The Weather and the Fraud

 How, you must wonder, has the weather been lately?  Other than hot, it's been like this.  March was like this, as well.  We seem to have a new normal here.

I scraped this off a newspaper site.  They did not identify the road, but I'm pretty sure it's north of here where the ever industrious farmers have scraped the desert and unleashed the dust into the air. 

Back at the end of February, I posted a picture of a lot that had been cleared for building a new house.   Later I mentioned the massive rant one of the builders had launched about shortages and prices.  Now we are in the end of April and two guys have managed to erect all of this.  I'm impressed at how much two middle aged men have been able to accomplish in this time frame.

The peach version of prickly pears.  This is one of my favorite colors.

This color is also nice.  I'm not sure what color that is.

This is a ferocactus, another impulse buy at a nursery.  We have got to stop doing this, there's just not that much room in the side yard.  The sign at the nursery said it was cold tolerant to 10F.  A couple of articles I have read say it's 10C, which is 50F.  He may become a house plant.  We're contemplating having the front yard landscaped, but can not decide what to put out there, so we're in nurseries too much.  Since it requires a jack hammer (literally) to dig out there, help will be required.  So far we've cycled through do nothing, put in a tree, put in an agave, do all of the above.  Our ability to make a decision seems to have suffered in the past year.

The doves were courting on the plant spike, I was hoping to get that picture, but instead captured them flying away.  Wretched doves, they're dropping sticks all over the patio, they're in the process of making one of their miserable nests.  Really, they make the worst nests in the world.  It's a good thing for them that they breed year round.

Today the lunatic fringe republicans have a court date to reveal their processes and procedures for an accurate recount of the votes for the orange ectoplasm and Mark Kelly (democratic senator).  They're only counting the votes they didn't like.  Thus far, the doors to the coliseum where the ballots currently reside have been left unlocked, people have wandered in.  The press is not allowed in at all unless they agree to work a six hour counting shift.  One of the most egregious things is the fact that the man running the effort was unaware of the importance of the ink color in pens being used . Official poll workers are not allowed to even possess a black or blue pen in the counting areas because that is what the election equipment reads.  Only red pens are allowed.  The first day an Arizona Republic (newspaper) reporter had a six hour shift.  She saw the black pens and told the Cyber Ninja guy that this was not allowed.  He thought it would be ok.  Later he banished the pens, but it took awhile.  The AZ Republic reporter has been banned from the coliseum after talking to Rachel Maddow about it.  These people have already lost chain of custody, but it won't stop them from manufacturing lies about election fraud.  There was an article on Yahoo via NYT about the death threats that the board of supervisors are receiving.  Death threats, and this is an open carry state.  

Other than this, there is not much shaking in Ye Olde Pueblo.