I know that being in the moment or being here now is important, but I confess to spending a lot of time wanting to be there now and I’ll be happy to be here now once I get there now or very soon.
Penstemon dasyphyllus is an April, May bloomer and the splash of the blue flowers in the grassland is a wonderful surprise. “Whoa, what is that blue?”, you may shout as you stand in a zany mix of grasses and Chihuahuan desert scrub. “I am so here now!”
The photos are mine and of Penstemon dasyphyllus and also of Houstonia rubra. They were taken on a gravelly slope of the Dragoon Mountains not too far from where I work…well, not that day.
Petey clambers over barbed wire fences in botanical pursuit. Please be careful Petey!
In birder lingo loggerhead shrikes are uncommon in southeastern Arizona. Some winters and springs it seems there is a shrike on every other fence...
The common name of cacomistle (cacomixtle) for the ringtail is from the Nahuatl language. It translates to “half cat.” I can see that, especially...
