Greetings!
… and welcome to another Baja Arizona Kossacks Open Thread. I am your internet-starved host today, providing mostly pictures this week (hot off the memory card!).
(I’m hoping this banner works out… Can’t tell until published [Thx, DK5!], so I may have to edit in a bonus banner again.)
Well, it’s hot, and the monsoon is sputtering a bit, and today I’m guessing that everybody’s at Victoria Steele’s event downtown, on an otherwise suspenseful midsummer afternoon when all eyes are on Philadelphia and the exciting times to be had there. I’m hoping everyone there stays safe.
Meanwhile, above the sound of the hot winds trying to blow in some clouds, I heard scritching and scratching coming from the area near the front door. I know that a bird is nesting on one of my porch lights, but this sounds more massive.
And so it was. So i grabbed my camera.
Next to the front door, there is a small planter sunk into the concrete. Last year, I planted six strawberries there. Only one survived, and I had carefully nurtured it through the heat of last summer, the chill of winter, and some more heat this spring. The dirt in the planter was generally kept damp, and I guess it was a bit cooler than the dirt out under the trees. And so it was attractive to one of the critters that pass through the yard on a semi-regular basis. This is what happened to my planter with the strawberry:
So the strawberry is no more. Looking behind me, I see the culprit, skulking off:
Well, the strawberry wasn’t looking like it would have fruit anytime soon anyway. Maybe I’ll try some nice flowers there again…
I may have mentioned that last year I had more than twice the average of precipitation here. Somehow, that did not turn into a flowerful spring, as one would expect. BUT, this year I am going to have a bumper crop of prickly pears, and they’re almost ready!
They come in two flavors, too:
The near ones are the ones I make jelly out of, they’re about the size of a small plum, and they’re very sweet. They’ll be ready in about two or three weeks. The ones in the back (upper right) are much larger—about twice the size—and edible, but not as sweet or strongly flavored. They won’t be ready for another month or so.
Here are some close-ups of each:
You couldn’t pack them on any closer than this.
There are loads of this kind too. I usually only eat a couple of these; I’m still trying to find the right time/color of ripeness for them. They never become really red like the others, just a bit pink at the edges (as you see here).
When I was in Chile, they sold canned tunas in the grocery stores. They were large and yellow, and tasted like canned pears do, but less gritty. These aren’t so yellow, and also not as sweet. The little red ones, though, taste a bit like cinnamon apple rings, and they’re an appetite enhancer, so you feel hungrier after you eat them.
There are bushels and bushels of them (both kinds), way more than I can use. So if you’d like some, let me know and you can come out & pick a bunch.
So what’s fruiting at your house ?