In this second installment of my “What’s Blooming Now” series, I begin exploring the many bright colors of cactus flowers, starting with the hedgehog cactus.

Strawberry Hedgehog Cactus

Strawberry hedgehog cactus in bloom in the desert southeast of Wickenburg. Photographed on April 7, 2010. (Click for a larger image.)

Among the first cactus to bloom in the Sonoran desert each spring is the strawberry hedgehog cactus. This small, low-growing cactus features clusters of green cylindrical stems covered with long spines ranging in color from cream to reddish to black.

The flowers grow from the top of the cactus and appear in vivid shades of magenta. Three inches wide, they’re impossible to miss among the desert vegetation. They bloom for several days and then produce a small, red, edible fruit.

The claret cup cactus is similar in appearance but produces a smaller, red-orange flower. Although it does not normally grow at Wickenburg’s elevation, I’ve seen several specimens in landscaped gardens around town.

Poppies

A closeup shot of Mexican Gold Poppies, photographed near Aguila, AZ on March 21, 2010. (Ciick for a larger view.)

Poppies are among the first flowers to appear in the desert in the springtime. I’ve had poppies appear in my yard as early as January! This year, however, they began blooming in March and, as I write this, are still blanketing hillsides with their bright yellow flowers.

The most common type of poppy in Arizona is the Mexican Gold Poppy. It grows at elevations below 4,500 feet on slops, plains, foothills, and mesas. The plants grow from seeds each year and bloom in full sunlight only, closing each night. After pollination, the plants produce long seed pods with many tiny dark seeds. When the pods dry, they “pop” to spread the seeds.

Poppies blanket a hillside on the east side of Vulture Peak on March 28, 2010. (Ciick for a larger view.)

You can see poppies just about anywhere around Wickenburg. Some landscape companies consider them weeds and will remove them when performing landscape maintenance. But you have to admit that they’re a beautiful addition to our natural landscape for the few weeks we get to enjoy them each year.

It was 3:40 PM on Sunday, April 4, 2010.

At first, I didn’t feel a thing. But then it seemed as if my chair were moving ever so slightly. The hanging light fixture over the table was swaying.

Janet, who spent many years in earthquake-prone California, said, “It’s just the wind.”

The windows were open, but it wasn’t that windy. When Janet’s eyes remained fixed on the swaying light fixture, I knew that even she didn’t believe her own words.

And then it was over. We talked for a few minutes about the unlikelihood of it being an earthquake in Arizona. We thought it might be a large truck driving down the road or perhaps a passing train. Someone joked about “the big one” in California giving all of us in Arizona waterfront property. Conversation turned to other things, including the nasty habit of some train engineers who liked to blast the horn as they drove through town.

The area earthquake map at 8:22 PM Sunday night. The blue and red squares are earthquakes within the past day and hour; the big blue one is the 3:40 PM event.

Three hours later, when I returned home, I fired up my computer and pointed the Web browser to the USGS Latest Earthquakes in the World page. There had been a lot of small earthquakes in Southern California and Baja California in Mexico over the past hour. I scrolled down and hit paydirt: a 7.2 magnitude earthquake in Baja California, Mexico, 38 miles south of Mexicali.

Could this be what we’d felt? A trip to the home page for AZCentral.com confirmed that the quake had been felt in Phoenix.

We did some more research and even made a report to the USGS using the Did You Feel It? page for the event. By this time, hours after the event, more than 44,000 people had reported feeling the earthquake as far away as Wyoming. Our report was one of a dozen made from Wickenburg.

I thought I’d share this footage with site visitors.

If you have photographs of the flooding, please use the Contact Us link to send it to us. Be sure to include your name and a caption.

Over the next few weeks, the site will be completely reworked in a new format. Although all content should be accessible during this time, you may get the occasional error messages while accessing features. Please feel free to post a comment on this post to share problems you find; the ones that are reported will get attention first.

Also, we’ll need some new header images for the site. If you have any panoramic photos of the area that you’d like to share, please use the Contact Us link to let us know.

Getting Started

Our journey started on Rincon Road, right off of Highway 89/30. It’s a right hand turn not far from the second roundabout if you’re coming from the south. The road takes you past some pasture and a roping facility, then crosses the Hassayampa River, which is usually dry there. The pavement ends and starts and ends multiple times. You’ll cross the river twice. After the second crossing, you’ll find yourself at the site of an old manganese mine. There’s a big parking area there and it’s often filled with trucks pulling trailers for ATVs or horses. Yesterday, there were two camps set up, looking out over the riverbed.

We made a sharp left to continue along Rincon Road. It climbs out of the river area into the low mountains northwest of town. At an obvious intersection, we made a right to continue on Rincon. This short piece of road is extremely rough but offers outstanding views back toward Wickenburg, as well as lots of typical Sonoran desert vegetation. And rocks — did I mention the rocks?

As we continued along this piece of road, we passed a pickup truck with a cap on top. A man was standing, shirtless, at the back. He appeared to be washing his hands. A peek inside the truck cap revealed a mattress on a platform with various supplies under it. It was clear that this was the man’s “camper.” Not everyone needs a 35-foot fifth wheel for living in the desert.

After another quick photo stop, we joined Scenic Loop and headed north along its maintained dirt surface. This was familiar territory for us, so we didn’t remain on it long. Instead, when the road descended into a wash and turned to the east, we turned left into the wash and followed the sandy road northwest. According to our maps, this was scenic loop and the road we knew as Scenic Loop was actually called Stanton Hall Road. As if road names make a difference out there — none of the roads are marked and few people using the roads know their names.

We took our time along the drive, making a few stops along the way. At one point, we turned right off the main road and climbed up a side road covered with loose gravel. The road was steep and I think this is the only place where 4WD may have been required on the trip. Although we both expected the road to end, it continued past the top of the hill toward the east. We decided to turn back and stay on our original path.

The Photo Spots

I won’t bore you with the turn by turn details beyond this point — partly because I can’t remember every single turn we made as we wound down one dirt road after another, through washes, up steep grades, and around obstacles. I was glad we were in a Jeep and not something with a wider wheelbase. For most of the time, it was slow going. We didn’t stop many times for photos, on the first half of the trip because there wasn’t much of interest to photograph.

There were some exceptions, of course. One was Sand Mill, site of windmill, cattle tanks, and corral. I have a thing about windmills and did my usual study of this one. Unfortunately, it was broken, although I do think it could be repaired. What I found more interesting was the welded iron water tank behind it and the fencing around the corral — which was in unusually good shape. There had been two cows standing in the area when we drove up, but they ran off when we stopped. Cows out in the open range are funny like that. No matter how hard you try to not spook them, they get spooked anyway.

Anyway, here are three portrait view shots I took in the area. (Unlike a lot of amateur photographers, I’m not afraid to turn my cameral sideways.) These are a little more “artsy” than scenic. It was fun to play with the textures and patterns.

Later on, near a place called Brick Tank, I managed to get this shot of two cows. They stood there for about two minutes just staring at us as I rolled the Jeep into position and framed this shot. Then, just as I pushed down on the shutter, the smaller one (on the left) turned her head and ran off. The other followed, of course.

We also passed a herd of about eight mule deer along the way. I stopped while Mike tried to get some photos. They weren’t quite close enough for our lenses — we hadn’t brought along my 70-300mm zoom. Here’s my only shot, which I admit isn’t very good. I cropped it here.

As we reached Stanton, we found the road blocked by a fence and a “No Trespassing” sign. This wasn’t good news; if we had to go back to find another route, it could have easily taken another hour to get to the same spot. Fortunately, two-track roads led around the fence, dumping us right outside the ghost town of Stanton on Stanton Road.

Stanton is owned by the Lost Dutchmen Mining Association (LDMA). It’s always had a caretaker on duty, so the few buildings that remain of the original town — stage stop, hotel, and opera house — still stand. The LDMA offers campsites for its members. On Christmas Day, the place was crammed with RVs of all kinds, from the crappiest conversion van you could imagine to a 35-foot Cameo that looked very new. These folks spend their time panning for gold, which is kind of cool. I say “kind of” because it’s a ton of work and not the easiest way to make money. But every once in a while, someone finds a gold nugget big enough to keep everyone else looking. And it’s nice to be able to spend so much time outdoors with folks who share the same interest.

The Mountainous Portion of the Trip

Stanton Road meets up with Mina Road right there and that’s where we headed to start the second part of the trip — the part I wanted to do. I’d seen a Jeep road up in the Weaver Mountains that I wanted to check out. It wasn’t far from Stanton on the back road that went from Stanton to Yarnell: Mina Road.

Our landmark was a switchback to the left in the road. The road we wanted would go straight instead of making that left turn. But sure enough, it was blocked off with a fence and a “No Trespassing” sign. We made a U-turn and went back a short distance to another road that looked as if it might parallel the one we wanted. According to my GPS and the topo maps we’d brought along, the road we were on ended. But those maps are from the 1980s, before folks with ATVs and gold fever started exploring the area. We explored the road and its side roads until we found the place it met up with the road we wanted, beyond that private property.

We drove across Antelope Creek, which still running as a small stream with a mix of spring water and runoff from snow and rain at higher elevations the previous week. I threw the Jeep into 4WD and powered up a steep, narrow Jeep trail with lots of loose rock. When I leveled out and could see the road beyond, I realized that I just wasn’t prepared to go any farther. The road was very narrow, very steep, and covered with very loose rock. I was tired from almost 2 hours of driving on back roads. I’d had enough rough road exploring.

We got out for a while to take photographs in the area. There was a lot of slate-like rock, standing straight up. Much of the rock was covered with orange and yellow lichen. It made an interesting contrast to the green and brown of the desert, the blue of the sky, and the deep shadows cast by late afternoon sun. The light hadn’t gotten “good” yet, but it wasn’t bad — probably because of its low winter angle.

We also walked down to Antelope Creek. It was great to see so much water flowing in the desert. I knew that downstream, the flow dried up before it even reached Stanton. I tried to get some photos that showed reflections in pools of relatively smooth water. The water, in some places, was about two feet deep. Although Jack the Dog drank some of it without side effect, I wouldn’t think of drinking it without treating it first; just too much open range and wildlife in the area. (That’s why its best to bring your own water, even if you know you might find some along the way.)

The Way Back

We returned to Mina Road and headed back toward Wickenburg. But rather than take the fast way — Stanton Road to Route 89 — we turned left on Stanton Road and headed back on more dirt roads.

But first, we stopped at one of the few buildings that remain at Octave, another ghost town. The afternoon sun had drifted down quite low when we arrived and I think I got some of my best photos of the day. I have a thing about photographing abandoned buildings, and even though this was a small one, it kept me busy for a good 20 minutes. This is one of my favorite shots.

We also stopped alongside the road where the boulder-and-saguaro-strewn side of Rich Hill was illuminated by the low-lying sun. As you look at this photo, remember that each cactus stands at least 15 feet tall. Really gives you an idea of how big the boulders are, no? The horizontal version of this photo will be my desktop pattern.

We turned south toward Wickenburg a while later. Again, I can’t remember where we turned; you’ll need to check my GPS track log to see. The following 90 minutes was spent exploring various ways to get through the desert and back to pavement near Scenic Loop or Rincon Road. We made a lot of “wrong” turns. In looking at our track and knowing the desert from previous non-GPS-assisted trips, I know we didn’t take the best path. But it was a new path, and that’s all that really mattered.

We joined back up with Scenic Loop near Sand Mill and retraced our steps. By then, the light was very low and the mountains were glowing copper colored. We made one more side trip in search of a good spot to take some final photos and found ourselves quite close to the Hassayampa River on a short cliff. Although Mike took some shots, I didn’t like anything I saw through the lens.

We backtracked all the way back to 89/93, drove through town, and headed home. It was a great way to spend Christmas Day.

Trace Our Treads

If you’re interested in following our route, I offer my Garmin GPX track log file for you to load into your GPS. Once you load the track log into your GPS, you can go to the center of town in Wickenburg to pick up the track and follow it. For best results, you’ll want a GPS that you can load topographic maps on; you’ll see that many (but not all) of the dirt roads we followed appear on the Garmin MapSource maps — or standard USGS topographical maps. You’ll also see where we made wrong turns and hit dead ends. You might want to review the track log before following it blindly; here it is on EveryTrail.com.

You’ll also need a vehicle with high clearance and a relatively narrow wheelbase. Leave the Hummer or big pickup truck home. You’ll do better with a Jeep or quad or some other ATV. Although we threw the Jeep into 4WD a few times, I don’t think we actually needed it more than once or twice. In this area, I always recommend using 4WD when driving in deep sand (especially along the Hassayampa River, which is notorious for quicksand).

And I know I don’t have to tell you to bring water, emergency gear, etc., right? Our route travelled to some pretty remote areas of the desert. If we had a breakdown, it would have been a long walk to help.

The forecast called for a 30% chance of rain late in the day yesterday, so I thought I’d set up my time-lapse camera and capture the cloud build-up. This video starts at about 7:20 AM and ends at 7:30 PM, right when it had gotten dark. The first 25 seconds is a typical Arizona day — perfectly blue sky with nothing going on. Then some light clouds chase each other across the sky. Finally, the storm builds and moves in. This is one of my better efforts.

These shots were taken from just outside my front door with the camera pointing almost due north. And no, the cactus isn’t crooked. Its the wide angle lens distorting the shot.

One shot every ten seconds, compiled at 30 frames per second.

Here’s an example of a movie I created a few weeks ago, when the saguaro cacti in my yard were blooming. Saguaros bloom at night and close up during the day. I wanted to capture the closing of the flowers, so I focused on a bunch of flowers at the top of one of my cacti. In the resulting movie, however, the clouds steal the show:

If you’d like to learn more about my recent time-lapse efforts, read “Time-Lapse Mania.” You can also click the time-lapse tag on my personal blog to see all of the time-lapse movies I’ve published on the Web.

My husband and I planted every single plant within the wall that surrounds our immediate yard. The rest of our 2-1/2 acres is mostly as nature intended.

We planted desert plants because we live in the desert and see no reason to pour precious water into the ground if we don’t have to. That doesn’t mean that we don’t irrigate at all. We do — a little. But not much. You see, most of the plants are cacti.

Right now, the prickly pear cacti are flowering in my back yard. Interestingly, they’re blooming in two slightly different colors: a yellow and a pale salmon. The plants came from the same source on the same day and were planted at the same time. Why they are two different colors is beyond me.

Here’s the yellow version…

…and here’s the salmon version.

The flowers are amazing. They look almost like wax. Here’s a glimpse of them; you can click a larger photo to see it in my Photo Gallery.

What’s also interesting about these cacti is that last year they produced mostly new cactus pads. Think of the pads as branches or leaves. Each pad will produce either flowers or more pads. Last year we had lots of pads — so many that I cut some young ones off and grilled them up to have with dinner a few times. But this year it’s flowers. Don’t know how the plant decides.

Cholla Flowers

The cholla (pronounced choy-ya) flowers — or at least one type of cholla — there are many — are also blooming. Cholla is a particularly nasty type of cactus. I can blame the poor quality of this photo on the simple fact that I refused to get close enough to this cactus for it to bite me. This type of cholla grows well in my yard; green and hardy. The flowers were a surprise; I guess I missed them last year.

More cactus flowers are on the way. I’ll try to snap photos of them as they bloom. I noticed that the new arms on our big saguaro have flower buds but the top doesn’t have any yet. I’m wondering about that.

The hedgehog cacti are just about finished blooming now. I got a great photo of one in Page, AZ last week; you can see it in this blog post. I haven’t had time to add the other photos of this cactus to my gallery; I hope to do it soon.

Not enough hours in a day.

I set up Internet streaming and podcasting for Pete as a personal favor back in 2005. The system was fully automated and would record 50 minutes (or so) of whatever was on the radio starting at 9 AM weekdays. It generated a podcast entry and the podcast appeared online, including in the iTunes Music Store.

Streaming audio worked relatively well, although it limited the number of simultaneous listeners to 16 or so. We had 2 or 3 regular listeners, but when the Wranglers played football, we’d fill all 16 slots.

When Pete sold the radio station, the new owners weren’t interested in maintaining the podcasts or streaming audio — or even the Web site. I took away all of my equipment; it’s still in my garage, waiting for me to clean it up and put it on eBay or Craig’s List. After a while, I deleted the blog that generated the podcast. I thought — incorrectly, it appears — that I’d also deleted all the podcast MP3 files.

In answer to the request I received the other day, I checked my server to see if I had any podcast episodes from “Around the Town” still online. And guess what? I had about 90% of the episodes from July 11, 2005 through March 31, 2008.

You can download a specific episode directly from the server. Here’s how.

1. Get the date of the podcast you want to download. I’m sorry to say that I don’t have an index available.
2. Use your Web browser to go to the podcast address. Unfortunately, because we didn’t keep a consistent naming convention, the address changes depending on the date. Here’s a rundown of the formats:
   • For 2005: http://www.theflyingm.com/podcasts/kbsz-radio/2005/kbsz-2005mmdd.mp3 where mm is the 2-digit month and dd is the 2-digit day
   • For 2006: http://www.theflyingm.com/podcasts/kbsz-radio/2006/kbsz-att-2006mmdd.mp3 where mm is the 2-digit month and dd is the 2-digit day
   • For 2007 and 2008: http://www.theflyingm.com/podcasts/kbsz-radio/yyyy/yyyymmdd.mp3 where yyyy is the 4-digit year, mm is the 2-digit month, and dd is the 2-digit day

   So, for example, if you wanted the podcast from August 5, 2005, you’d go to
   http://www.theflyingm.com/podcasts/kbsz-radio/2005/kbsz-20050805.mp3

3. If you get an error message when you attempt to download, check the address to make sure you entered it correctly. If it’s correct but simply won’t work, chances are you’re requesting a podcast we simply don’t have. (Several were missed or inadvertently deleted.)

The podcast should download immediately. It’ll be anywhere between 5 and 14 MB in size, depending on when it was recorded. It may play in your Web browser or open your MP3 player software to play.

You might be disappointed with the quality of the podcasts. To automate the process with Pete’s available setup, I had to record from a radio rather than directly from his board. There’s typical AM radio static, but Pete’s voice comes through, loud and clear.

I’m very happy that this material is still around. Pete and his much-loved radio station are gone, but their legacy remains, in part, in these interview podcasts.

And if you want to remember Pete at his best, download and listen to his farewell show.