Pool Time

Pool Time is not measured by when Tom takes a quick dip in the cement pond. He is likely to do that in winter, albeit very briefly.

Since February, our transparent but bubbly solar blanket has covered the pool keeping heat in and evaporation down.

Pool Time is when the water is warm enough for Shari to swim a lap or two that pool time begins. That happened in early March.

Then we had another spell of rain. Good stuff for the environment, but a bit nippy for Pool Time.

A couple of weeks ago friends from Portland went for serious swims, doing the Australian crawl (do they still call it that?), when the water was hovering in the high seventies.

They say high seventies is a perfect temperature for serious swimming, but I am not a serious swimmer. I like lollygagging in the pool, and I hate getting my hair wet.

By this last weekend, the water was around eighty-seven. The weather is turning hot, a bit too hot for just entering into spring, but great for the cement pond.

The water is warm enough to hang around in the late afternoons and sip on a prickly pear margarita.

Yesterday Shari did some twenty laps.

We have entered Pool Time.

Blue Agave Eruption

Speaking (or writing) about floral puberty, a blue agave decided to go for it a couple of weeks ago.

All I know is I was thinning out agave suckers by the gravel driveway. That evening, I walked back to marvel at my work. That was when I noticed the blue agave stalk. It was probably three or four days old, but already humungous.

That erection will grow for about a month then explode in little stalks covered with flowers.

I similarly noticed a fourth green agave erupting. The story is similar. I was walking through our Sonoran acre when I noticed it had already from some five or six feet.

A green agave's erection is nothing compared to that of a full grown blue agave. It's huge.

The photo on the left, taken on March 21, maybe one week into the erection, shows the agave itself which is about six feet tall. The stalk is about two feet in circumference. I just went outside to check and the stalk has doubled in height since the photo was taken.

Then there is the hanging cactus (right) whose flowers last only a couple of days.

It must be spring.

Plant Puberty

A green agave shoots out its flower stalk.

Among animals generally, elaborate courting, rutting and mating are common, but not ceremonies on the occasion of puberty. The plant world is gorgeous for its sexual, floral displays, but not so much for a plant's first time. Only humans make a big deal out of coming of age.

Except the agave; on both counts: sex and puberty.

Like most life forms, the sex life of an agave is elaborate and beautiful. This is, of course, its flowers. They are a huge display on the end of a tall shoot. They are kind of like a billboard, so we can call such floral displays "billboard flowers."

By contrast, many cactuses just grow a big flower on the side of their head; no stalk. We call such flowering cactuses "Frida Kahloes" (not to confuse the term with aloes or kalanchoes, which are billboard flowers).

But unlike any other life form, except homo sapiens, the first time in the life of an agave is a unique celebration; even more so than for humans for the agaves that do it only once.

This is about two or three days worth.

No, not coming of age. That necessarily happens only once. Doing "it." Sex. Flower.

Many agaves live a good many years (not a century, although its life cycle is the occasion for the century plant's name), then grow a fantastic billboard, erupt in flowers, attract bats from as far away as Mexico, then expire.

When you literally put your life into "it", then by comparison, a bar mitzvah or tribal scarring is a rather dull affair.

The reason I mention all this is because it is spring, when a young man's fancy turns to …, as it does for some species of agave that have matured to the point of puberty. They erupt with a sudden and huge stalk. It's a huge affair. They grow amazingly fast.

Every day I spend time in our San Simeon Acre of the Sonoran Desert. Only yesterday I noticed not one, not two, but three green agaves throwing up shoots. These are not small shoots. Within days they equal the height of the underlying plant. Within weeks they equal its mass. It is their rite of puberty. It is the sugar in their core (which we ferment to make tequila).

In a few weeks the tops of the stalks will burst with sticky sweet flowers. By late summer, the agave will be spent, shriveled from exhaustion, near death. Now that's impressive sex!

Thai Souvenirs

Our home near Kamala beach, Phuket, for a week.
Electric kettle to the right, off camera.

It's been almost three weeks since our return from vacation in Thailand and we have some precious souvenirs in addition to many point-and-shoot, iPad and Kindle snaps.

First and foremost is our new electric teapot. Our room for the week at our Phuket resort was equipped with a small electric kettle that boiled water for tea or instant coffee. That kettle boiled water faster than I could rip open the coffee packets, and it didn't radiate water particles with microwaves. We had to get one upon our return home. Very excellent.

Seafood curry prepared, served, and devoured
at a beachside shack at Kamala.

Then there is Thai food. Our resort served breakfast buffets with food you would order for a fine dinner at a Thai restaurant: some four or six different stir fries and Thai curries, pork, chicken, Chinese broccoli or cabbage; a couple of different fried rices; relishes and Korean kimchee; and salads and fresh fruit to die for, beginning with mangos, papaya, pineapple and watermelon.

Our urban hotel in Bangkok, our first night in Thailand, had a similar breakfast buffet. Then there was the floating restaurant near Bang Sai where no one bothers with English subtitles. My stepmother Darany served us baby bananas grown in her yard, pineapple, ripe passion fruit, and other tropical treats — fresh and dried — that I can't even begin to remember (or, in some cases, identify). Endless delectables.

Bougainvillea hedge, Bang Sai.

Fortunately for Tucson, we have an Asian mega-supermarket so we can stock up on any number of Thai curry sauces, lemon grass, galangal and, of course, coconut milk. We've dusted off my old Thai cookbook and have been dining on attempted reproductions of red curry shrimp, panang curry shrimp, and panang curry beef. We have been feasting on mangos, pineapple and papaya.

Then there is bougainvillea. Darany has a green thumb and a lush garden in Bang Sai, some sixty kilometers north of Bangkok. We stayed there three nights marveling at the tropical flowers and fruit trees blooming all over her yard. She has orchids everywhere and a bougainvillea hedge by her driveway.

Multi-colored bougainvillea blooms, Ayutthaya.

Driving through Bangkok, we saw tropical blooms by the side of the freeways — unwatered, untended, engulfed in a heavy urban environment, but innocently lush.

If that wasn't inspirational enough, we saw grafted bougainvillea shrubs blooming in various colors from the same root. We saw such shrubs planted in a monastery at Ayutthaya, then at our resort in Phuket.

Orchids are tough to grow in the Sonoran Desert, but bougainvillea is popular because it thrives in heat. We have several of the vine variety by the fish pond. Although they die back with the frost, they are hardy and grow back each spring. I wasn't familiar with the bush variety. We now have three bushes, souvenirs of Thailand.

Shari and Darany about to feast for lunch. Menu on the left.

Fortunately, Darany ordered.

Two pairs of woolen socks complete this list of Thai souvenirs. They were a gift from Darany. I can understand why she wouldn't have much use for them in Thailand. It's hardly cold there. (She has yet to use the hot water heater for her morning shower).

Not so for me. Those socks are warm and comfy. Two February weeks in Thailand and we had forgotten that it was still winter back in the Sonoran Desert. Our bodies had become accustomed to the tropical warmth. Upon our return, I was chilled and those woolen socks were a godsend.

Early Spring Blooms

On our little acre of the Sonoran Desert, my first suggestion of spring flowers is the aloe. Like agaves, they send up a tall stalk on which they parade their bright flowers.

Maybe the stalk serves to allow pollinating critters the opportunity to imbibe the nectar without risk of being impaled on the spines that line each fleshy leaf — but unlikely. The only critter harmed by those spines is people.

Chances are, the stalks are a form of advertising.

Aloe flower stalks have been forming for over a month and are now in full bloom all over the garden. That's because over the last couple of years, I've pulled up all the aloes in back of the pond and replanted them all over the place. They are remarkably hardy and establish quickly. Almost as quickly they send out shoots and propagate new plants.

The other early suggestion of spring is our lone but mature yucca in the front yard. Ordinarily two or three dense growths begin forming at their tops, slowly growing slender in height, then exploding into hundreds of nectar-filled flowers. Insects love them.

This winter we received good rainfall. (I don't know whose rain we got, but thanks to whoever is missing their usual winter precipitation.) This year the yucca has fired up seven flower stalks. Count 'em.

I want to plant some more yuccas. I did spread some joshua tree seeds in the yard. Maybe they will sprout.

It should be a great spring for flowers. As I walk Nazar in the wash, I spot some weeds that display gorgeous little flowers. If only I could remember which weed is which, I would keep from digging up the ones with nice flowers that don't turn sticky or explosive as they turn to seed.