
Nature Abstract by kenne
Nature Abstract by kenne
Blooming Saguaro — Image by kenne
— kenne
Saguaros Are Blooming Everywhere — Image by kenne
Bee On Monument Plant Blossom — Image by kenne
Cactus Blossoms Are Everywhere This Spring — Images by kenne
— kenne
Saguaro National Park-East — Image by kenne
— kenne
Ocotillos In Bloom — HDR Image by kenne
— kenne
House Finch On Ocotillo — Image by kenne
Puerto Peñasco, Sonora Water Front — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Puerto Peñasco, Rocky Point, is a Mexican fishing and resort city on the Sea of Cortes. It’s known for dune-backed Sandy Beach
and Bahía la Choya’s tidal pools. The Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans has gardens and a fin-whale skeleton.
Rocky Point is often called “Arizona’s beach” because it is close in proximity to Arizona and easy to get to rather quickly.
Hiking the Italian Springs Trail (April, 2012) — Image by kenne
bushed
— kenne
(This hike was one of many I did with my old hiking buddy, Tom Markey, who passed awayAugust 17, 2022.)
Considered one of the top cattle and guest ranches in the southwest, Tanque Verde Ranch is located on 60,000 acres of
Tucson’s most breathtaking desert landscapes in the Rincon Mountains foothills adjacent to Saguaro National Park and
Coronado National Forest.
Established in 1868, Tanque Verde Ranch is recognized as the last luxurious outpost of the old west providing guests with comfortable
accommodations, unparalleled amenities, and a vast array of exciting activities, including horseback riding, mountain biking,
fishing, hiking, and more!
Originally purchased and settled as a cattle ranch by Rafael and Emilio Carillo, the land was sold to Jim Converse
in the early 1900s. It was sold in 1957 to the Bob Cote family, which has owned it ever since.
Tanque Verde became a guest ranch under Converse, who saw the move as an opportunity to attract those
interested in cowboy life. The number of guest ranches in southern Arizona has dropped
since the 1950s from around 55 to seven or eight today,
A wall in the Tanque Verde Ranch sales office.
Kiva Dinning Room
A statue near the original ranch house.
Mesquite trees shadow the path to some of the cottages.
The Desert Garden cottage area.
These days, the ranch has added hiking, tennis, mountain biking and nature programs, as well as a health spa, for its guests.
It has also brought in televisions and wireless Internet.
Photo Essay by kenne
Purple Owl’s-Clover — Image by kenne
Great Year for Wildflowers In the Desert Southwest — Image by kenne
— kenne
Yucca Blossom Time of the Year In the Sonoran Desert — Image by kenne
Our First Spring Cactus Blossom (March 31, 2023) — Image by kenne
— Frederick Lenz
Santa Catalina Mountains Panorama: Western View from Wasson Peak– Image by kenne
“The day warmed and on the margins of a steep ravine splitting the side of the mesa I found dry rocks to scramble up. I liked that about the desert.
Morning snow and afternoon warmth, the winter equivalent of a spring freshet, but for which I had no word. In some ways, words were superfluous.
They didn’t help—no words came to mind—as I pulled on a loose boulder and leaped awkwardly out of the way of its crashing descent,
its delicate angle of repose inadvertently re-reposed. All the rocks in this ravine were similarly precarious, and I continued with greater care
as the ravine steepened near the top of the mesa. I had lost sight of the ravens, and they of me. I had not spotted a
bighorn sheep the entire day. I was pleased the boulder did not take me with it.”
— from 1/21/21 by David Jenkins
(Anthropologist David Jenkins is the author of Nature and Bureaucracy: The Wildness of Managed Landscapes (Routledge 2022). He has taught at MIT and Bates College and worked in the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology at the University of Arizona. For the last dozen years, he has worked in public lands management, where he tries to do some good for the planet.