The Post Intended to Make You Jealous and Prove I'm Smarmy

Super Bowl Sunday, and 75 degrees in the Phoenix area. I'm told it's icy and cold and snowy in other parts of the country. We have great weather here in Arizona. On the other hand, I live in Arizona, and you may live somewhere that's...well not Arizona. So you may have the upper hand after all. If you want natural beauty and great winter weather, Arizona can't be beat. As for the rest of it...well let's leave it at the weather and the natural beauty. LA or NY, it ain't (and I've lived in both).

So here's a few pics of what's going on around the house. Cactus and succulent plants have always been some of my favorites, and most of them start blooming in spring. The first one started getting buds this week:


For some reason, my orchid is re-blooming. It had a flower spike over the summer which I cut off after the flowers died (they last a few months) and it's not supposed to get another one until next year. Well it started growing one right away, and it looks like it's gonna have ten or more flowers. A sign?

Gregg's herb garden is starting to pick up. Collared greens and peppers have started growing, and in the spice garden the rosemary is huge (always is) and the oregano has started going crazy again. We bought some parsley, garlic, chamomile, and French thyme but haven't transplanted it out there yet.

On such a great day, I took my nieces and nephew for a hike over at Usury Park which is about 15 minutes from our house. Here's the beginning of the trail and some shots from the hike:



Also, right now it's almost half time an--
Holy crap--what? Did that just happen? 100 yards? Ugh.

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A note from Ripley:

"The humans have put their precious spice garden at Labrador level. Here I'm pretending to guard it from pigeons. On days we don't go to the park, Chase pees on the oregano. I say nothing."