Green Queen

The first Queen Lime zinnia flower opened this week. A ubiquity of ants noticed.

Meanwhile I couldn’t help noticing that, while my bloom is exceedingly beautiful, it is in a serene and minimalist way and by no means the multilayer, sumptuous, full dahlia style as promised on the seed pack, and in the seed catalogue description.

Outback, an American Robin supervises the netting of the fig tree, against an increasing avian interest in the ripening fruit.

I feel I can be greedy and selfish with the figs, since there are currently more than enough grapes for the conference of birds who gather to feast and taunt the cat skulking in the undergrowth.

Quite often I only know someone is in the vine by a shower of grapes falling to the ground where they are quickly gobbled up by white winged doves who, curiously, don’t seem to know how to eat off the vine.

I did manage to catch a fine glossy black (male) phainopepla on camera.

Today the black grape vine is where the action is, though to my palate they are still too sour, not ready yet. Since they are my only grapes which have seeds maybe my avian roommates are enjoying that aspect.

I have already gobbled up all two bunches from the youngest vine, which seems to lean towards red, but I might have lost the identification tag. They were delicious: plump and juicy, the biggest by far of all the grapes.

Western Kingbirds seem to be raising a family in the vicinity. Sidebar: I kid you not, the Wikipedia entry begins “The western kingbird (Tyrannus verticalis) is a large tyrant…” ( who knew there was a species of bird called tyrant flycatchers?) I could play with words forever here, never realize the time…

While I have been noticing Kingbirds often in the grapevine, I watched an interesting interaction recently when a downy young couple (fledglings?) appeared to be somewhat timorous and confused about life outside the nest. The adult seemed to be urging them to fly, or forage, by moving between this tall tree and the grape vine repeatedly. There was a lot of vocalization going on too. I hope part of that was explaining to the young’uns how to catch flying bugs. Like say mosquitoes or gnats.

Finches are always everywhere all the time.

The ample supply of sunflowers are a finch staple, but Lantana berries seem to be a big attraction right now. Tiny iridescent green hummingbirds (not photographed) are loving the lantana umbels, in spite of the plant’s characteristic hint of cat pee smell. It seems that Lantana grows perhaps too well here. Those that were on the property when I arrived have flourished impressively, no doubt helped by bird distribution.

For my next stir fry, I will settle for some of those lovely purple amaranth leaves in this almost completely volunteer colonized corner of Cafe Paradiso.  

Thank you birds, bees, wind, ants and everyone else who seeds this little patch of earth.

A few small monsoon showers ( thankfully no serious floods) have made all the difference, especially to the smoky air from all the wildfires burning across the region, not least among them the one which has destroyed historic infrastructure in the Grand Canyon.

The Cafe Paradiso Madhu Ras honey melon (Cucumis melo)vines continue to climb and bloom and there’s a promise of vine ripened Rutgers tomatoes in the heart of all that activity . None of those bland Florida or Texas gas chamber ripened tomatoes for my kitchen table. In my experience, over the past five years, Rutgers seem to be the most productive and tastiest tomato variety for backyard growing here in this desert area. I am grateful to the agronomists at Rutgers University in New Jersey, way back in the 1930’s, for developing, and then reinvigorating more recently, this flavourful beefsteak tomato cultivar.

And look: another poblano pepper swells!

Let me adjust my crown (or should that be practice my curtsy?) Green Queen is in the house.

It’s the sweaty, humid, thundery monsoon season in the desert when growing green flowers and kingbirds seems like the best (the only?) kind of royalty to give a fig about.