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Archive for the ‘Desert Cactus’Aug 15, 09 Comments (0)
 Cactus Flowers Good evening friends, I was just reminded again that I never sent out a photo of the little flowers that grow out of these red spined barrel cactus we have here. I thought I sent you a picture, I’m sorry but I can’t remember? The hot pink flowers are very small as you can see and the thing in Aimee’s hand is a fruit of some kind that pops out of the top as well! It’s fairly common to see one or two flowers and this fruit pod. We never found more than four flowers on any given cactus and it seems they only bloom in the late afternoon, I never saw a flower in the mornings? This photo was taken a few months back the cactus now are very ugly looking and have lost their color maybe because of the lack of rain? So anyways those are the flowers that are associated with the cactus not the most photogenic flower out there.
It was another hot, windy, busy day at the Curacao Sea Aquarium. I noticed again today that the ocean current was really going out there and was glad I wasn’t diving would have been impossible to swim in. I just got home from a super fast 15 mile bike ride with a friend, we did two big race loops in an hour and a half, I am beat! Tomorrow I have to go to Pen Straat and do a dive for this resort that has again hired me to map their reef. They have 2 or 3 Elkhorn coral pieces that are stopping the building of this project. So we are going to mark them, photograph them and somehow find a way to either work around them or move them to a new area. I am hoping the ocean is calm enough to dive, I guess we will see in the morning!
I am off to bed, see you tomorrow, Barry
15-8-2009
Jun 30, 09 Comments (0)
 Orange Cactus Good evening friends of the blog how is everyone tonight?? I told you all recently that our cactus here are really starting to change colors due to the lack of rain and as you can see I wasn’t kidding! Have you ever seen an orange cactus before?? And it’s blooming, see the two tiny little pink flowers on top, cool huh? All the barrel cactus here have these tiny little flowers and they only seem to bloom in the late afternoon and into the evening, may have to check if they are still open at night? This was taken at Mangusa Point at Saint Joris, the wild sea’s of the North coast are straight ahead behind the cactus. See the tallest mountain in the back ground with the flat top to the left of the photo? Almost near the top is where I found that little kitten a few months back, how he got there we will never know but he sure has a great home now thanks to our dear friend Sorayda.
I had another uneventful day mostly because of two little puppies that seem to need constant attention? I took all the dogs for a walk this morning to the salt ponds trying my hardest to wear them out. It didn’t work?
I had a doctors appointment at 9:00. This was my final check-up before meeting next week with my eye doctor/surgeon and hopefully very soon get this cataract taken care of, it’s driving me crazy! I have a bunch of friends coming to visit in August, September and October so I need to be at my best and I may be going to the Dominican Republic this year with our best friend and mentor Tom but still haven’t found any reasonable flights from Curacao.
One of my Geocaches got robbed again because who ever last found it didn’t put it back the way they found it. I bought all new containers and log books for all my caches and will be checking on them all in the next few days, you can’t believe how many folks come here now to find them! For more info on this check out www.geocaching.com my Geo name is Didy Man if your searching for mine here in Curacao.
See you tomorrow, Barry
30-06-2009
May 29, 09 Comments (0)
 glowing-red-barrel-cactus Good evening all, I just realized we have our dolphin fans, our bird lovers, and of course the underwater fanatics and now I have a big group of folks that just seem to love these cactus, so here’s another. Aimee found this one a few weeks ago, it is by far the most colorful one we have ever seen!! The night we found this we must have already looked at well over 500 cactus! When I heard Aimee yell for me to come over and check this one out I knew she had found a winner but never dreamed they can get this red! You know I have hiked all over the western States and never remember seeing barrel cacti with such red spines, but maybe I just wasn’t looking back then? You can see our grass is all drying up here now as well as the rest of the vegetation, summer is on the way. I still have a flower and fruit photo to show you as well from these, that will be on it’s way to you soon.
I just took a break and took the dogs to Saint Joris for their evening walk. To my horror I found the beaches to the west covered in uncooked chicken parts!! Yes some idiots dumped loads of expired chicken in the bay! So local dog walkers be warned, you sure don’t want them eating this stuff! The smell was awful!
That’s it in a nutshell, I worked all day so not much else going on. See you tomorrow, Barry
05-29-2009
May 5, 09 Comments (0)
 flowering-curacao-prickly-pear-cactus Good evening family of friends how was the day? Mine of course was busy again, you know me no time to slow down. I took the camera and the guard dogs on a three hour hike thru the desert this morning looking for new things you might enjoy. Our good friend Joe in Rapid City asked about flowers on those barrel cactus and if I had ever seen any?? Unfortunately no was the answer but I am still looking. I did find this nice prickly pear flower this morning in full bloom with a little honey bee inside, thought that was pretty cool. These flowers you see here usually bloom in the morning and get eaten within hours! The lizards and iguanas love these things as well as countless other little creatures so when you see one around here shoot it fast because chances are when you pass by later it will be gone! Besides the cactus flower I found some tiny little mud crabs this morning, very hard to photograph and a new area full of really nice fossil shells eroding out of the wall, so lot’s of new pictures. The dogs ran and ran mostly just chasing each other and always on the lookout for those lizards that they will never catch, it’s just fun to watch!
At around noon I received a phone call from work asking if I wanted to go take photos from the helicopter but had to decline because of appointments I had to keep at my eye doctor, what a bummer. I spent a good part of my day doing un-fun errands what a major waste of time!
That’s about it for me today, Aimee just came home with some Chinese food, sweet and sour chicken, smells great! Many thanks for all the compliments on yesterdays photo, the hermit crab, it turns out it was a big hit! Till tomorrow, Barry
05-05-2009
May 3, 09 Comments (0)
 glowing-barrel-cactus Good evening earthlings how was the weekend? I was off today and had planned on going diving but at the last minute my dive buddy canceled because of a severe cold. It’s funny when I think of catching a cold I always think of a cold area with freezing temps and being stuck inside, not here on this hot tropical island, it’s just not right!
I seem to be getting more and more requests for cactus photos than anything lately, heck you guys need to take a trip to the desert southwest you would love it!! And for those of you interested I know two great books you should run out and buy both done by my buddy and “photo mentor” Thomas Wiewandt. The first one is a little postcard book called Desert Rain/Desert Bloom ISBN#1-879728-00-1, I have a signed copy and the other a much bigger coffee table book “the perfect gift” is called The Southwest InsideOut ISBN# 9781879728042, if you love the west and all it has to offer wait till you see these! Your photo this evening is another beautiful glowing barrel cactus from the area around Saint Joris bay. I have found that morning is by far the best time to shoot these things with that nice warm glowing light, it really adds nice color to the spines.
Other than a mild hike with the dogs this morning it has been a fairly restful day, just what I needed! Many thanks to those of you who continue to keep in touch on a daily/weekly basis, you have no idea how much it means to us! Might go for a bike ride, talk to you tomorrow, Barry
05-03-2009
Apr 17, 09 Comments (0)
 barrel-cactus Good evening, I just got home and found the parakeets once again squawking away and eating seed pods in our back yard! This just cracks me up, I have been trying to sneak up on these birds for years without much luck and now they are sitting in our yard taunting me! They are not as afraid as the ones I have seen out along the coast but still have their limits on how close you can get.
During the last weeks of the rainy season the barrel cactus here were really saturated with colors! For some reason all that moisture made the spines redder and in the morning or evening light they just seemed to glow. This was taken looking straight down on the cactus with a tripod using a long exposure. This is one of our most common plants on the island. They seem to grow best in the worst possible spots like along the coast in jagged limestone, and not just one or two here and there, they are everywhere!
It was a fairly quiet day for once at the aquarium, I think today was the end of the long Easter holiday and many of the Dutch tourists headed back home. Need to find some dinner, see ya, Barry
04-17-2009
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