Out my kitchen window

Well, it’s finally warming up. We had it warm several weeks ago, but for the last few weeks the highs have only been in the upper 80’s. Right now the ‘official’ Vegas temperature is 104f, (but it only feels like 98), with the ten day forecast show it being over 101 every day, with the little symbol for ‘sunny’ on each of those ten days. Who would have figured.

I really enjoy temps like this, but it will be warming up in July. We’ve been here for four years, and I think the highest it’s gotten was 117f (48C), but with all the talk of global warming I am looking forward to some nice warm times. I really like to go out to our pool after work and just lie in the water and look at the airplane tracks in the sky. Yea, guess I am getting old. Water temp in the pool is up to 91f, which is just where B likes it; I like 93, so it’s close enough.

Granddaughter E and her mom are due back in town next week for a short visit; hopefully I will be able to load up on pictures for VG’s E Friday posts Mom doesn’t seem to be sending us any pictures from Portland. B is planning a trip up there in September, but with my new job I don’t get any vacation until next January, so I have to settle for randomly walking in on some web cam conversations.

More flowers blooming around the yard. Two of the plants that really like the heat are the Mexican Bird of Paradise


This is the yellow version, in a few weeks the whole bush will be full of flowers. There is also an Arizona Bird which has red flowers. This one is about six feet tall, and follows the typical desert plant form of very small thin leaves rather sparsely scattered around and an open structure.

And the Mexican Poppies


These self seed all over the place, and seem to be doing quite well all around the pool and in corners of the front yard. They only get six inches or so tall.

In our front courtyard we have several pots with plants we brought from San Diego. B really liked one large bush we had in our back yard, and I purchased one on a trip back down there last year. Here it’s called an Angel Trumpet. The bush in SD was over ten feet high, and was covered in pink blossoms that the hummingbirds really liked.


I picked up a yellow version. Growing in the pot for two years, this one is about six feet tall with flowers about eight inches long. It too will continue to bloom throughout the summer and loose all of it’s leaves in the winter. We have to cover it up to protect it from the cold around here.


Of course, the oleanders are blooming. There are several around our back yard wall that were here when we moved in, so we don’t know how old they are. These bushes are about fifteen feet tall, and we have both red and white ones. We bought some new plants to fill in an empty space, trying to get the same colors, but it’s best to buy and plant in the winter, when they are not in bloom, so we did end up with one pink one. The sage bushes we put around are in various shades of purple. We pulled out over ten thousand square feet of grass and converted to low water desert landscape after we moved in. The new desert plants included those pretty yellow Palo Verde trees and about three dozen sage bushes, several varieties in assorted shades of purple.

This is the view out our kitchen window. The sage we put in are about five feet tall, the big oleanders are to the left, and one of the desert willows we planted is on the right – it’s gone up to about twenty feet already. You can also see our neighbor’s satellite dish up on his roof, he pulled down the big one that was in the yard last year and converted to this small one. This window looks south, and is right over the sink. The pool is around on the north side of the house.


So, what is the view out of your kitchen window? I’d really like to see what it looks like in the UK this time of year.