Halloween Extravaganza 2022

Halloween Extravaganza in Colorado!

Vitamin D for bone health!
The green pumpkin featured ominous phrases such as "I smell children" (one of Susanna's creations 😄)

So actually the main reason for Mom and my visit was to see Nora and Soren's marching band final competition.  They performed a show titled "The Siren's Lament".  It was very intricate! Light years ahead of what we called halftime shows back in my high school band days!

Team colors

Nora is a senior and plays tuba in this performance (they usually play trombone and bass trombone most of the time though).  Soren is a freshman and is one of two snare drummers, which is a pretty prestigious member of the band, I'd say.

Here's a snippet of the show:

After the band performances Saturday it was full-on Halloween mode back at the house:

This is actually just Susanna doing homework.  Even when at rest she is apparently a magnet for props and accessories.

Ahoy!

I'm gonna need those TPS reports by lunch, that'd be greeeaaat...
Characters "Joanna" and "Bill Lumburgh" from family-favorite movie Office Space.

Take note of this fashionable blue cat tunnel... you'll be seeing it again 🤣

Zany style

Oh hey, it's Cher!

Susanna was very proud of her awesome witch costume!  A character from the movie Hocus Pocus.

Soren was there too.  He wasn't much in the holiday spirit though, and that's O.K.

The rest of us, however, might have gone a little... overboard:

Cher "If I Could Turn Back Time"

Pt. 1

(Sorry, I had to break the videos into pieces to upload them here)

 Pt. 2

Pt. 3

We composed not one, but two music videos!

Rick Astley "Never Gonna Give You Up"

Pt. 1

Pt. 2

Pt. 3

Pt. 4

I had a lot of fun editing the videos.  It was my first time ever trying that.  We all were really tickled with how they turned out!

Well, I'll end with some random landscape shots.

We sell this Bouteloua grass at work.  I am a fan of its C-shaped seedheads, which earn it the common name "eyelash grass".  Colorado in the winter can be very beautiful with its golden fields and crystal-blue skies.

Sun going down behind Pike's Peak

I have always loved looking out the airplane windows and seeing the land from an aerial perspective.  And this is my favorite kind of pattern to observe, from afar as well as up close: branching/converging.  To me it symbolizes a lot of things.  I see the pathways as metaphorical representations of our thought processes and brain synapses.  I see energy accumulating, and as it does so, finding ways to join together for greater efficiency.  I like to think about Time as a flowing process, like that of water reacting to gravity and other external forces... leading somewhere for reasons still mysterious.  We're lucky just to hitch a ride for a little while, in the grand scheme of things.
So that's what I had in mind in naming this blog, if anyone was wondering.

Blue Skies, Blue Oaks, Blue Heron

 

Oh--hello there!

It has been a little while...  Sometimes I get distracted.

However, I was fortunate to enjoy a delightfully fun visit by my aunt Lori and Brian.  They are en route from Oregon to Arizona for the winter months.

I hadn't been out for a good hike in a while and they helped me break that spell with a jaunt up by Lake Hennessey.

As we set out on the trail, we were stunned by this Black Walnut with it's autumn yellow leaves aglow.

A Blue Heron perched above the waters of the lake.

The West-facing hillside was forested by what I am pretty confident are Blue Oaks (Quercus douglasii).  Initially, their leaflessness made us ask if they were alive, as we were driving toward our destination and seeing other areas near lake Berryessa that had burned.  But then I recalled that blue oaks were deciduous, like the larger Valley Oaks which I am more accustomed to seeing down in the valley.

One portion of the trail had the name "Old Man's Beard Trail" due to the lace lichen draped all over the oak branches.

Group photo!:

I forgot to mention that little Juno was also in attendance!  He, too, was overjoyed to be out romping.

Centuries-old century plants (Agave americana)?

I love watching corvids this time of year... they're always up to something.  This raven was vocalizing from his perch.

Toyon berries create a nice holiday feeling. 

It was great catching up with Lori and Brian and Juno.  We had good food, laughs, and saw some beautiful new sights! Thanks so much for stopping by!

Summer Moments

. ~ Hello! ~ .

🌞

Here are just a few snapshots of the last few weeks...

My friend and coworker, David, and I took his kayaks out on the Napa River.  We had a great time exploring the river from Kennedy Park at the south end of town almost all the way to Trancas on Napa's north side.  We saw a lot of birds, including green herons, osprey, and kingfisher.  It was a fun day!

I helped my good friend Eddie's dad with a nice low-water perennial flower bed.  It was fun to design a garden that doesn't have to contend with deer.  I picked a lot of my favorite plants with the goal of "tons of color" in mind.  Rudbeckia, Coreopsis, Buddleia, Gaura, Salvia, Heuchera, Ceanothus, Gaillardia, Kniphofia, Monarda, Japanese Anemone, Oenothera... 

Oh, and while we did not do any fishing on kayak day, I have been casting a line around the house whenever I get the chance... and I caught a pretty big catfish the other day!

We'll be eating good tonight!

An update on the outdoor cat situation: While I am proud to have gotten 3 young cats fixed this year, I am slowly coming to terms with the notion that I may be the only one feeding them, and may have to do it on a regular basis... I only started doing this so that I could trap them, but now I don't think they are going to the neighbor's house for food anymore.  They live around my house and act like I am their sole food provider, and I can't let them go hungry, sooo......

The 3 closest cats are the 3 that seem to have "moved in" with me, sleeping in my salvia bushes and lounging on the outdoor furniture.

I learned about a species of native bee I wasn't previously familiar with.  The digger bee.  They are solitary bees (so they don't pool their resources and do that level of social stuff).  They nest in holes in the ground.  And I believe it is the same species of bee that I was so excited to catch a video recording of as it "buzz pollinated" my tomato flowers last year.  "Buzz pollinating" is a special coevolution between some species of bees and some species of plants, which have flowers requiring a certain frequency vibration in order to shake loose their pollen and pollinate the flower more efficiently.  Tomatos are one such plant.  Anyway, the digger bees have a slightly wider body shape, and more of a black-white coloration, rather than the stereotypical black-yellow of, say, a honeybee.

This one was into the Agastache at the nursery.  Digger bees are a little more rapid-moving than honeybees, making for a challenging photo shoot!

Coming in for a landing. . .

Here is another snapshot from Van Winden's, the nursery I work at.  Our "California Native Plants" corner!  We started grouping some of our natives here a year or so ago and it has been a nice feature of the bedding section of the nursery.  With water restrictions going into place and more and more awareness of drought and the advantage of planting water-wise plants, which many California natives are, more and more people have been seeking out native plants.

With summer setting in and the land drying up, as it does every year, I am proud to have a good selection to offer our customers!  A perk of being the plant orderer is I get to represent plants I really believe in, and that makes me feel good at the end of the day.

And meanwhile, back at my own home, I have a nursery table of my own plants:

What has been really exciting me lately (I think about checking on them every morning and it motivates me to do my day 😊) are these Dudleya farinosa I started from seeds collected out around Salt Point this past winter.  Dudleyas are commonly referred to as "Live-Forever", as they are slow growing and some can be very long-lived, poking out of cracks and crevices in cliffsides along the California coast, as well as inland.

Those two in the back right are the standout over-achievers of the bunch.  My little guys!! 💚

And last but not least, a throwback to the Fourth of July when Mark and I collaborated on some seafood paella cooked over open flame in Mom's backyard.  We used clams, shrimp, chicken, peppers and a bunch of other good flavors - Yummy yummy yummy!

 ~ Thanks for tuning in ~

+

~ Have a beautiful rest of your day! ~

Yachats! Part Three - Some Other Stuff

 Just a few more snippets from Yachats...

We did a little bike ride up Yachats River Road to the succulent nursery there.  I was really surprised with how large it was (for a small business scale).  Apparently they sell at Portland flower markets.  They had recently changed ownership and the young man that we spoke with seemed genuine and kind.

I got to try out dad's electric bike.  It is very nice, especially for uphill, you hardly have to pedal at all if you are so inclined.

 On our way back down the road I was at the back of our group and I noticed Gail and Dad had stopped up ahead and I wasn't sure why... then I saw the bear up ahead crossing the road!  It was immersed in the bushes again a moment after I saw it, but then, one after another, two cubs followed after it.  Wow!  We were only a few hundred yards from the house.  We half expected to see them again as we had happy hour on the deck.

That evening we went into town for dinner at the Drift Inn.

(Pizzaaa yummm)

Centranthus in bloom.

Angry!                         /                                 Happy!

 

...amazing what that first sip of beer can do!  😄

Park restroom at sunset...

...Everything is beautiful when you're on vacation.

~~~~~

No photographic evidence exists of our burrito bar dinner with Lori, Bryan, and of course Daisy's best friend Juno!  It was a wonderful evening and great to catch up with them.  They just embarked on a long road trip shortly after we saw them - happy trails!

I do, however, have photographic evidence (albeit pretty blurry) of the mama river otter and at least one baby we saw down at Riversong's "Baboon Beach", where Dad and I went to do a little inner tube float on a warm summer day.

At first Dad thought he saw a big fish swimming.  Then she popped her head up and watched us for 15 seconds or so before swimming past us with the smaller one.

A fortuitous start to the first river float of the year.  May there be many more, equally enchanted moments in these whimsical waters!

~~~~~

Just a few more snapshots around the house...

Cat in the grass!  Hummingbirds beware!  (Actually she had to be put inside for being too creepy to the local bird population - sorry Yummy!  We still think you're cute.)

Gail and the magic beanstalk!  I am very jealous of their "Helda" romano beans with their gigantic leaves and "sky-high by the 4th of July" stature. I introduced this variety to them a couple years ago.  This year mine are puny though... I just sprayed them because they had spider mites actually.  Maybe if I show them this picture they will be inspired  😀

  

Daisy posing with her namesakes in the greenhouse.

And of course it is always a pleasure to cross paths with Penelope, however brief our interactions may be.  

Well, it has been a delight revisiting this fun trip.  I can't explain how good it felt to get out of my bubble and spend some quality time in nature with some of my favorite people.  Gail always sets the guest room up nice and cozy with DVD's to watch and there is always an abundance of good nourishing food to be found... and soul-nourishing good times.  I hope to return soon!