Cruising along

In my zealous optimism I expected it to rain at CMO during the last couple of days. Perfect weather, but no rain. So before I came to town today I had to water everything. Lots of places around me got rain though. Oh, well, my turn is coming.

This is the first year my orange acanthus has outshone the red acanthus. (I'm not sure of their names, either English or Latin, but one of them may be Flame Acanthus [anisacanthus quadrifidus wrightii]).

The reason may be that it took the orange ones longer to get established since I planted them a couple of years after the red ones. I hope they look this good every year. They're awesome! Makes the hummingbird garden look good, even though the hummers prefer the feeders.

I was hurting so bad in the night last night that I got up and took a couple of ibuprofen. Wow, what a difference that made! I felt great all day and no pain. I figure it's not masking the pain, which I'm opposed to, but reducing the inflammation, which is a good thing. My hip is hurting this evening but the rest of me is still good to go. That was only the second time I took anything for pain all during the making of both trails. It seems like if a person could keep the inflammation down they could keep arthritis at bay.

Back in Alpine where it has rained recently, I found an Aztec Dancer damselfly. Nothing special, just my first one this year. I plan to go to Lajitas next week to see what odes I can find there.