Mammillaria Cactus

 I have had this little cactus about 10 years and last month it decided to bloom. Blossoms are tiny, less than a quarter of an inch across. But such a beautiful color. There have been 18 of them in a circle around the top of the cactus. You can get an idea of size comparred to our cat, Twinkie. On looking it up I found it is in the mammillaria family.

This is another suculant plant that blooms frequently. It is almost an inch across. There are several succulants in this pot. The flower is on the plant that has long, thin but fleashy pieces not the one with the short thin tringles as it looks like, You can see the piece of plant on the left side of photo. Don't know it's name.

Christmas Tree and Village

 My artificial Christmas tree had lived out it's life and as it was throwing plastic pine needles all over it went to live in the trash. This year I said I wasn't having a tree since I didn't want to buy one but I thought it might be nice to decorate some of the large house plants I have. The larger tree is actually a ponytail palm plant or an elephant foot plant. The 'foot' is hid under the sheet I wrapped around the base of the plants. The other tree is a drecina houseplant. I did hang a few tree decorations on them as well as wrapping lights around there trunks and the pots. Of course I had help from the cats.

I added the snowpeople, some stuffed kitties, bears and moose and St. Nick behind the tree. Twinkie thought she should live up to her name and twinkle with the lights.

 I have been collecting some of the Christmas village house for some years now. I set them on a table along with the horse and sleighs and drapped lights around the table. I have the ranch house, barn, post office, lighthouse, castle, and coffee shop.

 Wiley our black cat decided he had to be part of the decorations.

Sunrise - Sunset

First 2 photos are sunrises over the Sandia Mountains.

Next 2 photos are sunsets over the Sandia Mountains. Sandia is Spanish for watermelon. The sunset photos show the pink color that is frequently seen at sunset on the mountains that gives them their name.

Sunsets Last Week

Lathe Turning

Some of you commented on my posting a month or so aga about the piece of cottonwood that my husband was turning on his lathe. Here is the finished piece. Some really nice designs in the piece of wood from an almost dead cottonwood tree. He has more of the tree to turn later on.

Here is a bottle and a candlestick with electric candle that he turned from a piece of wood he bought.

 Christmas decorations he made from left over scrap pine wood. There are tiny holes with a piece of string for hanging on the tree.

Here are two snowmen (maybe the taller is a snowwomen) that hubby made for gifts.

Sandia Mountains

Some views of the Sandia Mountains the other day with a layer of clouds over them.

Quail and Tomatoes

I wish I could get photos of the little quail that have been coming in every day to eat some of the left over tomatoes. I never figured quail would eat tomatoes. It is a sight to see when one of them grabs a small cherry tomato and the others chase the one with the tomato. And there are usually other tomatoes out there if they would just look for them. We still have a few of the left over tomatoes that we pulled back when it first froze. Then they were green but they have ripened and most didn't taste to good to us, and then they got over ripe. But the quail don't seem to mind. I have just been putting a few out every day so they don't freeze at night if the birds don't eat them. I haven't seen any of our other birds - sparrows, chick a dees, curved bill thrush, mockingbirds, doves, black birds, red headed house finches - eating the tomatoes. Those birds went after the apples and peaches. I didn't see the quail eating that many apples or peaches. But they sure do like those tomatoes, especially the little cherry ones that they can run away with.

Being Thankful

Thanksgiving will be this Thursday in all of the United States. It is considered one of the biggest holidays here, next to Christmas. It is thought to be a day that the Pilgrims that first came to the United States sat down to eat and celebrate a day of piece between them and the Native Americans that were then called Indians. It was a celebration with lots of food after they had almost staved to death when they had first come. They had learned from the Indians how to live off the land and survive so the Indians had been invited to eat with them.
This year I am doing as many of my friends are doing and each day for a month I will post on facebook or on a blog what I am thankful for. I have seen then done in previous years and could never bring my self to do. But this year I started doing it on Nov. 10 and hope to be able to do it until at least Dec. 10.
It is good to have one day set aside to be thankful on but we need to remember to do it more often than once a year. There are all kinds of things we can be thankful for - from big nice things like the birth of a baby and a wedding or finding the love of our life to small things like hearing a bird sing or the sun shine or a pretty flower.
I hope every one will find something to be thankful for this Thanksgiving but remember to do it more often. If you want do it for a month on Facebook, a blog or post a memo at work, or make a note on a calender.
I will start by saying I am thankful for the readers that read my blog.

Little Butterfly

Fount this little butterfly on one of my flowers the day before it got so cold last weekend. I know he is gone now. I see these off and on but this is first time I have ever been able to get a photo of one. They are only about a half inch in length. Flower was about 2 inches across.

Equines

 Letting the ponies change pens so they can play.

Fall Views

 Some more fall views from the Jemez Creek bridge leading to Gilman. We even saw the apallosa horse in a field. He let us take his photo then went back to eating.

Big Cottonwood Tree

 Lee is standing under a big cottonwood tree that looks like someone tried to chop it down once. But the tree is still alive. On the other side there was a really odd branch that started high up then dropped all the way to the ground and then shot up again. I couldn't get a photo of the whole branch as their was a small evergreen that hid the branch right where it was almost on the ground. So I tried from the other side and there were larger evergreens that hid the tree instead of the branch.