Click on a photo to enlarge it.
We had a most violent storm last night – nothing like I’ve ever experienced here. It was more like the hurricanes I remember from Florida. We fretted about our wildlife friends while we contemplated the world order in the dark while the electricity was out from ten until midnight.
For the last few days, I have been sneaking up on our barrel cactus in the front yard that is blooming prolifically. It is interesting to see how the buds are started from the sharp prongs in the center, and then move out some, and then opening up into these glorious blossoms.
The bees are having a ball! I’m surprised there is any pollen at all left after the deluge from last night, but you can see that the petals of the flower, and the bee himself, are just covered with it.
The picture above, if you look REALLY, REALLY closely, shows one little guy burrowing down into the inner sanctum of the flower. He disappears in a trice, and I stand there, all hunched over, waiting for him to reappear. He does this, of course, but then scurries off quickly to his next destination before I can get the shutter pushed down.
Unbeknownst to me, I must have been fast enough on the trigger at some point, because in the picture below, he is posing quite nicely for me! ;->
Adventures of Dorrie Anne 
Beautiful flowers. That bee is much longer than the ones around here.
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He was certainly a busy boy!
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Great pictures!! Thanks for sending them on to me .
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I just went out to take a picture of them without the bright sunlight, and they had all gone to bed – closed right up and gone to sleep. I’ll have to watch to see what time they do that. I had never noticed that before.
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Judy, when did you change the look of your blog? The light gray type on dark gray background is extremely hard to read. Quite a struggle for these old eyes. Sorry to hear about your storms. Think we will have rain today as we move from Ramah, NM to Show Low.
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Uh-oh, I haven’t changed anything since inception! Will go investigate. Thanks for the heads up!
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Hmmmmm – Don’t know what to say, Jo. The colors look the same to me from this end – dark grey with white letters.
The only light grey letters I see are the ones for the comments, but they are on an eggshell background. Does it look the same on Fred’s Mac as on your PC?
I’ll check out the possibilities for making the contrast greater. There are only a few choices, but I’ll poke about to see what is available.
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