End-of-Spring Blooms and Two-Week Chicken Update

Some of the photos taken last weekend when Mike and Lauren & family were here showed the yellow blooms on the palo verde.  I thought I'd update the garden photos here, and, while I'm at it, show the growth of the chickens.  If I don't catch them weekly, we'll miss it, they're growing so fast.

Through the arch of the courtyard entryway, you can see the blossoms on the palo verde so thick their actually weighing the branches down.  They're thicker this year than the previous two springtimes.  At the foot of the tree are the pink mexican primrose, and the already fallen palo verde blooms edge the walk. The trumpet vine on the left is beginning to flower. The color is most striking from inside, looking out the windows, but I couldn't get a photo that did it justice.

So, below is the back yard, taken from almost the same spot as the photo at the bottom of the page.  Apart from the copious yellow blooms on the palo verde, you can see that the tree itself has grown about a foot in two months.  The early blooming penstemons faded quicker than previous years, and they're mostly gone, except for the one species I can't remember (not firecracker, Parry's, or suberb...) that's just started blooming now.  

The Indian blanket flower (gallardia) has really come on, and the mexican hat has grown almost three feet tall and has lots of "hats."  The mesquite in the corner, though you can't see it, has begun its springtime growth spurt, and has added a foot or two to its limbs.  The lantana is beginning to

 take off, too.

We've picked some more tomatos, our first of the "Better Boy" variety and Romas.  There's blackberries getting black and strawberries getting, er, red out there.  In fact, we picked the first strawberries just tonight.  Ok, though these first ones weren't grocer's quality.

Finally, for the grandkids and nieces and nephews, here's the chicken update.  They've doubled again in size. The best photo to give scale is the one we took Saturday with Roxanne, who was holding El Pollo Loco last weekend in the last post, and who holding her again in this new photo.  That's the same chicken!  A week ago it was a perfect fit in her two cupped palms, and now El Pollo Loco is a relative giant.  You know, that might've been KFC, it's tough to tell from that angle. I think the chicken update this week will be a movie.  They're doing chicken things: scratching, drinking water, eating their feed and the little bugs they like to scratch for.

That's all the news there is (if you call it news).  It's gettin' hot. From now until fall it will be 100 degrees.  Hope it's not that hot where you are.