Friday, August 23, 2013

Another gorgeous Sunset...

Life is good!

Here's hoping y'all have a great weekend!!

Thursday, August 22, 2013

A good question and here is the answer...

I was asked why I call the fruit on Prickly Pear cacti "tuna's" and after looking in my reference books that is what they call them.

The word 'tuna' is Spanish for the fruit of a plant. That's why it's used to describe the fruit of the prickly pear cactus [Opuntia spp]. I also looked online and found this article:

In late summer in Mexico, prickly pear cactus fruits, or tunas, are everywhere—a refreshing snack eaten out of hand and a popular ingredient in candies, drinks, jams, and more. In Oaxaca, they spoon a dollop of pureed tunas on top of horchata, the milky rice-almond drink, but you can use it just about anywhere you'd use an apple—in salads, for example, or even in tarts. The cactus grows wild all over Mexico; it's also cultivated on plantations. Cactus pads, or nopales, are eaten year-round, but it's only in summer that the fruits reach maturity. Varieties number in the hundreds, with flavor profiles ranging from creamy-sweet to brisk and tart. The dark nubs on the skin contain sharp spines, but these are easily removed by slicing off the ends of the fruit, making lengthwise incisions, and peeling back the rind to reveal the luscious flesh.

Lazy Lizard, Watermelon and Storm clouds to the North...

This is our last week of Summer break, school starts Monday! I enjoyed my evening down at the property as I won't have too many more evenings there with a school bedtime of 8pm. We had a great summer and honestly I don't want school to start, sigh!

I had to laugh at the Scaly Lizard, too funny. Seems he or she found a comfy spot on the clothes line to take a snooze...I didn't even seem to bother it when I took a towel off the line!

Looking North at about 7:30pm...

We still have a few watermelons growing in the garden!

Gorgeous cloud formations to the North at Sunset!

I posted this photo on the US National Weather Service Austin-San Antonio Texas facebook site and they posted it on their timeline too cool...it is pretty neat.