The Desert Poppy

The Desert Poppy

The Southwest summer poppy

I call it the roadside poppy

I don't see it on the hill side, or on the desert floor.

Why it grows in the summer and on the roadside?

I don't know. It is unlike our spring poppy.

Perhaps it likes the summer heat and rain.

Maybe the dirt from building the freeways and roadside

offer nourishment we can't see.

And it likes the Southern Arizona desert,

becoming more abundant as I drive toward the Mexican border.

The flower book says it is not really a poppy

But to me it will always be

The Roadside Poppy

Monsoon evening

Red Bird of Paradise

Caesalpinia pulcherrima hides our house in the summer time. This desert shrub is a real beauty that we enjoy all summer. The flowers are bright red and yellow and cone shapped from the side and appears as a circle directly on.

Five individual petals of the flower form an arch with stamens on the lower side. This is the state flower of Barbados. It also was known to the medicine men of the Amazon. The leaves treated fever, the flowers sores and the seeds cough, difficulty breathing and chest pain.

But for Arizona Buddy it is the color of summer.

Jenny takes a flower walk

Madera Canyon

Az. Buddy spent the morning in Madera Canyon. Very green but no running water in the stream.

Deer, lizards and birds. Lots of humming birds. Pink and blue and yellow flowers. And lots of tourist, birders and hikers.

Read Red - The Hypnotist & The lonely Polygamist

Read these Red Jacked novels recently. Very different. The Hypnotist was said to be in the same vein of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Seig Larson. NOT. The Hypnotist is written by Swedish Lars Kepler which is really a husband and wife team.

It is murder mystery, crime novel with a lot of violence. It is two stories, one in the present when the Hypnotist is helping to solve a

horrific crime. The other is 10

years prior when the Hypnotist got into trouble when his practice

turned wrong. I am not a mystery fan so it is not fair for me to judge this novel but for me it is poorly written and thumbs way down.

The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall on the other hand was a delightful read. The best I have read in a long time. Not a page turner like the other book, but one where you turn the page with feeling of wanting more, not for it to end, but to stay with these very interesting characters. Golden Richards is a very ordinary man. A Mormon. And how he got to be one is very interesting. But he has 4 wives and 28 children. He struggles from day to day as a contractor to make enough money to provide for this family, to keep the wives content and help with the children. The story is told from Golden's point of view but also from the point of view of Rusty, the 11 year old son, soon to be twelve. Rusty lets us in on the problems of being one of 28. How do you get attention on YOUR birthday? How do you get any attention at all?

I have read several books about polygamy including Under the Banner of Heaven a non fiction reporting of Mormons with multiple wives.

IMO this fictional account gave me an over all impression of the challenges of plural marriage

with charm and humor.

I loved the story and the characters, so much that I ordered and am reading Udall's first novel, The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint.

Up date on AzBuddy

We now know that Buddy has Valley Fever, a common disease in the Southwest that effects both canines and humanoids. It comes from spores in the sand of the desert that are dredged up by building and also the wind. Buddy's condition presented with neurological symptoms of seizure, imbalance and general weirdness. Certainly frightens the owners. Since this was a possibility when he was in the ICU with seizure, the good vet Dr. Wilkonsin started Fluconazole, the medication that is specific for victims of Valley Fever, be it canine, feline or human. S0- It is what it is and we know what it is.