It was rather amazing how much Nature was in her glory on the
Carlito Springs Trail. Altho there are
quite a few images in this blog posting, I really did narrow it down to my
absolute favorites!
Ouch
– Prickly Pear Cactus
I have taken many, many images of Prickly Pear Cactus in the
years that we’ve lived here in New Mexico, but this one has to be one of, if
not the best, image I’ve captured of this cool cactus. I love the soft lighting that existed
here. It’s also a great contrast to the
very sharp and (relatively speaking) very long spikes on the cactus!
Purple
Blooms at the Springs
After hiking up the trail, which is very dry and definitely not
what one would call “lush”, it was such a delightful change of pace to reach
the springs, and see all the vibrant greens, cool crisp looking water, and the
delicate purple blooms that rimmed the various springs at the top of the
trail.
Top
of the Trail
I just loved how clear the water was in the springs! You can clearly see right down to the bottom
of the pool in this image! It almost
makes one want to dangle one’s toes in what must be some nice cool water…..but
if we all did that, the water probably wouldn’t be that clean and clear!
Out
of the Rust
For some reason, I have always thought of daffodils as being a
bit of a delicate flower. Well, this one
certainly set me straight. I can’t
really think of much more of an inhospitable environment than a bed of rusty
cans! Yet, here it was. I think the rust cans were left over from
when folks either lived or visited the community that’s at the top of the
trail. No recent littering!
Sunshine
Blooms
You’ll see these blooms again as a photo sketch/painting in
another post, but here’s the “straight shot” as I think of it! I really loved that I was able to get down to
the level of the flowers (they were growing on a bit of a ledge almost at my
eye level) and just fill the frame with such happy looking flowers!
Coming
Out of the Shadow
I don’t know what this little yellow flower is, but I loved how
persistent it looked, growing in the exact location! It is peeking out from between the “leaves”
of a banana yucca plant that was sort of growing out from under a piece of a
tree branch that happened to fall there.
You can see just a bit of the tree branch in the upper left corner of
the image.
Moss
Rock
Isn’t this a cool image?
It’s a close up of moss growing on a rock along the trail. Now, I have always thought of moss as
something that grows in a darker, damp place, but this rock is out in the
bright sunshine, nowhere close to the springs!
Barrel
Cactus Ready to Bloom
We don’t tend to see a lot of barrel cactus growing in the area
where we live, but I did see a number of them on this trail. People don’t generally think of cactus as a
blooming plant, but they do! We’re a bit
early to catch this one blooming, but you can see the buds of what promise to
be red flowers that will be in full bloom in a week or so. Too bad we’ll be many miles away from here at
that time, so this is as close as I’ll come this year to seeing a barrel cactus
bloom!
Enjoy!
