Evidence Of A Heat Island

The good news is that we've had a half inch of rain between two days this week. The bad news is that thanks to the heat island we live in, we've missed out on a LOT more.

If you don't believe in it, check out these five images of a HUGE storm that dropped south out of Payson yesterday and proceed so split into two, around us and the rest of the metro area.

Yard Update!

It's been about a month since I've bothered posting anything here, and in that time I've amassed enough new photo's to make the effort to upload them for your viewing.

I've been watering every other day in this heat, although with the increased humidity, a lot of my plants are not only greening up, but are also putting out new growth, replacing the crusty leaves from June heat. Ah, the circle of life.

This first picture is of some spiny plant that came up in one of my pomegranate wells. The first time I saw it bloom, I thought maybe I had a volunteer vegetable of some sort, but you'll see in the picture below that the blooms apparently are replaced by yet more spines, in the shapes of balls. Even the leaves have spikes, ON BOTH SIDES.




Next picture is of one of my favorites, the Indian Mallow bush. This plant was killed to the ground due to our freeze in January, but it's recovered and is about to bloom (apricot colored cup-shaped flowers). The leaves are velvety soft, hmmm.

This is my pink morning glory bush. This one has resided in a pot on the back porch for about three years now, and this year I decided to try it in the ground under my mesquite, and although it was a slow starter this spring, it's doing well even in this heat. Pretty impressive considering how leafy it is. It hasn't bloomed yet, but I'm hoping before it goes dormant in November that it will put out a few, the blooms are about the size of your hand, very pretty.

This is my latest project, now completed, repainting the deck with some left over paint I had in the garage. The wood is starting to split from the heat, so I thought I'd spiffy it up with a layer of paint. I'm toying with the idea of painting the arbor itself, tearing down the cat's claw vines (or move them) and starting over.

Here is a shot of my acacia tree on the north side of the yard, again, doing very well considering the heat. This tree is shooting up with minimal water or attention. My only complaint about this tree is that it doesn't do anything, doesn't drop it's leaves, doesn't bloom, etc, it's just kind of there. The bark on the trunk is interesting though, I'll give it that.

Our city tree pruners did a doozy of a number on this acacia on the other side of our wall. I cringe every time I go outside and look at this poor tree. It always recovers, but it looks ugly at first, and we lose a LOT of shade from the setting sun when they "trim" it. I can't say much, I just trimmed our mesquite tree and it looks pretty similar... it was blown around so much by the storm last night that it part of it was leaning on the house, so I hacked the top out of it to lighten it's load.

I like the clouds in the background of this picture of our Koolibah tree. This thing will one day dwarf our house, and hopefully we won't be here when it gets so tall that it's endangers the roof.

Next shot is of my lone remaining gourd vine, on the north side of the house. Looking good, although it's yet to bloom.

And finally, despite the heat, my roses are still managing to surprise me with a bloom here or there, including this one.