at that time.
At that same house, the herb garden had quite a lot of lavender blooming. In fact, they seemed to use lavender to frame the four corners of the herb bed.
This was the place that had the very nice potting shed and this little wheel barrel was sitting as a centerpiece on the work table. It makes a very appealing display.
I took these photos three weeks ago when I went on those private garden tours. The above photo is of a couple of houses for garden insects.
These two photos show birdhouses that are very unique. I'd put them in the 'luxury' category.
Pretty fancy accommodations for both the birds and the bees.
The last time I was at the Desert Botanical Garden, I took a photo of this small, semi-circle bench that is found on the Center for Desert Living trail where the herbs and vegetables grow. I wanted to see if the wide angle lens on my iPhone would capture the whole thing.
When I got home and sorted out the photos, I realized that I had taken other photos of this spot before so I started looking for the older photos. I took this one in 2017. All that growth around the entrance to bench kept it pretty well hidden to the point where I'm guessing many visitors never noticed that it was there.
Two years ago, they cleared out some of that growth so the entrance was a little more obvious. However, as long as I've been going to the garden, I've never seen anyone taking advantage of this little resting spot.
These last two photos were taken in 2012 when this bench area was created. As you can see it was long before they had even planted anything in the center pot. I do recall that shortly after this they planted a skyflower bush in the center. I remember taking photos of the blooms. However, that bush got so large that it sort of took over the space. I think that's why they replaced it with the cactus garden we see today.
I found this old photo in my files and thought I had already posted this photo years ago but upon investigation I found that I posted a photo of the other side back in 2012.
This two-sided sign/mural used to stand in front of an old 1940's or 50's era motel. At the time I posted the first photo, the place had been turned into apartments. Now, sadly this sign in gone. Well the large brick frame is still there but the mural has been painted over all one rather sad-looking color. What a shame. The murals have a lot of character and certainly added a lot to the aesthetics of the place.
Taking part in Monday Murals.
Just like a hummingbird or a bee, I'm drawn to the bright red of a flower in full bloom. It's been about three months since I've seen the hibiscus plants around my place blooming. I was happy to see this one.
I even went in for a close-up!
I have a new post on Sharon's Sojourns today. I have some of my favorite photos from trips around the U.S.
Today I have another series of random and unrelated sightings from the last two weeks. First up is a pizza place in north Phoenix. This place used to have all yellow umbrellas on their patio but now they have the colors of the Ukrainian flag. Good for them!
Here is another moonrise shot that I took last Saturday on the night of that party with all the dogs that I wrote about earlier this week. The house I was at had a lovely view of the mountains and one of the guests spotted the full moon making an appearance over the top. We all went out on the patio to watch it and a few of us got our phones out for a photo.
I stopped at the shopping center last week to pick something up and on my way back to my car I saw this grackle steal a dog biscuit from a bowl in front of one of the shops and fly it over the the fountain. I grabbed my iPhone and started taking photos.
He kept turning it over in the water as though he was trying to soften it up a bit. Besides being scavengers, grackles appear to be pretty smart too.
