Archive for the ‘Sonoran Desert’ Tag

Nature Abstract   Leave a comment

Nature Abstract by kenne

Is it so small a thing

To have enjoyed the sun,

To have lived light in the spring,

To have loved, to have thought, to have done;

To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes?

— Matthew Arnold

Blooming Saguaro   Leave a comment

Blooming Saguaro — Image by kenne

Blooming saguaro

A clear shot with pristine light

I see these presences.

— kenne

It’s That Time Of Year In The Sonoran Desert   Leave a comment

Saguaros Are Blooming Everywhere — Image by kenne

Bee On Monument Plant Blossom   2 comments

Bee On Monument Plant Blossom — Image by kenne

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze
that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house
 
and unlatch the door to the canary’s cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb
 
— from Today by Billy Collins

Cactus Blossoms Are Everywhere This Spring   1 comment

Cactus Blossoms Are Everywhere This Spring — Images by kenne

Prickly pear cactus

Yellow, the color of spring

Lights up the desert.

— kenne

Saguaro National Park-East   Leave a comment

Saguaro National Park-East — Image by kenne

Many hiking trails

Through the saguaro forest

In this desert park.

— kenne

 

Spring Time In The Desert   2 comments

Ocotillos In Bloom — HDR Image by kenne

Red torches light up

The desert in the springtime

Many shades of red.

— kenne

House Finch On Ocotillo — Image by kenne

Puerto Peñasco Water Front   2 comments

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.

Taking A Breather   Leave a comment

Hiking the Italian Springs Trail (April, 2012) — Image by kenne

bushed

a trail cursed
and charmed
taking a breather
in solitude
and shade
alligator junipers
mountain pines
overlooking a
big sky pass
scrambling time
and seasons
whence we came
where we went
Redington road
to the plateau
beneath 
Mica
mountain summit
till you get there yourself
it remains our paradise
sharing our wanderlust
in this virtual world

— kenne

(This hike was one of many I did with my old hiking buddy, Tom Markey, who passed awayAugust 17, 2022.)

Tanque Verde Ranch   1 comment

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   Leave a comment

Purple Owl’s-Clover — Image by kenne

Great Year For Wildflowers In The Southwest   Leave a comment

Great Year for Wildflowers In the Desert Southwest — Image by kenne

The flowers stand among

the creosol and saguaros

as a hummingbird hovers

nearby, then gone.

The migrating birds 

have passed on

as April becomes

summer heat.

The flowers like

a nearby stream

gone in the dry air.

— kenne

Yucca Blossom Time Of The Year   Leave a comment

Yucca Blossom Time of the Year In the Sonoran Desert — Image by kenne

Did you know Yuccas are members of the lily family with blooms of similar form but much different foliage? 

Our First Spring Cactus Blossom   3 comments

Our First Spring Cactus Blossom (March 31, 2023) — Image by kenne

“I’m an observer of life. I like to watch people, and I like to watch cactus.
I like to talk to mountains and communicate with my friends in the other spheres and dimensions.”

— Frederick  Lenz 

Santa Catalina Mountains Panorama: Western View   Leave a comment

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.

 
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