I have to say that I really like Arizona, but not in the heat of summer!  I don’t live here year round so it’s easy to say you like a place when you are only visiting. You don’t have to put up with scorpions in the house and 115F heat for months on end. We have friends who live near Phoenix and I think Becky has been stung by a scorpion at least 3 times if not more. No fun!

Because it doesn’t freeze though you can grow a really interesting amount of flowers, here it is winter (December) and stuff is still blooming.

Here’s some of the flowers I found as I was walking around:

Bird of Paradise

Trumpet Vine

I think this is a Bottle Brush

Find the Timmy (he’s poking his head around the center tree!)

This was pretty cool, I thought it was a microscope but it gave a kaleidoscope view of the flowers, magic.  I managed to take some pictures looking down the lens.  It was really neat because as you moved each flower the pattern changed.

kaleidoscope view of the flowers 1

kaleidoscope view of the flowers2

kaleidoscope view of the flowers 3

kaleidoscope view of the flowers 4

For me growing plants is like quilting or painting, it’s all about creating an interesting canvas and I am sure there are those of you out there rolling your eyes right now (you think I can’t see you don’t you Vanessa!) but we all have our obsessions and I just love to grow stuff!  My kids are the same, well the girls anyway, they are constantly creating new beds so that they can put in more plants, much to the chagrin of their husbands.

And here’s something I am really pleased to have captured on camera, a Roadrunner, beep beep!

Roadrunner

THAT’S ALL FFFFFFOLKS!!!