Wild Horses one last time

 I have been out to see the wild horses too many times to count this year and have taken over 1000 photos.  I have yet to even look at many of these so guess what I will be doing this summer.  

Lori and I headed out to Coon Bluff Recreation area late Tuesday afternoon.  We walked about a mile down the trail that runs parallel to the river and came upon about 40 horses in the water with another 30 or so on the far river bank.  

In previous visits you could almost walk to the other side but the people managing the water flow have released more water so the river is much deeper and flowing quite fast.  The horses were loving cooling off in the river. 

The late afternoon sun made for a great silhouette.

Yep its spring with lots of bumping and grinding, nuzzling plus some out and out....  Well you get the picture.  

We were there for a couple of hours along with plenty of other 2 leggeds.  At one point there were 4 of us with the same 200-600mm lens.  Looked like a Sony convention.  There were long periods of standing and watching the horses who were standing and watching each other.  Then they start milling about, nipping at each other and then the action starts.  

It was a great day but tomorrow its time to start packing up.  Sunday we are off to Las Vegas where I want to visit, no not the strip, but rather the Valley of Fire State park plus maybe get out to Lake Mead.  We will then make our way north west and really looking forward to a couple of weeks on Vancouver Island before heading home.  

Last BTA visit

 We took our last trip to Boyce Thompson Arboretum on Tuesday morning and followed that up with our last trip to the Salt River to see the horses.  I have a ton of pictures of both so this post will be about BTA.

Many of the plants are now past their peak blooms but the cactus are still putting out more blooms each day.  Also got a few good pics of hummingbirds.

These guys are hard to get.  They move fast and usually seem to be in heavily shaded areas.

Dried out husk of a pomegranate. 

Roses are starting to come out and BTA has a very nice rose garden.  

A bud on the pomegranate shrubs.  New fruit should be out in a month or so.  

No flowers on this little shrub.  It was in a well shaded area under the palm trees with one stream of sunlight landing on its leaves.  

Barb and Lori standing against the trunk of one of the massive Eucalyptus trees.

Even the succulents have lots of colour.  You just have to get close enough.  

This is the view when you walk in the entrance of BTA.  That's Picket Post mountain and the light was hitting it just right.  

We ended up walking around for a couple of hours.  Will definitely be back next year.  

Puya in Bloom

 We went to Boyce Thompson Arboretum on Monday to check out the blooms and found as many feathered friends posing for pictures as we did flowers.  We specifically wanted to see if the Puya was in bloom.  It typically blooms every 10 years and apparently the last time it bloomed at BTA was in 2008.  

The bud is about 18-24" long and about 10-12" wide and grows on a stem that is about 7' high.  Its a big sucker.  While it had unfurled a bit on Monday the blossoms were not quite out yet.  Yesterday we heard that it had started to bloom so back we went this morning and sure enough the turquoise flowers were showing their stuff. 

My favourite flower.  Isn't she just so cute in her new hat.  

Yucca in bloom

The Puya in all its splendour.  Looks a bit like a Christmas tree. 

Puya up close. 

This and many other cactus should be in full bloom next week. 

Pollen sacks appear to be full but going in for one more landing before heading home to the hive and see the queen. 

We will go back again next week before we leave as week by week different plants are in bloom.   While many of the flowering plants are now past their peak the cactus seem to be just starting to get showy.