Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
A sleepy master blister beetle isn’t quite ready to shake off its slumber and rise to meet the world. From the heavily chewed flower petals you can see why the brittlebush is both bedroom and dining room for the lovely little ones, at least on the one and only time I saw them this spring.
I hope he impressed the other lizards as much as he impressed me. Always puts a spring in my step to see these little lizards doing pushups and displaying their blue bellies! From June on the Chuckwagon Trail.
To me it seems the banana yucca should have been named the green pepper yucca but perhaps I’m biased since green curry is my favorite meal (if we’re not counting doughnuts as a meal). I found this one in April, the fruit grows even bigger by summer.
On that April morning we were up before the sun, he and I, one to mend a broken heart, one to feed his hungry children. Ordinarily I would have loved to watch the comings and goings of this Gila woodpecker and his mate as morning broke but Ellie had died a week earlier and standing still meant being alone with my thoughts, a place I was not yet ready to be. I quickly moved on but with each passing week I was able to slow down more and more until I could happily stay in the moment for as long as my heart desired.
This male shows why all the Gila woodpeckers I see on my spring hikes have their faces painted in pollen …
You can tell by the way I use my walk …
Cathedral Rock is awash in beauty, with massive boulders and sweeping views of the Sonoran desert, but its greatest beauty sleeps in its shadows, hidden in crevices below the monoliths. Despite its size, the desert spiny lizard is rather shy and often scurries out of sight long before I approach. Thankfully I was not only able to spend some time with this one and watch as he grew sleepy, but ease away and leave him to his slumber.
It’s a shame I’m scared of heights to the point I don’t like being at the top of a ladder, as if I’m reading this sign correctly climbing the tower gives you the ability to fly and shoot lightning from your fingertips. Seems like those powers could come in handy.
A quiet place to lay my head,
a soft space to make my bed.
Soon the sun will rise, soon so will I.
Until then quiet, hush, be still.
Let me lie.
The lines in the rocks, the long flower stems, even the mourning dove, all leaning left as though I had planned the scene instead of just stumbling across it on the Rustler Trail back in May.
Boolie 