Glass sculptures in the garden

I went to the gardens.
There were pretty, pretty things there.  Sculptures by Dale Chihuly.

Alongside desert landscape, they were very striking.

chihuly - Video Maker

Saguaro mountain

They're like sentinels, standing tall all over this mountain.

Desert landscape

It's deserty out there, isn't it?

Prickly pear

The prickly pear, nature's bounty.

Right?

Baloo says so.

We tried it.  And by "we", I mean I didn't do any work but only documented that it happened. 

So prickly pair growing along sidewalks are plenteous right now.  But they are sharp little things, and obtaining a bucketful was not without some pricks and tears.

 To get rid of the prickliness, the pears were held over an open flame just long enough to singe them all off. 

Prickly pears have good color.

 And a pretty purple juice once you strip off their skin and squeeze it out of the pulp and seeds.

 The juice was boiled with half a cup of sugar.

The yield of twenty prickly pears was a very small amount of syrup.  Less than a cup.

Worth all that work?  Maybe for the wisdom and experience gained?
Perhaps. 
If I really have a hankerin' for it, though, I'll probably let somebody else do the work and buy prickly pear jam at the store.

Cacti

A cactus is what you'd expect to see in the desert.
That there are so many different kinds of them, you might not expect.
Here are a few of them.

Desert Botanical Garden

There is a botanical garden in the desert of Phoenix.  If you are brave enough to face the heat, you can take a tour, or take a class.

You will for sure see lots of cacti.

But, no.  Those ones are not real.