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Your sweetie loves the prickly pear. She cannot say why... Well, she can really. It is scrappy and tough, and intrepidly beautiful, and those flowers when they bloom! So she loves the prickly pear, and so does your best friend Indigo, who grew up with a mother who wore feathers in her hair and was very fond of parrots. Which is the reason that you all get along so awfully well: a shared infatuation with that plant which, admit it, you too adore more than you can logically express. Which is the reason that you need no reason but your own love of the prickly-pear, or the love of your friends who love prickly-pear, to send them a fine depiction of that beloved plant (and a very nice and friendly jackrabbit to keep it company).
Other Things You Might Like to Know: The original artwork is watercolor and graphite | © 2017 Melinda Nettles | Designed and printed in Oregon, USA | Paper by Neenah and envelopes by Mohawk are minimum 30% Post-consumer recycled content and FSC® Certified |
The Back Story:
When the young Mrs. Edelweiss arrived in sunny California, her native Alps fresh in her mind, she was well surprised to encounter giant-eared bunnies with scrap enough to take on prickly plants, and dusty edges, and coyotes, and suchlike. As the years passed and her short-cropped tawny hair turned ever snowier, Mrs. Edelweiss developed a considerable admiration for these plucky souls. She was thusly quite pleased to find that Hilda, a jackrabbit with no experience of towering snowy peaks, seemed to take comfort in what had become her very pride and joy: the well manicured cactus garden off her back patio. For her part, Hilda, once she conquered her fear of the garden hose and became accustomed to the unusual tidiness, became a regular visitor. Henceforth, the two cultivated a sort of interspecies friendship that depended upon neither being offended when the other skeetered away unexpectedly. So it is, that on many an evening, as the sun slides a little low and the breeze picks up, you will find Mrs. Edelweiss employed with her small rake, or filling with precision the small hollows around the prickly-pear with her watering can, while Hilda sits in the shady edges, quietly watching, ever ready to hop away, both enjoying the beauty of the remaining day.* *Ever So Important Note: In case you were wondering, which of course you were, those little birdies hanging about in the background like to make their nests over in the cholla patch, or sometimes in a suitable notch betwixt the pads of the prickly-pear, or up in a hole in the oldest of the saguaro, but not in the desert willow over by the bird-bath, because it is of course already occupied by a couple of very tiny wrens and their bustling brood. They are adaptable birdies, not too picky, not too proud, but they do prefer a view of the mountains, a little morning light, and just a touch of shelter on the coolest of nights. |