Description

This painting will be available for purchase at COWGIRL UP at the Desert Caballeros Western Museum, March 3rd, 2025
please call 928-684-2272

Sedona Windsock
Soap Tree Yucca*, Sedona Airport
Bloomed 6/17/23, 8:30 PM
28×22 Oil on Canvas
I like airports, especially the small-town variety. This probably stems from my dad’s love of aviation and our frequent visits to my hometown airport in Auburn, California as I was growing up. Here in Arizona, we have some very charming small airports. The Sedona Airport is probably the most picturesque. Perched atop Table Top Mesa and surrounded by red buttes, you just can’t beat it, especially at sunset.

After a warm June day of kayaking on the Verde River, we sat with an adult beverage on the edge of the runway watching small planes touch the tarmac, and we reminisced about Dad. I noticed a nearby yucca plant, its blooms gently ringing in the breeze. They reminded me of an aviation staple, the windsock.

New technology comes and goes, but good aviators still rely on the humble windsock to determine windspeed and direction. If it ain’t broke, no need to fix it.

As the sun lowered in the sky, these yucca blooms were waiting for another type of landing. According to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, “Biologists have only recently determined that almost every species of yucca has its own species of yucca moth; some yuccas have two moth species.”

It turns out yucca reproduction depends on moths, and moth reproduction depends on the yucca. The moth cross-pollinates and lays eggs on the pollinated ovary, where hatchlings can dine on the flowers.

As I savored the last pour of Page Springs wine, I thought I heard: “Moths, this is the tower. You are clear for landing; enjoy your stay in Sedona, where the temperature is a balmy 80 degrees and the sunsets are unbeatable.”

*Chemicals in the roots of some yucca species are used to make soap.