Autumn, it's right around the corner, and I couldn't be more pleased. This morning, with the bedroom window open, I was awoken by an almost forgotten visitor around 4:30 a.m.: the local great horned owl. It was making a deep, rhythmic series of hoots that sounds like the phrase, "Who's awake? Me, too!" Their vocal activity ebbs and flows with the season. During late spring and summer, when young fledglings are dispersing and food is abundant, adults become relatively quiet to avoid drawing unwanted attention to themselves or their juveniles. As autumn approaches, their calling picks up dramatically as they re-establish boundaries, pair-bond, and prepare for their winter breeding season.
Then I checked the temperature outside, 57º F... sweet! Even with the window open evenings and two fans blowing, this house has been like a terrarium, and during the day, the constant roar of a portable A/C unit in a small bedroom acts as a perfect amplifier, ensuring every rattle and vibration bounces directly off the walls and into my brain.
Thursday's walk was two miles but only because I had no idea I would feel as good as I did and really hadn't allowed the time for a longer trek. Friday, I didn't walk at all because I felt like absolute crap. It was post-walk yard work catching up to me on Friday. This was mostly my scraping away 100s, (!!) of common storksbill seedlings with too short of a shovel. Storkbill is my plant nemesis, it is the primary invasive that has interrupted my wildflower propagation on the property. Here's what things looked like in the spring of 2016. Most of what you see is Dimorphotheca sinuata flowers. Many of those palm trees in the background are gone now, while too many still remain. I really miss this...
Today, Saturday, September 19th, I felt mostly amazing. The temperature for the 64 minutes I was out and about went from 65º to 67º. I found it a little humid with a relative humidity as high as 76%, but that's kind of just me. I was also a tad overdressed, but I'm finding myself covering up more than I used to. I've said for over 40 years now, the sun is not our friend. Thinking long-sleeves and digging through a closet, I had almost forgotten about another in my collection of Larks' Tongues in Aspic shirts. While that title might sound a little disgusting, the album, single handedly, changed how I listen to music. I can still picture exactly where and when I first listened to LTiA in 1973.
There wasn't much on the photo front. Once again, I mostly walked. I did have a pleasant but brief conversation with a gentleman walking his three dogs in the arboretum. We talked about aging pets and recent kittens. Heading back to my car and at campus central (this is a Jr. College), I ended up helping an elderly woman (hey, she was older than I am) find her classroom. A Persian lady, she hardly spoke a word of English. Turns out she was looking for her ESL (English as a Second Language) class. I ended up flagging down a campus sheriff deputy, gave him the room number, and asked which building it was. I know the names of the buildings, but I'm not too keen on building and room numbers. All of the buildings surrounding the botanical garden, and that's where we were, are named after trees. She was looking for the Birch building, so I took her there and along the way pointed to the names, Elm and Birch, etc., explaining that these are types of trees. She had no idea what I was babbling about. I opened the door, and introduced her to the instructor. So to speak. My good deed for the day.Here are some pictures from today...
Jacaranda. I took a quick shot only because I was surprised to see blooms. I thought Jacaranda trees typically bloom from late April to mid-June in SoCal.
This Coreopsis verticillata plant again. I mentioned I wanted to swipe some seeds from it but apparently it's a hybrid specialized cultivar (Moonbeam). 'Moonbeam' is a sterile cultivar that does not produce viable seeds. Online pricing seems a bit steep for 3" pots.
Salvia 'Amistad' (Friendship Sage).
Verbena bonariensis.
Last week I wrote about Washingtonia robusta, AKA, Mexican fan palm seedlings growing everywhere. The taller trees are Washingtonia robusta and you can see why 1,000s of these popping up randomly might be a problem, The lower palms are Syagrus romanzoffiana. I haven't looked into those on the invasive species lists.
More importantly, I took these mages to show what the lovely fall-like morning I was enjoying looked like.
I keep telling them... It's gonna be a lot more difficult to get out than it was to get in.
Drimia maritima. Taken in haste.
Tecomaria capensis.
Google says this is a Melaleuca. I was attracted to the dead below being superseded by new growth above.
This arbor has, for most of my 15+ years of witnessing it, been at least partly covered by Passiflora. For the last couple of years it hasn't been maintained. Google is telling me this is now Hardenbergia violacea, which I find unfortunate since Passiflora is most notably the primary larval host plant for the Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae). That's a favorite butterfly. Hardenbergia violacea is apparently the host to the common grass blue butterfly (Zizina labradus), native to Australia.
The Library and Learning Center clock has been about 7 minutes slow for well over a year. This picture was taken about three minutes before the woman asked me for directions to room 1109. Her class started at 9:00. Oops. You're tardy.
That's all I've got. Later in the day all of those pretty clouds disappeared and we hit a high of 89.5º F. The walk was 2.37 miles. This walk report was finished today, Sunday, September 20th because it was interrupted by Dodgers' baseball last night. Outside of my office windows, sunrise is creeping in, mostly cloudy, the sky was a soft purple.
"October - Autumn Song" from Tchaikovsky's "The Seasons"
And I took the picture of myself when this song came through my headphones...
