Backyard Camelot

Saguaros have almost become cartoons.
When old, they are huge, heavy, monarchs
of the kingdom they occupy in the Sonora.

But in souvenir shops, they are trinkets,
wearing Christmas tree lights and cowboy hats.
Were I standing next to a saguaro such as the one at right,
I would not even show at the base, unless
I were wearing Christmas tree lights and a cowboy hat.

When Mari's Iowa-born dad first saw a Saguaro, here in Tucson,
he asked, as an Iowa farmer might, "What are they good for?"
No cobs.  No way to bale them.  Full of water, they won't burn.

Oddly enough, tiny young saguaros are easily sunburned,
toasting like an Iowan in the Sonoran sunblast.
People who plant tiny saguaros on their property often
put up little tents, little metal roofs, to shade them.
In their natural state, young saguaros survive best
when they find themselves rooting under the shade of a nurse tree.
A nurse tree is an established tree providing shade under which
other little green things can grow in the filtered light.

Outside our kitchen window, there is a rather large palo verde tree.
Palo verde:  in Spanish, "Stick green", or green stick.
It gets its name from the fact that it has chlorophyl not only in its leaves,
but in its branches, as well.  That is to say, its sticks are green, too.

We have known since we first moved here, that our palo verde
nursed a cactus under its branches; a rather forlorn multi-stemmed cactus.
I had trimmed a few branches from the palo verde to make room
for a bird feeder, allowing the birds to hide in the tree, safe from hawks,
and hop to the feeder as they wished.  Later, I put up a small platform
to raise a quail block--something like a salt block for cattle--for quail
and doves and any other birds willing to work for their food.

Yesterday, Mari said, "Look under the tree!  The cactus is blooming!"
And blooming it was!  It had more than half a dozen glorious white blossoms,
half a foot wide, peeking out through the "green sticks", born overnight,
already willing to give up their one night and day of glory.

The cactus was not a saguaro:  it is an organ pipe.
The blossoms are, like a lot of things that have to survive in the desert,
quick to open, and almost as quick, again, to drop whatever it is
they are doing, and retreat to a closed position.

But, to quote that most beautiful line from Camelot:
"Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot,
for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot!"