This book by Frank S. Rose is more like a bible for naturalists walking and hiking in southern Arizona. The abundance of wildflowers varies from year to year, and this year is definitely one of the better years.
“I was lying on the ground in Molina Basin, camera at the ready, attempting to photograph a flower. I had no idea what it was, but I had a list of the plants in the Santa Catalina Mountains. How, I wondered, would I connect what I was seeing through my camera lens with a particular plant on the list? Then I heard a woman’s voice. ‘Ooh, another plant photography.” I looked up to see two women approaching. The person who spoke introduced herself as Joan Tedford, and, to my delight and amazement, she was the person who had made this list I was using . . . Joan invited us to join a group that takes a weekly nature walk in the Catalinas. Every week for the summer and into the fall I happily followed the leader, Bob Porter, as we explored many different trails, noting plants, birds, and anything else of interest along the way. So began a ten-year adventure, some of the happiest hours of my life, spent in the company of Joan Tedford, Bob Porter, and other Sabino Canyon Volunteer Naturalists who helped us explore the extensive trail system in this Sky Island range.” — Frank S. Rose
(Click On Any Of The Tiled Photos To See A Larger Image.)
“The Sonoran Desert is nature’s giant watercolor.”
Arizona wild cotton (Gossypium thurberi) is a deciduous shrub with a lovely fall color. Also called desert cotton and Mt. Lemmon cotton, this shrub can grow up to 10 feet tall by 4 feet wide. It has beautiful creamy white summer flowers, and its palate leaves turn yellow and red in the fall before they fall off, and the plant goes dormant.
Teaching Photography In Sabino Canyon (03/07/14) — Image by kenne
Remembering moments from the past —
“Photographs are a way of imprisoning reality… One can’t possess reality; one can possess images– one can’t possess the present, but one can possess the past.”
Poppies are Popping In The Santa Catalina Mountains — Image by kenne
I dream of a quiet man who explains nothing and defends nothing, but only knows where the rarest wildflowers are blooming, and who goes, and finds that he is smiling not by his own will.
This morning on the Plant and Bird Walk, we could see a small flock of Eastern Bluebirds, none close enough to get any good photos, but more will be coming to Sabino Canyon because of all the desert mistletoe berries in the canyon. Till then, the berries are attracting plenty of Phainopeplas. — kenne
“I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all. The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling.”
Bee On Fairy Duster Wildflower (July 16, 2021) — Image by kenne
The draft of this posting was done in late July before we went on our August road trip. However, many photos later, just today, I noticed this unpublished draft — Better late than never.
