What’s the desert like…

It is brown and there really truly isn’t much grass. But it does have it’s own beauty.

The first cactus is seen pretty much everywhere and almost has metallic sheen. The middle picture is a prickly pear cactus. The “fruit” is used to make jellies, honey, nectar, drinks, that sort of a thing. And I found that last beaut on a hike, it was so pretty! It’s called a fairy duster!

When we do see grass out hiking it’s just fun since almost everyone’s yards and landscaping is made of rock and when they make it fancy… different shades of rock. When you see grass it’s usually a golf course. As you can see in the right picture there are ferns too, not a lot but there are some in the mountains. And that middle picture….it’s a cactus….and it has tiny thin spines (aka the pokey things) ….and it’s edible…and sold in local grocery stores.

So you know we had to try it!!! The top left picture is what was brought home from the store, you can see the white spines on it. Youtube told me I could boil it and then skin it and then chop it….or I could roast it over a fire….I choose the fire approach. Just went ahead and put that bad boy on our marshmallow roasters and roasted it over the open fire. You can see in the bottom left picture that the spines all charred…and fell off. Then I cut it up and added it to our tacos. In the tacos they added a little crunch and tasted fine….but none of us enjoyed them by themselves.

Now that we went down that rabbit hole….back to nature…

The first picture is of a cholla cactus, there are a few different types of cholla. They are known for “jumping” or “dropping” their segments as a means of reproduction. One of my favorite things we have found is the middle picture….desert mistletoe….it is my favorite colors…and it’s out in the wild…never seen anything else like it anywhere, its beautiful! And tiny deer….like we thought they were babies…but the didn’t have the spots like fawn do. Turns out these tiny adult deer are actually Coues Deer and as the internet puts it… an “elfin deer standing 32-34 inches.”

There are so many different types, shapes and sizes of cacti! It’s crazy. Short and wide, tall and skinny, singleton and tons of arms, sooooo many! We still have so much to learn!

We are thankful and grateful to be in a new spot learning and seeing a bit more of this ginormous world God is letting us live in.