Intersection Logs

We hit 100 today, with single-digit humidity -- hot and dry enough to sting . Phoenix got 110!

I caught the first bus this morning, and wandered around the campus in the early morning light and relative coolness, dodging joggers and looking for night-flowering cactus blooms. Mostly it was a case of flower yesterday or flower tomorrow, but this one I caught in the act.

It's the time of year when the yellow (and red) prickly pear flowers are out, and it has become my habit to wander down the road of a weekend morning, taking photos and noting the scurry of lizards in the undergrowth, catching the occasional grey-furred flash of rabbit and glimpse of quail.

This was the day for that. More photos over on Flickr.

I've had a lot of trouble with this particular bush over the last couple of years; the flowers are small and glossy, so that the autofocus tends to lock onto the spiny stems instead. This time, I think I nailed it.

This lunchtime the weather was so beautiful that I bought a new memory card for my camera rather than miss it because I left the others at home.

I love all the cactus flowers, but I have a particular soft spot for the hedgehogs, which bear their extravagantly lovely flowers on such unprepossessing little thorny stems.