Weekend walk report: Finally Fall

 Yep, good riddance to summer although, after several days of modest temperatures, it is currently 91º at 4:30 PM on Sunday, September 22nd, the first day of fall. The high today in my SoCal neighborhood was quite warm at 93.3ª. The next few days are expected to be in the low to mid-90ºs and it appears it could creep back into those kind of highs for about a week. It's not unusual to have temperatures into the 90ºs as late as Thanksgiving.

Here are some photos from my walk Saturday, September 21. Docken joined me both Saturday and Sunday mornings to chat over the phone. Thank you Docken.

I cruised to both the local botanical garden and the arboretum at a nearby college campus both days. Subjects for photographs were scarce.

Solidago velutina, California goldenrod.

 Drimia maritima, known by several common names, including squill, sea squill, sea onion, and maritime squill.

Tecoma stans. See the ant?

On the arboretum side of campus...

Back in July I had thought all of the Anna apples were gone. Not only were there apples, I also found one flower. Hybrid parentage: 'Golden Delicious'. These apples are not much bigger than my thumb. I swiped a few once again to see if I can germinate a seed or two. My last effort failed but it was an afterthought. Currently, I have three Fuji apple trees in containers on my patio. They seem to be taking their time in showing up as trees.

Here's one of my Fuji apple trees taken the first day it went outside on March 23, 2022. They were all started indoors under grow lights. The tallest of the trees in currently just 30". Kinda doesn't look like I'll ever see any apples. For me the ambition and excitement all stems from (no pun intended) the act of growing from a seed. In this case something that was in my refrigerator that I had with vanilla yogurt one morning.

Where the botanical garden's plant markers go to die.

  Begonia.

Geranium.

Sunday, September 22, the first day of fall, 2024 (today)

Again, not a lot happening on the photo front. It was mostly about pleasant conversation with Docken and walking around on a very quiet campus.

 I noticed these mourning doves congregating in this tree as soon as I stepped out of my car to begin the walk onto campus.

This is part of a much bigger story I keep telling myself to write. These are all young palm trees. These are probably Washingtonia filifera, AKA, the California fan palm, unless you live in Arizona where they apparently resent that name and simply call them, desert fan palms. This is a big problem. I see it potentially as a huge problem because the thing is, palms are popping up everywhere from seed. This never happened here in the past. I believe as the SoCal climate has become more tropical these trees are more inclined to germinate from self-seeding and have become invasive. I grew up here. Growing up I never saw random palm trees popping up everywhere and I mean everywhere. These trees can do some serious damage suddenly appearing in unwanted places. They grow quite rapidly too. This crop is one of several right behind the backstop for the school's baseball field.

This is our friend, male Calypte anna hummingbird, Dusty Jr. I made a special effort of looking for him this morning.

Finally, there's always a mockingbird. I commented to Docken later in the walk when another mockingbird was singing generously that it was the first day I've heard a mockingbird singing in awhile. Northern mockingbirds typically take a break from signing (equate with mating) and start up again from late September to early November. I thought it was interesting that this one bird was being so prolific in its vocalizations on the first day of fall.

On the other end of that same Senna bicapsularis shrub this ground squirrel was being very quiet. It seemed to me that they were aware of each others presence.

Leaving the garden and doing a short loop around the lower campus I finally asked myself what these aluminum attachments to the steps up to the library were for. Relative to the installation of the library about 12 years ago, they are a much more recent addition.

Turns out they are called "Skate Stoppers." They are designed to be a skateboarding deterrent. This was really common during the early years just after the library was built. I saw kids using these stairs for their skateboarding antics all the time and I was sure it had to be a huge potential liability for the school. The product sheet for this particular model skate stopper says, "this product is not intended for use on steps, stairs, sidewalk curb, or any pedestrian trafficked surfaces." Oh well.

When I was a kid we were allowed to do all sorts of stuff in an effort to break body parts. Whatever happened to all of the fun in the world?

I walked to the arboretum side once again but I didn't take any pictures. I just stole some apples.

Yesterday's walk report: and the black and white of it

it¹

/it/

pronoun

pronoun: it

1.

used to refer to a thing previously mentioned or easily identified.

 

I'll get back to "it" in a moment. 

Here are some images from yesterday's rather uneventful walk. Saturday, September 14th.

First, on the way driving  to my walking destination, a local community college, there was this very unattractive sign at the entrance. This sign has been there for a long time now basically stating when the need for parking permits would be enforced. They have gradually evolved into a more and more aggressive stance over the past year or so. This is the current status.

I don't have a parking permit. I pulled in and parked in the same spot I've parked on weekends for the past 12 years or so.

Here's what it says at the entrance of "all lots." Parking Lot 1. That's where I park.

Can you read that okay? It says, Enforced Mon. - Thurs. 7 AM - 10 PM. Friday 7 AM - 3 PM.

See, what I was thinking was I could be all bad ass and protest. Then, I changed my mind. I walked 4/10 of a mile first but I finally concluded, I'm not getting any younger. 20 years ago I might have made a stink but not anymore. Plus, the direction is obvious. I went back to my car, left campus and parked on the first public street just east of the school entrance. Another sign of the times, revenue for a community college has resorted to desperate measures by employing strategies to maximize income. 

My 4/10 of a mile trek was into the botanical garden and back. A cursory examination and I realized, everything is still looking pretty dead. After moving the car I decided to hike around the arboretum on the east end of the campus. There were also 100s of people milling about the campus proper and the arboretum area was empty.

 

I guessed this was some sort of cultivar of lime but I've never seen a lime with such a bumpy texture. Turns out this is a Citrus hystrix also known as a kaffir lime, Thai lime or makrut lime. It's a citrus fruit native to tropical Southeast Asia. I took one home.

Some type of guava.

All of the fruits will suddenly disappear shortly before they're actually ripe. All the little critters hanging around take first dibs.

 

Speaking of critters. I somewhat marveled at this ground squirrel lair. Whatever that is that has oozed up from the base of this pepper tree, it looked like some sort of mortar plastering.

Nerium oleander, 

the only bloom on the bush.

Hibiscus. This was right when Docken called and joined me over the phone. A welcomed event.

From that point we simply conversed and I wandered around somewhat randomly until I felt I had put in a decent amount of walking.

Back home... The black and white of it is actually a reference to Docken's and my dear feral cat friend of about 7 years, Stan. We both really miss Stan and I still think maybe he's going to show up one day. His last visit was on Father's Day of this year, June 16th. Stan was no ordinary feline. He had a way of communicating that made it seem like he understood the world almost as well as a human, perhaps better than humans.  His eyes, often described as "wise beyond his years," held a depth that hinted at hidden thoughts and feelings.

We love you Stan.

There's my reference to black in my title. And here's the white. This is Vit. Vit means white in Swedish. Vit has been around the neighborhood since before Stan went elsewhere. Again, I still feel Stan's presence. At first Vit mostly showed up late at night on the trail camera in the backyard (thank you Docken). Lately he's been coming around during the day and for about the last few weeks or so there's been food out waiting for him on the patio. Today he came within a couple feet of me when I brought him some wet food in addition to the dry food that goes out early mornings. Vit also has very captivating eyes.

 

These are among the first pictures I took of Vit on September 8th.

 

And these images were taken yesterday.

Weekend walk report: “Bring Out Your Dead”

 It's a joke. So far, this looks to only be Saturday, August 24th's walk report since I haven't even looked at my pictures from today, Sunday, August 25th. Today was a late start, a short walk and a dismal event on the photo front. Saturday, I walked into the local botanical garden and was immediately taken aback by how much of it was either dead or seriously dying back. So my first thought was... why not take pictures of dead stuff?

Starting off with the first dead stuff I saw entering the garden.

Rose hips, Rosa californica, the California wildrose, or California rose.

Pseudognaphalium californicum (California Everlasting).

Salvia leucophylla, purple sage or gray sage.

Salvia apiana, the Californian white sage, bee sage, or sacred sage.

Eriogonum fasciculatum is a species of wild buckwheat known by the common names California buckwheat and flat-topped buckwheat.

Onto the living.

This is the male Calypte anna hummingbird I've been calling Not Dusty. I decided to change his name to Dusty Jr. I'm reasonably certain, based on observation, my experience with this garden and having seen a few generations of "regulars," especially for this hummingbird habitat, that this is most probably the offspring of the famous male Anna's hummingbird, Dusty. I also thought that Not Dusty was sort of demeaning in a way. The flowers are Red Mountain Sage (Salvia darcyi).

 The moon, pretty dead, geologically active they say, I say poppycock! Waning gibbous phase is between a full moon and a half moon.

And onto my walk...

The goats. In the past I have approached the goats and it seemed they didn't want to have anything to do with my presence. This time, I would swear, they saw me and came running. Maybe I look like someone who provides for them, although it's apparent they take pretty good care of themselves. I'm on the road to the western edge of the campus. I'll be back.

Donkey #2. This donkey is typically pretty far off from me. You can see it under the pepper trees in the picture above. When I first started visiting this campus again in 2010 I first met the burros inside their pen and they were together. For the past several years I always see them in areas separated by fencing.

Donkey #1. This is about as close as I've been able to get in a long time.

Red-tailed hawk.

Turkey vulture. The turkey vulture is the most widespread of the New World vultures. This vulture is looking for something dead.

Nearing the end of the road and about to turn around. I decided to give it a go and attempted a panorama of the mourning doves hanging out.

Heading back. This is the same red-tailed hawk as shown above.

Where did everybody go?

Back to the goats. I picked favorites. These are my two favorites.

A young western fence lizard. This is my dirt!

Sunday, August 25th (today)

Again, it was a relatively short walk with very few pictures taken.

A mourning dove on a tower to some of the instruments at the weather station.

Monarch butterfly on a rose bush. I had walked up, down and side to side on the Braille Trail and not one picture.

I did a quick circle inside the botanical garden and then decided to head beck to my car. Here's Dusty Jr. high up in the Caesalpinia cacalaco tree.

Bonus shots! A giant swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes) in the backyard on Saturday. Currently I have very little room to navigate for photos in the backyard so I take whatever I can get. The flowers are Tithonia rotundafolia.

Bring out your dead!