Towering palm trees, I'm awfully frond of you*

I was born in San Diego, and there developed a real weakness for

very tall, slender, old palm trees.

Last week DH & I drove by a part of San Jose that had a lot of them.

I vowed to walk there if possible.

Next morning I googled "palm tree-lined streets San Jose, CA" and BAM!

Palm Haven pops up, established 1913, incorporated in 1917.**

Which I'm thinkin' means these lovelies are one hundred years old.

Wow!!

And they were just a few blocks away from us.

Thank you, magical internet.

Witches can be wounded via impact with palm trees--look out, ladies!

Some of these trees may be nearly 100 feet tall.**

The tallest ones would be the Mexican fan palm (Washingtonia robusta); the species I adore.

And these elegant trees may be just about at their age limit.

L.A. (which also has very old palms) is replacing dying palms

with trees that provide more shade and can remove more pollution.

Palm Haven's tall, thin lovelies. *happy sigh*

We may be living in the golden years of tall, old palms in California.

It might be wise to appreciate them now. =)

In all their spindly glory.

xoxoxobb

P.S. For more info, there's a brief history of palm trees in Southern California online which includes a photo from 1918 Beverly Hills, a long boulevard with stubby little planted palms. SO CUTE!

*With apologies to sesamestreet.org & their charming "Rubber Ducky" song. It's the 1st record I remember getting fm. my parents & I'm pretty sure it made me so happy I cried. Also, apologies for the pun, but it was just SITTING there, STARING at me.

**Wiki page on Palm Haven, and PalmHaven dot info.

The world is on fire... or at least California is.

This freaky sunset brought to you by the Butte Fire (taken last Friday)

This was my drive into Sonora, Calif., last Thursday afternoon...

 The Butte Fire started the previous afternoon, about 43 miles from Sonora,

and since spread quickly and moved a lot closer.

Drive to Sonora Friday afternoon... a wee bit smokier.

Note how dark it is, at 5:30 p.m. Spooky stuff.

I've never been anywhere with such thick smoke.

Tiny bits of white ash fell like a very light snow. Odd.

I have relatives who've been evacuated from their home for days, now,

due to this fire. Happily the fire missed their house,

now they're waiting for the power to come back on,

so they can move back (no power=no water if you're on a well).

Last Sunday afternoon DH and I tore ourselves away from scanning fire info

(re: the Butte Fire, the Valley Fire, and the Rough fire)

and head to the golf course.

DH golfs, I bird/peruse nature.

Acorn woodpeckers living up to their name.

"This one goes here..."

I love how this branch is so densely drilled

that in parts it's see-through. 

I love the white eyeliner on this California ground squirrel (Spermophilus beecheyi).

Cutie. 

Non-native mullein affected by fasciation

(note normal mullein bloom on lower left).

I love fasciation and the super interesting shapes it brings about.

Another herbivore (desert cottontail, Sylvilagus audubonii), diggin' the golf course habitat.

Their habit of freezing when startled is great for photography. =)

Canada geese, another herbivore species that favors this place.

Considering I didn't have the auto-focus telephoto lens,

I'm very happy with how sharp this shot is. Luck!

So, with a couple soothing, non-fire-focused hours under our belt,

we see this...

Oh, dear. Another fire?!?

It was the Sundance Fire, near Oakhurst.

Happily, we also saw this large air tanker a little while later,

 and the smoke cleared pretty soon thereafter.

Phew!

And last night it actually rained a little bit (minor miracle),

which is very exciting.

I hope it helps quiet some of these fires.

It's also about 20 degrees cooler than it was last week.

Also good.

Anyhow, I don't have a profound way to end this post.

It's been very sobering seeing what's been happening

in Middletown (via the Valley Fire) and elsewhere.

If there's a vote re: whether or not summer should end now & fall should start?

I'd vote YES, please.

Let's do that.

Stay cool, everyone.

xoxoxobb

Goodies for YOU, Patient Reader, and a new year for us all

So, a few low-resolution resolutions floating around in my head, including:

Share more of the wonders of the world with you, here.

More frequently. Starting now. =)

Today's feature: earthstar fungus (shot in November).

I actually think I saw it last year,
but it was kind of like a celebrity sighting:

 "It CAN'T be something as exciting as that earthstar fungus.

It MUST be just some sort of exploded acorn, right?!?"

They do look a lot like exploded acorns.

I actually searched for "germinating acorn" images to be sure.

Nope, not germinating acorns.

Freakin' cool fungus.

Maybe the hygroscopic earthstar, Astraeus hygrometricus.

Measuring up (shot in December):

Hygroscopic refers to how their form changes with the humidity.
Their little rays curl back up when it gets dry,
some all the way into a dark, tough ball that can roll around.

Went back to the site today (January), and they looked like this:

I found another that was an even tidier little brown ball
(no leaf had gotten tangled up in it, like the lower one).

So, that's one of the coolest things I discovered & learned about in 2014.


WICKED COOL COINCIDENCE

Oh, and while I was JUST on the east coast,
gazing at Nauset Lighthouse on Cape Cod, MA,

What did I see at my feet, right about there?
Earthstars!

The 4 in a row are really easy to see in the photo, but there's more than that in this frame.
They were significantly smaller than ours,
but, HOW COOL IS THAT?!?

I was pumped.

'Course back home, now, I can't expect to hear any of those amazing accents,
eat spectacular clam chowder,
or wander about in a frozen swamp (future post).

But, we do get to be with our kitties & hen, again.
And my beloved garden.

'Course I had to WATER a few things in my garden AGAIN today.
It basically didn't rain the 2 weeks we were gone;
and winter is our rainy season.

We really need more rain to counter this drought.

Plus, more rain --> more fungus, woo-hoo!! =)

xoxoxobb

Excellent exuvia (photo quiz answer) & spring haps (bugs, lizards, birds & cats)

So, ANSWER TO THE Phriday Photo Quiz, which asked what this is:

It's a robber fly (Asilidae) pupa exuvia.

Most likely subfamily Laphriinae.

Got the answer from the ever-on-target Ted C. MacRae 

(of beetlesinthebush.wordpress.com & @tcmacrae on the twit).

He's a ROCK star! =)

I LOVE robber flies--they're like the fighter pilots of the bug world.

Found this one last week resting on our gutter.

If you've never seen them in action, it is NO JOKE

when a robber fly is on the hunt. Wow.

According to the California Robber Flies page,

California is where robber flies have speciated LIKE MAD:

386 species in California, 170 endemics (only found in CA).

The author describes California as "the nuclear blast zone of robber diversity."

For much better photos of these impressive & diverse animals,

check out their Robber Fly home page. So cool.

WINNERS of PHRIDAY PHOTO QUIZ

As ever, there were MANY great guesses,

many guessing cicada and sundry other inverts.

Thank you to EVERYONE for your thoughts & words.

I always learn from you. =)

1. Most Precise & Accurate: Ted C MacRae

for

NAILING it via twitter

(which was great 'cause I didn't know, yet).

HE is the one who suggested robber fly

AND the subfamily (via twitter) & it's CLEARLY a match.

2. Accurate Yet Adorably Vague: Sarah

for

"some sort of bug-related empty shell thingy."

Exactly what I thought! =)

3. Most Profound: Imperfect & Tense

for

"Or possibly the personification of the spirit of a small rooster."

Deep thinker, that one...

4. Best Pun: Susannah Anderson

for

"Just another crazy BCer after doing the winter challenge."

Presumably they are shells of their former selves, after voluntary flash-freezing.

Other Spring Bio Haps

Found this beauty embedded in a carrot flower.

Spied her in my Laws Field Guide to the Sierra Nevada.

At the SAME time, I got the answer from Andy Warren (@AndyBugGuy)

who is SO generous with his bug IDs for hapless bug enthusiasts such as moi.

A female dimorphic flower longhorn beetle (Anastrangalia laetifica).

The males are all black, so this is clearly a female.

Speaking of lady bugs, here's a ladybird beetle (a.k.a. ladybug) pupa post-rain:

turning into an adult, right there on the iris blade.

It's about as big as my pinky nail.

Zooming in I noticed a little TINY guy on the back, left spot:

I love how the scale of nature keeps going up or down,

whether or not we can perceive or comprehend it.

Is my garden dead?

This turkey vulture cast a wary eye over my garden this weekend...

These birds are already big.

Wingspan is between 5' 7" and 5' 10".

Then they do this, and freak my hen out completely.

VERY Dracula in its silent, dark power... =)

But, really, it's just sunning itself on a cool morning.

Watching the Watchers

Every now & then, when I see this:

or this

I follow their gaze to see what they're staring at.

And sometimes am rewarded by things like this:

An apparently preggers (gravid) female greater brown skink (Plestiodon "gilberti" gilberti),

so sayeth California herps

and the laudable Hugh of Rock Paper Lizard fame.

Man knows his herps.

A real treat to see her, and gladly my hen didn't spy her.

I've seen a hen-killed skink before, and it's not pretty. =(

It SERIOUSLY takes a village to figure out what just a FEW of the things living here are.

THANK YOU to all who help ID stuff,

or just share an appreciation for the myriad things

that live on this amazing planet.

=)

xoxobb

Logic: If the sky looks like this in your yard,

then you may be evacuated.
Soon.
Among the things I learned, yesterday.

The Carstens Fire had been ripping along, near our house.
Got a Code Red call from the sheriff's office at 1:15 a.m. Monday.
Basically saying, be ready, 'cause we might need you out of there....
Then around 5 p.m. (or so?), got the "Please go now" call.

By the time I started packing the hens into Staples boxes
(modified with large air slots & fluffy bedding),
a GIANT red fire engine bumped up the 1/4 mi gravel driveway.

Bear said they were structural fire guys,
so were here to figure out how they might protect our home.

As I picked up the 2nd hen and plunked her into the box,
one of the guys said, "Friendly chickens!"
 =) Indeed.

Throughout the day, I'd see what I thought were birds flitting by,

silhouetted against the amber sky,

then would realize it was a large, blackened-yet-whole leaf,

drifting into our yard from a fire almost 3 miles away.

One of the freaky pieces of "ash" we got at our house:

An entire oak leaf, big as my hand.

Blistered, blackened, and beautiful.

And shiny, charcoaled bark chunks so big

I could tell they were from Ponderosa pine trees.

Also identified manzanita leaves, and cedar scales.

Unlike any vegetation inventory fieldwork I'd done before.

=)

Blackened biology.

Photo of Carstens Fire, Sunday, from Sierra National Forest land:

It's an interesting state to be in:

thinking, "Wow, our house could burn down,"

while staring at the HUGE column of smoke,

thinking, "That is SO BEAUTIFUL."

Orange and brown, purple and red,

slate blue, grey and black,

all swirling, rising, expanding.

I could watch all day.

Presently we are holed up at a charming friend's home.

She also has chickens & a cat (all sequestered),

so our accommodations are great,

and I expect the hens are loving the view.

And appreciating the greatly improved air quality.

Last night 1 cat basically hissed and growled

underneath our bed ALLL NIGHT;

the other cat is STILL under the covers,

in self-storage,

to detox from the over-stimulation, no doubt.

Poor baby.

But, hey, we're all here,

and 100% singe-free. =)

Life is good.

xoxobb

a poppy for your face

Here ya go.

You getting out and into spring?!?

Or are you among the snowed-in?

xoxobb

quiz answer: what's up, buck?

In short, this is the answer to the quiz re: what the above creature has on his mind is

Romance.

As many of you guessed, this buck was lookin' for love.

The doe seemed mostly to be interested in this:

"yum."

The buck also spent time standing very still, not looking at the doe.

Among the other things he'd detect are rivals (far right is another buck).

"Hey, wait a minute..."

Reaction:

"Oh, hell, no."

"And stay out!"

(pardon reflectiness--windows & sun...)

Que macho hombre, no?

=) Vanquished.

So, CONGRATULATIONS to everyone who was correct!

And thanks, as ever, to EVERYONE who submitted a guess--

y'all are brave, smart, funny, and creative.  Nice!

And thanks to Sue for the detailed info re: such behavior.

Gotta love a "guess" where the questioner learns from the questioned. =)

Caveat: I must admit, it is possible that

a) someone was (per Hugh) holding chocolate chip cookies offstage

to get the buck to hold his original pose, and 

b) I actually really hope that he was attempting to plank,

as Sue posited. It could be the new sexy.

Come to think of it, maybe this is where PEOPLE got the idea.

Planking = Sexy.

Who knows?

xoxobb

pointillism, schmointillism: aspen art

nature's pointillism

When I was in high school I got into pointillism

when both my English and French classes

were in art history mode.

And, there was Georges Seurat,

painting in such a strange way.

It was weird. And beautiful.

And I couldn't stop staring.

Le Chahut (1889-1890) by Georges Seurat

Last weekend, pointillism was everywhere.

And I couldn't stop staring.

Of course, cameras cannot fully convey this experience.

Those trees shimmer.

Each tiny leaf wiggles to and fro,

in the faintest of breezes,

flashing brilliant colors this way and that.

*sigh*

And, the "shshshshsh" sound is amazing.

(like the Seurat detail shots in text books...)

We'd stopped near Lee Vining,

seeing umpteen trucks pulled over at a really nicely lit group of trees.

Thought it was a photography class.

Nope.

Just two dozen photographers very quietly staring at

and shooting this amazing phenomenon.

The power of that beauty yielded a respectful silence.

People tip-toed here and there,

breathing it all in,

grateful to witness such a glorious exhibition.

=)

xobb

aspen attack

Yesterday afternoon we scoped out the aspen action

in the Mono Lake area in eastern California.

Today I walked into the above aspen forest,

surrounded by possibly the most beauty

I've ever experienced in one place at one time.

I took 6 big steps forward,

then lay on the dirt & leaves,

and stared up.

gah!

[ed: bb left unexpectedly before completing this post. We assure you that she will post more aspen photos (accompanied by the usual blather) once she has recovered her faculties. We apologize for any inconvenience, and for her lapse in professional conduct.]