About Me

United States
Belle is a mother of 2 beautiful teenagers aged 19 and 18 years old. She is originally from Bato, Catanduanes. She loves fiddling around with computer on her free time.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Sonoran Desert in Bloom

My husband and I went to Phoenix today to do some important errands and to return my daughter's prom dress to the mall. (See update on prom dress on the post below titled, "It is Prom Night." On the way over, I noticed that the desert was starting to show some colors. I came prepared for the photo shoot. I asked my husband to pull over on the side of the freeway so I could take pictures of the Sonoran desert. Sonoran desert, by the way, was barricaded with barbed wire to protect the cattle from reaching the highway. Soon, we saw ourselved crawling under the barbed wire. Here are some pictures that my husband and I took.

Note: All cacti have thorns, even the thornless prickly pear has invisible thorns, which are hard to see by the naked eye. Once it gets into your skin, it becomes painful and it is hard to remove. My husband went on a quail hunting one day and inadvertently got close to Cholla cactus. He couldn't remove the thorns and he was hurting so he ended up throwing away the good camouflage hunting pants. So, stay away from it as much as possible.


Buckhorn Cactus


Ocotillo cactus

Prickly Pear Cactus

Baby Barrel Cactus

Cholla Cactus

Dead Saguaro

Hedgehog Cactus

Barrel Cactus

Saguaro Cactus

16 comments:

U.T.O.Y said...

awesome outback hehehe

vernaloo said...

hehehe Belle the last picture looks like a cactus giving a dirty finger..crazy thought hehe :)

Anyway I never thought that they're dangerous but great shots :)

Wil said...

wow, had no idea you're quite the cactus expert. :-D

Forever59er said...

Great photos of cacti ... in their natural habitat.

Quail hunting. Interesting. So, did you have quails for dinner? Ang sarap ah. It's hard to find those here these days, though maraming quail eggs.

Reminds me of a long ago day my son wished aloud he'd have a while roast chicken for himself. I said ok, that can be arranged -- and I bought a kilo of quails the following week.

Anonymous said...

Hi Ate Belle,
I enjoyed your beautiful photos of cacti. Your landscape is so different from what I see here. It's amazing how these plants survive without much water.

Anonymous said...

Belle, I checked your site this morning and the photos didn't appear. What happened? I like your cacti posts. When i was a child, my mom had a collection of those small cacti. They all died. Because I watered them everyday. Hahaha. From then on till now, I can't really grow plants. Parang isinumpa when it comes to gardening. But I like plants and flowers so much. :D

Heart of Rachel said...

Thanks for sharing these lovely cacti photos. I appreciate the nice information about them too and learned something new today. :) Take care!

Anonymous said...

Belle, those are great pics! The ones that can be seen on movies and TV. Would love to see those cacti..maybe someday we will be able to visit Arizona.

Anonymous said...

Hi belle :-)
I love the one with the pink bloom... lovely!
lolz at verns...

Belle TH said...

@UTOY, thanks for visiting my site.

@Verns, hahahahaha! i told my husband about what you said, he thought it was funny. it does look like giving a finger. now, question for you, what does the barrel cactus remind you of? nakatirik na....kandila??

@wil, i have been living in AZ for the last 10 years and have been all over the desert. i have been poked by its thorns several times and it hurt!

@anna, sometimes we had quails for dinner but most of the time, he came home emptyhanded. quails moved away fast before he could shoot.

@KK, thanks. cacti store water in their tissues so they can live for years without water.

@julie, when my checked my blog last night, morning, your time, 80% of my photos disappeared and reappeared the following the day. i didn't have a slightest idea. it could be that i was being prompted to upgrade my site to paid blog or i could be wrong. julie, cacti don't like a lot of water and they like to be in the desert. i love gardening and have a thumb for it.

hi rach, thanks and you are welcome. just so you know that you can make salsa out of the pods of the prickly pear and you can make wine and jelly out of the fruits of a prickly pear and saguaro. i have never tried it though but hispanic people do.

@mominmiami, thanks. there are a lot of things to see in AZ. we have the beautiful deep grand canyon, the picturesque rocks in Sedona, and the sonoran desert.

@pining, that is my favorite, too. i spotted it when we were about to head back to our car. hehehe...that is what i like about Verns...so funny!

vernaloo said...

bwahahahaha yeah nakatirik na...kandila!! lol

Belle TH said...

hahahha...we are in the same vein verns.

Anonymous said...

Hi, Belle!

I also love cacti! I'm planning to actually make a cacti collection in my mini garden.

Isn't it nice to commune with nature once in a while!

Belle TH said...

hi rhodes, good luck on your plan to make a cacti collection. it sounds like a fun hobby.

Anonymous said...

and you had to crawl through barbed wires just to get those wonderful pictures and share them with us. thanks, Belle!

Anonymous said...

So the desert blooms din pala. I didn't know that cacti also come in different colours. They look dangerous, alright, but there's also a certain beauty in them, no?