Happy Easter!

Happy Easter Egg! It’s been a busy week, and so I haven’t had time to post much. Holy week — the run-up to Easter in the Christian mode of thinking — has been filled with rehearsals and performances. And added to that, work has started to come in from various clients again.

The choir sang Paul Mealor’s Stabat Mater for its Easter concert, and it seemed to come off well. It’s an amazing experience to learn one of these awe-inspiring compositions, and even more amazing for a mostly volunteer choir to pull it off. The reason we do, of course, is that we have a number of professional singers, as well as a near-miraculous music director.

After a little rain a few weeks ago, we’re having a beautiful, warm spring. The desert, still parched by a decade-long drought, hasn’t sprung forth with the color that’s possible, but a few wildflowers are blossoming. We spotted these poppies in the valley between North Mountain and Shaw Butte.

{sigh} As usual, you have to click on the image to see it in focus and in detail. Annoying WordPress…

Despite  some serious frost damage, the citrus has bloomed spectacularly in the past couple of weeks. The first to pop out was the Meyer lemon, and now the oranges and lime are covered with blossoms. Citrus is heavily scented, so at this time of year the air is perfumed with fragrance.

The Lady Banks rose I planted a couple of years ago to block the view of the pool equipment was unfazed by the frost, unlike the cape honeysuckle it replaces. The honeysuckle used to freeze back to the ground in a cold winter, but roses shrug it off. And this spring for the first time, Lady Banks is covered with tiny white blossoms.

The little garden I planted around the base of that rose somehow has managed to survive the seasons of neglect. I don’t remember what this flower is, but isn’t it pretty?

Here’s another mystery plant that grew in a different neglected bed…

I have no idea why these things survived the cold snap, but they did, and they’re gorgeous just now.

Despite the floral show, the yard’s really a mess: dead bougainvillea and plumbago sticks need to be cut back; weeds are growing amok; a third of the lime tree’s canopy is dead; the yellow oleander in front has turned into a dried arrangement; and leaves and twigs and debris have settled in a carpet over the xeric mulch. Gerardo has his work cut out for him…I suppose I’ll have to give him a bonus for the extra work he’ll have to do this month.

And soon it will be summer. The pool’s already almost warm enough for a brisk swim. We’ve had an unusually warm spring, and that often presages a scorching summer. It’s hard to understand how anything lives in this place.

One of these days, presumably, nothing will. But I’ll be gone by then. 😉