brrrrrrrr - winter

Winter definitely arrived in the Old Pueblo (Tucson's nickname).  The last several days have been nasty - at least for us!  And for my poor plants!

I admit that I'm not very good at xeriscaping - I love my flowers too much.  But usually they do pretty well, even in the winter.  Not when a serious hard freeze hits though.
 
My elephant ear philodendron is generally pretty temperature tolerant - not this week. 


And the poinsettias that I've planted after the past couple Christmas seasons, that were just showing color, are gone!  :o(
 


The cactus are unhappy too.  Of these three, one is obviously totally frozen, and the skinny thing laying on its side used to be standing almost three feet tall.  The bluish cow tongue prickly pear used to be standing upright too.

And then there are the poor hummingbirds - when I let my pup out to pee this morning (I wasn't about to take her for a stroll yet - it was still 22 degrees!), I noticed three little hummers sitting on a branch all fluffed up trying to stay alive, and they were staring at me.  At least it felt like they were staring at me.

I remembered that I had made two fresh feeders full of their sugar water when this Arctic low swept in.  I looked again and realized all that lovely food was frozen solid.  I rushed in and made up fresh warm juice for them, and they obviously put the word out because both feeders are being flocked right now!  Poor babies!!

At least our winter is showing signs of being over by this weekend - the weather people are saying it will be back in the 70s by Friday!  I'm ready!