Rockhound State Park Poppy Bloom

Unlike Walker Canyon near Lake Elsinore in Southern California, which is facing a Poppy Apocalypse according to the local Sheriffs Department, the State of Manana offers a much more relaxed way to view the blooms.

The wonderpup and I visited Rockhound State Park last week to peek at the poppies.

The park is about 12 miles southeast of Deming on the west slope of the Florida Mountains. Florida means flower in Spanish so I figured we were in the right place.

A complete overview of the park can be found in my post from last year:

http://wgwood.blogspot.com/2018_03_07_archive.html

Check it out, especially at the end where Freddy finds a Giant Mountain Rabbit.

And here is a poppy pic.

The best way to take photos like this is to lay down on the ground at worm level and use a fairly wide aperture to blur the background. Most of my pics were taken at f/6 at a1/500 of a second. Cell cameras users won't get the same results.

The poppies have a sensual shape so I zoomed and cropped the next batch of photos.

The photo below looks like the little bud is wondering whats going on. Hey, that's where the term late bloomer comes from.

Not just the poppies were blooming. I found a neat spot with a variety of desert colors.

And let us not forget the other desert fauna. The ones that don't like to be touched.

This one looked surprisingly edible.

Yes, the barrel cactus offers up little delicacies that can be removed with just a twist.

Tell me how they taste. I hear that if dipped in honey they are delicious

I did find something that I couldn't identify.

It was more hairy than prickly and the black part was sorta damp when I poked it. Which woke Freddy up from his nap. He wasn't happy.

He mumbled something about stupid humans poking at noses and went back to sleep.

Regards,
Greg and the disgruntled Freddy