Offrendas

I always look forward to the annual display of "offrendas" at the Desert Botanical Garden's Day of the Dead Celebration.  (An offrenda is a collection of objects placed on a ritual display during the Dia de Muertos celebrations.)  The one above is paying homage to the loss caused by fires in the Amazon as well as other fires around the world.

This one was paying tribute to the artist's rich cultural heritage and honoring her family for keeping old traditions alive.

I always enjoy seeing Zarco Guerreo's offering for this event.  Zarco is a master mask maker and he has certainly created an outstanding mask for this display.

The garden always has an offrenda that is called "the community offrenda".  It's always surrounded by lots of pretty marigolds, the traditional "flower of the dead".  It is said that these flowers use their color and scent to guide the spirits to their respective offrendas during the annual celebrations.

Day of the Dead

Yesterday I went to the Desert Botanical Garden to see what was happening at the Day of the Dead celebration there.  I think my favorite thing was this guy who was dancing along with his two "friends" to the music that was being played.  I thought the walking and dancing skeletons were pretty original.

That trio above was dancing to the music of this lively group.  I sat and listed for a while and enjoyed their music very much.  I particularly enjoyed their version of El Condor Pasa.

This young girl was also enjoying the music.  She must have visited the face painting booth and got a traditional Day of the Dead mask painted on her face before she sat down to listen to the music.

This group was performing traditional Aztec dances.  I've seen them at the garden at past Day of the Dead celebrations.  I love their colorful costumes, especially the beautiful, feathered head pieces.  Tomorrow I'll show you some of the traditional offrenda tables that various artists created for the day.

I have a new post on Sharon's Sojourns today.  I'm looking at some of the historic buildings in Globe Arizona.

Unicorns Do Exist

When I was at the Desert Botanical Garden last week to see the crazy pumpkins, I discovered real-live unicorns and fairies.  There were  lots of actives for the younger crowd at the garden that night and those activities included the chance to pet or pose with a unicorn and a fairy.

I snapped a couple of photos between the posing and petting.

Theme Day: Brown

Here it is, November 1st and we are nearing the end of 2019.  The City Daily Photo Bloggers have come up with colorful themes all this year and for November the chosen color is brown.  While I was out driving around and looking for Halloween decorations, I found this wonderful old fence around a home in one of our historic neighborhoods.  It is painted dark brown and it goes nicely with the brown trim on the house.  The little fall scarecrow is just an added bonus.

Happy Halloween!

Once again, I drove over to my old neighborhood to see if my former neighbor had rounded up his pals for another Halloween reunion.  And sure enough, the whole family was there once again.

Even the family pets have joined the celebration.  That one fellow on the right has developed a sort of big head!

It was good to see that they still have the energy to come out every year for this ghoulish family reunion.

Happy Halloween!  Enjoy some treats!

Silly Pumpkins

Those silly pumpkins at the Desert Botanical Garden were up to all kinds of hijinks.  Here's a couple with fairy wings flying among the tree branches.

There was a chase going on here and this one poor fellow has tangled with a thorny cactus.

These two were doing some tree climbing.

And, this sweet lass has stopped to smell the roses!

It was just another fun garden experience.

Pumpkin Mayhem

I went to the Desert Botanical Garden over the weekend to see this year's "Strange Garden" exhibition.  That's the one where the pumpkins get to play instead of being carved up.

On top we have one pumpkin painting a 'day-of-the-dead' face on another pumpkin.  To the left is the host for this strange garden adventure.

I'll show you a couple more of the creative pumpkins tomorrow.

Whooping Witches

These two colorful witches appear to be having a very hardy laugh at their directionally-challenged friend who hit the tree in yesterday's photo.

The fellow to the left looks as though he's been waiting for the oranges to ripen for a very, very long time.

More Seasonal Sightings

Jack-o-lanterns are making an appearance at this time of year.  Many of them are made of ceramics so the owners don't have to do any of that messy carving.

However occasionally I'll see one of the real kind.  This one was lovingly carved to give it a huge Halloween grin.

I also spotted this rather unfortunate witch who appears to have misjudged her landing abilities.


I have a new post on Sharon's Sojourns today.  I have photos from my recent visit to the Very Large Array.

Seasonal Sightings

I've been noticing some rather scary things showing up around town.  This house has gone all out on the decorations for Halloween.  The whole front of the house was covered with tombstones, skeletons and various ghouls.  It's getting a bit creepy out there in the city.

I'll do some more exploring this weekend and see what else I can find.

Purple Prickly Pear

I was keeping my friend Julie company one evening when she was watering her neighbor's plants when I noticed this gorgeous purple prickly pear cactus in the yard.  It looked so pretty framed by the rocks and the tree that I couldn't resist snapping a photo of it.

I featured a purple prickly pear once before back in May when our theme was Purple.  Of all the different prickly pear varieties, the purple ones are my favorite.

I'm Seeing Purple

Violet silverleaf is a shrub that is perfect for this desert environment because it needs very little water and loves to grow right in the bright Arizona sun.  For that reason, it is used in landscaping pretty much everywhere in this valley.  They bloom in the fall with these great purple flowers.

Since fall has arrived, they are blooming like crazy everywhere I look.

Some people let them grow naturally like the photo above and some trim them into hedges or shape them to form a more rounded look.  I like them with the natural look.

I'm enjoying seeing these purple flowers everywhere in our city.

Waiting to be Planted

On the same day I saw those green oranges in yesterday's post, I saw these palm trees sitting on the side of a newly remodeled home.  It looks like in addition to a remodel, the home will also get some new landscaping.

I'll have to make a trip back to see how it all turned out.

Not Quite Ready Yet

It's not quite picking time yet.  I saw these big fat oranges on a tree near me just two weeks ago but as you can see, they have a little more time in the sun before they they turn a delicious shade of orange.  In a few more weeks it will be time to start picking the oranges.  There are still a few orange groves around the outskirts of the city.  When I first moved to Arizona, back when the "outskirts" were a lot closer in, there were a lot more.  In fact, I remember my parents sending boxes of citrus back to Illinois for friends and family as a holiday present.  I wonder if there is anywhere around here that still does that.

Weekend in the Mountains

I was away again this last weekend, this time up in Flagstaff Arizona among the tall pines and the fall colors on the aspens.

We weren't the only ones interested in these colorful trees, there were huge crowds up there.  The parking area for this aspen grove was completely full.  You are only seeing about a tenth of the cars.
We packed a lot of things into this weekend, we toured a historic home in Flagstaff and spent almost an entire day at Lowell Observatory seeing the telescope that discovered the planet Pluto.  And, then on the drive home we made two more stops to see Montezuma's Castle once again and to see what was happening at Arcosanti.  It was fun!

Flying Fish

The exhibit called Wild Rising at the Desert Botanical Garden brought some very unusual scenes with it as evidenced by the posts I've had this last week.  Seeing these bright fish floating in the air was just another unique experience.

The message we are supposed to take from these fish floating high above the desert floor, is that there will soon be more plastic in the ocean than fish if we don't do something about all the plastics we are tossing out.  That's a very frightening thought.

I have a new post on Sharon's Sojourns today.  I'm visiting Bellagio, the city not the Las Vegas hotel.

Escargatoire

What is this I see as I head down the main path at the Desert Botanical Garden.

It appears to be some giant snails!

Did you know that a group of snails is called an escargatoire?  I didn't.  

The snails were present at this exhibit to share a message of regeneration.  

Mexican Grey Wolves & Friends

A Few Mexican grey wolves were lurking in another section of the Desert Botanical Garden.  Their future is looking much better since they rebounded from the very brink of extinction.

When the Mexican grey wolf was placed on the endangered species list in 1976, there were only five wolves left.  Today there are more than 144.  They were looking very proud of their accomplishment while hanging out in this section of the garden.

A few of their more colorful relatives were also very happy to see them making a rebound.

Prickly Penguins

The next group of colorful plastic animals visitors at the Desert Botanical Garden see are a group of penguins.  What a totally foreign animal to see in the desert.  The artists have given these creatures thorns so they mimic the plants of the desert.

The statement about this group says that the penguins have grown thorns in response to the prickly situation they find themselves in with the melting ice and rising temperatures affecting their arctic home.

As you can see from the top photo, some of the animals light up so they glow at night.

Colorful Meerkats

Yesterday I introduced the new exhibit at the Desert Botanical Garden, Wild Rising.  Today I'm featuring one of the first animals visitors see when they enter the garden.  Meerkats!

Meerkats are a close-knit group of animals who always work together for the good of the community.  Their collaborative nature helps them survive in the most hostile conditions.  We humans could learn a lot from these creatures.

The Elephant in the Room

There is a new art installation at the Desert Botanical Garden.  It's called "Wild Rising" by a Milan based collective of artists called Cracking Art.  The theme is centered on the so called elephant in the room, global warming and climate change.

The exhibit consists of brightly colored animals scattered around the garden and all are made of recyclable and recycled plastic.  Each grouping of animals has a story to tell about survival and adaption.

I thought it would be appropriate to start my photos from this exhibit with the "elephant in the room".  This is the only one of the animal sculptures that is located inside a building.  The sign on the wall reads "The elephant in the room is the powerful, intimidating and unavoidable challenge that faces our environment.  Let's dive in together."

Just what we need, a little team work!  I'll have more photos of the animals in this exhibit in the days to come.