It’s springtime in the desert Southwest and the cactus are blooming. I stopped on the side of the road yesterday and took some pictures. Here is a Hedgehog cactus with striking flowers:

Or how about a prickly pear cactus with pale yellow flowers:

Once the prickly pear flowers drop, this cactus makes big fat prickly pear fruit about the size of a fig. When I was down in Chile last year I stayed with a fellow traveller. She fed me prickly pear fruit. They are full of seeds, so kind of hard to eat. But they weren’t bad really. In Mexico they scrape the needles off the prickly pear pads, slice up the pads and cook them. Good to know if you’re stuck out in the desert with nothing to eat. Here is another picture I took yesterday out in the desert. it is a prickly pear in the foreground with a Cholla (cho-ya) cactus with red flowers behind it:

Looking closely at the thorns on this cactus you can easily see why it is called a Fish Hook Cactus:

Some of the cactus out in the desert yesterday were making rather rude hand gestures:

Okay, this Saguaro cactus was a mutant with seven fingers. But it still might make a nice postcard to send to your mother-in-law. Just kidding.