The desert is green!!!

Winter before last (our first here) was incredibly, unusually dry - so dry that most Hopi (traditionally farmers) didn't even bother planting any crop in the spring and summer. As a consequence, nothing grew in our yard last year except a lot of tumbleweed and pigweed (both thorny and nasty), some hardy mint, and a few glorious sunflowers. This last winter, however, has been a lot more normal, with a few good snowfalls. As a result, our warm weather lately has catapulted the desert, and even our backyard, into a lush greenness (at least to our eyes), somewhat evident even in the aftermath of this late snowfall a week ago.

Here you see our amazing mint and brave peach tree, as well as the detritus blown against our fence after a full day of 30-50 MPH winds

Keep in mind, the above are pictures from over a week ago. Check out these pics of our trees now: a blossom from the peach tree and our happy Navajo willow with the desert behind it the greenest we've ever seen:

And how are the poor abused plants in our cold frame doing? Well, they're markedly better and actually growing daily now, but it still may be awhile before we're enjoying a home grown salad (although I did hopefully plant cilantro last week in the sad blank spaces):

And to close, we've gotten four more flowers from our bulbs (since the blue iris that bloomed a month ago)! I haven't yet taken photos of the two yellow irises (or crocuses, I'm not sure) out front, but here are the two red tulips that came up in our backyard. See if you can guess which one bears the Papaya's loving touch (he's obviously inherited our black thumb-ness).