I told you it would grow back...

As I mentioned in Yardwork..., I knew the grass would grow back and the pruned trees would actually fill out and grow more. It is now a little less than 2 months since the yard was cleared and a little over a month since our first Monsoooooooon! rain. This is what the land now looks like. I didn't shoot from every similar angle, but you can get the general idea.

This is just east of the driveway as you approach the house.

This is the same area after you turn into the driveway.

And this the the west side of the driveway, i.e. the house side.

Here we've gone to the end of the driveway and turned around facing south.

This is the ditch on the south side of the property. We are facing west.

This is from the road.

This is farther west on the road. Some areas don't grow back as profusely as others.

This is from the road and a little west of the house.

This is the dividing line between the Natural Open Space on the left (west) and what we can manage on the right. You can't see the stake anymore due to all the growth.

This is the area just east of that, closer to the house with the drain field to the right side of the picture.

This is the mesquite tree with all the action. You will see some of that at the end of this posting.

The infamouse rockpile with the west edge of the drainfield.

The rain barrels from the east side of the house.

And from the west side.

The area between us and the north neighbors. We're facing west here and standing close to the rain barrels.

The courtyard. We gotta get this graveled, paved or something as soon as the monsoon is over this year.

The Mexican garden area.

Now for a few close ups. This is that barrel cactus in the right of the Mexican garden area. Lots of things are blooming for the first time this year and some for the 2nd. This is an example of a 2nd bloomer.

This prickly pear now has fruit on it. I like them just as much with the fruit as with the blossoms. The ocotillo is growing up through the prickly pear. It's the only one we have now, but we really like them and have more on our landscape plan. Most of the year they look like dead thorny sticks, but when it rains they are covered with tiny leaves.

Now for a bird diversion:

About 2 weeks ago, I was out walking Cisco around 4 in the afternoon and saw this Turkey buzzard in a tree snag close by. They are usually up and flying when it's hot, but maybe it was too hot that day.

After we passed him, I figured he would fly away, but when we got back to the house I discovered he hadn't, so I took lots of pictures through our windows.

He spent only a minimal amount of time closed up and then he decided to spread his wings.

From the time I first saw him do this until he closed up again was about 5 minutes. That sure seemed like a long time for him to hold his wings out.

A few days later, late in the afternoon, this female cardinal flew from that action mesquite right into one of our windows. She didn't hurt herselft too badly and I got these pictures after she went back to the tree.

So that's the latest from LMMM. Trout came home to a very green landscape due to the rains. We've had dark skies, lightning and thunder since he got back but not a lot of rain. Still our rain barrels are totally full, so if the monsoon stops soon as predicted, we will have some rain water to use for awhile on our few plants.