Another cross-quarter day. Are we really only half way through Spring? Here is Southern New Mexico it doesn’t feel like it. The extreme drought doesn’t help.
When we moved into our house it had orange stone in the front yard, apparently a recent decision to give up on grass. Evidence suggests that when the houses on our street were built, in the 1980s, front yard grass was the norm. One by one the yards have been converted to stone and xeriscaping.
We didn’t want to invest in replacing the sprinklers with a new watering system for native plants, so we invested in sculpture instead.
We now have a resident roadrunner, a small yucca, and an ocotillo.
We are saving water, even over nature’s version of the same plants. But there are a few weeks each year when the real ocotillos make our metal one want to hide its head in shame.
My Neighbor’s Ocotillo
freethoughtandmetaphor 
May 01, 2013 @ 13:14:36
Here in New England it’s hard to believe that spring is already half over; it seems just to have begun. I enjoyed the photographs, especially of the “real” ocotillo.
May 04, 2013 @ 18:56:51
In Colorado, many neighborhoods were converting to xeriscaping and lawn ornaments, but this “spring” is still winter and no one is deciding until the snow is gone. I love your roadrunner ornament.