Yesterday's walk report: More monarchs and stuff

 I got through most of this process yesterday, at least the photo editing portion was taken care of but with this other delayed post from Friday's backyard butterfly activity, two posts in day was too much. I also have other stuff to do. Right now, Juni is curled up in my lap purring away and that might cut the banter... good for you and me.

Here are some photos taken on yesterday's 2.37 mile walk.

Sunday, April 12th

Hong Kong Orchid Tree (Bauhinia × blakeana). I last took close-up images of flowers on this tree on March 28th. I was taken aback yesterday by how loaded it was with flowers since then. 

 Also in that March 28th post I mis-ID'd this flower as, Turk's Cap (Malvaviscus arboreus). I did that because Google told me so. I thought too it looked familiar but none of the buds were fully open. It's actually Pavonia-missionum AKA, red mallow. 

 Onto the first monarchs and monarchs because they have been unusually plentiful--not so overall in the grand scheme of things but in my recent walks, yes. The shrub is Cotoneaster pannosus, known by the common name silverleaf cotoneaster.

I have taken pictures of this canna lily many times but this might be the prettiest I have ever seen it.

 

 Same deal with this Iris germanica 'Immortality'. It typically has looked rather beat up when I've seen it flowering.

 

If you notice water drops, that's because we got .25" of rain yesterday. That was greatly appreciated because I needed to water at home and wasn't feeling especially inclined to walk around with a garden hose. Left rear, an absolutely massive Salvia canariensis (Canary Island Sage).

In this post I mentioned the 120 yard line of pomegranate trees loaded with flowers. Here are some of the larger ones. That small ramp leads to the campus weather station. I rely heavily on data from that weather station.

Another update. This is the palo verde tree that had lost two large branches last week. It appears to me that was a rather sloppy cut by the clean-up crew. I forgot to get a picture of the "cleanup" cut on the other side break. 

 

Back to the monarchs. Those last images were taken in the arboretum. I'm now in the botanical garden a little over a 1/4 mile away. 

 

Monarch butterfly and a no-ID Callistemon. 

 

Monarchs on Salvia rosmarinus. These are two different butterflies. there were three. I believe one of them is the same as the one on the bottlebrush.

 

 Classroom building's rock roof with treetops (an oak and palo verde trees) in the background. The sky was beautiful post the early AM rains.

 

One more monarch shot in a small eucalyptus tree. A rather diminutive male monarch. 

 After that I continued walking just for the sake of walking. On the way back to my car I detoured into the garden one more time for a few minutes of bench sitting. Not a great shot but this Pistacia chinensis tree has been consistently a perch for many male Calypte anna humminbirds I have followed over the years. Expect to see this bird again (we may have seen him before, I still need some familiarity). 

 I almost always post a song off of YouTube at the end of each post. Sometimes the song is post-relative and other times it's more relevant to what I was listening to or to my general mood. Sometimes it's just a song. This time I wanted to post something different. Many viewers have probably already seen photos from the recent Artemis II space mission and certainly have been moved by them. I was actually brought to tears yesterday watching this and seeing again the first Earth rising image. Earthrise, taken from lunar orbit by astronaut William Anders on December 24, 1968, during the Apollo 8 mission. That image at least started the emotional roller-coaster for me. All of the images are stunning in their inherent beauty, but also driving my feelings was how this beautiful planet is being destroyed by a handful of greedy, gluttonous, narcissistic humans, with no moral compass. I watched much of this without sound.
 

PS, Juni slept (mostly) in my lap for the duration.

Yesterday's butterfly, fix it in post

 In the early 2000s I was a moderator for an online forum called 2-pop. 2-pop.com was a pioneering web forum focused on desktop video editing, specifically supporting early adopters of Final Cut Pro and small-budget filmmakers. Since I was selling hardware and software into that market it seemed like a good place to be. A 2-pop refers to a 1 kHz tone that is one frame long and placed 2 seconds before the start of a program. It is a simple and effective method of ensuring synchronization between sound and picture in a video or film. 

Fix it in post was often offered as a joke for fixing the impossible. It refers to the ironic, often painful, and humorous reality that many on-set problems deemed fixable later are, in fact, impossible or extremely expensive to fix. It is a common, sardonic mantra in the film industry that serves as a polite way to abandon a failing shot and offload the impossible work onto the editor. 

When I first saw this Papilio rutulus, the western tiger swallowtail yesterday, I was sitting where I'm sitting right now, at my computer, in my office. I haven't seen a western tiger swallowtail in quite awhile. I usually see more eastern giant swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes) butterflies. Anyway, it appeared to be a perfect specimen when I first started to take photos and then I saw its battle scars. While the line, fix it post popped into my head, the butterfly was still beautiful and I wasn't planning to do so.*

 * But then I wondered... How much of a challenge would it be...

 Here's the same shot before I fudged with it. I think the butterfly shows character.

 
For the most part, I like to present photos I've taken the way I see them. Which should not be confused with the way the camera sees subjects. Digital cameras see differently than human eyes by prioritizing raw light data over interpreted perception, often resulting in higher sensitivity in low light, different depth perception, and a narrower dynamic range that requires software to manage. Cameras capture a linear, technical record of photons, whereas the brain dynamically processes, color-corrects, and adjusts brightness to create a stable view. If your camera is adding "scene presets" or "scene modes," that might be a quick way to achieve specific looks or handle tricky lighting without manual adjustments, but these presets often fail by producing unnatural colors and poor exposures. They can also make fixing them in post more difficult. 

Anyway, pretty butterfly. I saw two more today but I wasn't available to take pictures. I felt last year was kind of low on butterfly activity. Hopefully with more rain already this season (.25" here today!), we'll be seeing more butterflies.

Taken, taken so easily
To pass into glass reality
Transform, to transfer, to energy

Happy 1st Birthday to Junimoon!

 They grow up so fast! 

Junimoon (AKA, Juni) is very probably one year old today. She was born feral. Her mother, Kalika showed up on the patio on rare occasions, usually at night. Feral male cat, Vit, was protector to both Kalika and Juni. Seven weeks and four days, after Juni was likely born she showed up together with Kalika on my patio. I'm going to cheat a little here because I'm way behind on getting this post together and moving on to some daily chores, etc... 

According to Google AI, "feral kittens are born to wild, unsocialized cats and require quick intervention for domestication. The ideal window to tame them is 2 to 7 weeks of age. They often require slow socialization, confinement in safe spaces, and food motivation to build trust. Without intervention, over 75% of these kittens may not survive their first six months."

It was only about two weeks or so after Juni was introduced to the patio by her mother that I saw Kalika becoming a little aggressive with her offspring, letting her know in no uncertain terms that she was now on her own. They still had some hang time together but Juni was getting fed separately. That first arrival was June 1st, 2025 at approximately 6:30 PM. 

The first time Juni (she had different names early on) came into my lap she was enticed using a feather toy on a fishing line.  There was a little pain involved on my part. There's more about my first interactions here, here and here. This picture is from July 17th, 2025. I didn't prepare for a history lesson on this and quite honestly, I would need to go back, read those linked posts again myself and look at some more photo inventory to get all of the dates straight but I'm pretty sure this was one of the first captured climbs up my leg. She's about 14 weeks here.

 This image is from video, shot on July 20th.

 and by July 25th, she was becoming a lap kitty. This image was also extracted from video off my phone. Juni was adopted inside to stay on July 31st at 6:44 PM.

 And here's Juni, once again in my lap as I prepare this post. She likes to come up under the arm of my dilapidated desk chair which requires a significant butt boost from me,

Here she's watching videos of her kitten self while I was looking for frame grabs. 

 Finally, I had to break out another feather toy to get a full body shot. Happy birthday Junimoon, you are an absolute sweetheart of a kitty! Time for some birthday treats.

 Some specifics might change in this post later when I have time to look back and scratch my head. Lucy, Juni and I may do a little retrospective photo, video and blog post viewing from the bedroom TV tonight. Watching Juni watch herself on video this morning was a crack up. 

I've seen all good kitties turn their heads each day so satisfied I'm on my way 
Take a straight and stronger course to the corner of your life...

 

Happy 20th Birthday to Lucy!

 It's almost hard to believe that she's 20 years old today but then again, Lucy and I have been through a lot together. Some re-hashing on her arrival date via texts with my son last night regarding Lucy's formal adoption into my apartment in Los Angeles puts that date around mid-June, 2006. Yes, she was just a kitten. On her first full day in the apartment, after my then 16 year old son and I went on a shopping spree at a Petco in L.A., Lucy shot like a bullet out the sliding glass door and high tailed about 20' up a tree. That's when I first realized she was going to be a handful. There's more on Lucy throughout this blog (hint: search "Lucy") and more details about her acquisition can be found in this post from her 19th birthday.

Happy Birthday, Lucy, love of my life, companion and wonderful friend.

Lucy cloaked in her favorite hoodie.
 

In her corner of the bed. Lucy has stairs down to the floor and doesn't leave the bedroom much these days. She eats here on the bed while her water dish and litter box are just a few feet away near the bedroom windows. Lucy maintains a healthy appetite, lately she averages about 230 calories a day. Yes, I count her calories. This image was taken three days ago.

Also taken on April 3rd.

 And despite my struggling a little with low light this morning, here's one from today.

 Special thanks to Junimoon whose first birthday is coming up in just a few days. She insisted on being in my lap to help out with this morning's photo selection process. It only took me 4 times as long to type. 

You say it's your birthday,
It's my birthday too, yeah;
They say it's your birthday,
We're gonna have a good time;
I'm glad it's your birthday,
Happy birthday to you.

 

Wind in the Trees

 This would be a "yesterday's walk report”. Yesterday being, April, 4th. Here are some pictures taken along the way...

Solandra maxima is a flowering plant in the family Solanaceae. It is also known as cup of gold vine, golden chalice vine and Copa de Oro. I have taken pictures of this plant before (of course I have) but I believe this is best image I've taken showing the contrasting colors. All parts of the Solandra maxima plant are extremely toxic. The principal toxins in the Solandra species are the tropane alkaloids scopolamine and hyoscyamine (atropine). So, despite common names, it's not a good idea to take a drink from it.

 A common raven, nothing special about the image. However, I found its behavior circling a small perimeter of sky unusual. It was circling much in the manner of a turkey vulture. The only reference I could find of ravens circling in such fashion was from European folklore, stating that, ravens circling battlefields became omens of death but also protectors of sacred thresholds. Another historical bad rap for Ravens.  

 There is a line of pomegranate trees about 120 yards long only separated by a 40' road. 1,000s of pomegranate flowers right now.

 Wind in the Trees.

It's was pretty breezy for a couple of days. That and what I see as an inherent problem with palo verde trees, they flower heavily and the branches can't support the added weight. I was considering adding a couple of palo verde trees (those and jacaranda) to the then treeless front of my property back in 2012. I had decided that I could live with the fallen flowers but after observing these trees in the local botanical garden snapping off huge portions of tree I'd say annually, I changed my mind. This panorama from March 22nd is of the same tree seen below.

 
But wait! There's more on the other side!

It wasn't the first time I've seen huge breaks in that tree either.

I didn't get great shots of any monarchs yesterday but I wanted to point out that I saw a lot of them. at least compared to what I find being normal. There's also been a substantial amount of native milkweed added on the campus.

 No ID on this bottlebrush.

 It got quite warm during the walk and I only managed 1.87 miles. I'm not too inclined to push myself once the temperature approaches 80º these days. The high for Saturday was 89.4º.

 Wind in the Trees

 

Today's walk report: No news is good news

I recently had a vivid memory of when I first learned the phrase, “no news is good news.” I learned it from my sister. I can’t pinpoint the exact year, but the event is quite clear in my mind. I was about eight years old, and she was about ten. We were sitting at the kitchen table together, alone in our house. It was getting dark, and we were wondering where our mother was. She was late, and there were no cell phones back then. A lot of our concern stemmed from the tragic auto accident that had claimed the life of our father just a few years earlier. We had “go-to” people in our neighborhood, but for some reason, we decided to stick it out together. When our mother finally got home, I think we heard something along the lines of, “Sorry, I lost track of time.”

I would like to dedicate this post to my sister, Kris, because I love her and because I'm tremendously proud of her. 

Despite alternating nags from my left side tensor fasciae latae muscle and my left side quadratus lumborum, it was a pleasant walk, albeit short (1.65 miles). The music was wonderful, and since the kitties wouldn't let me sleep, I had plenty of time to get ready and leave the house ahead of schedule. I’m usually awake by 4:00 AM anyway, but I’m just not generally inclined to shower, dress, eat, and hydrate on top of the usual morning kitty duties. Temperatures for the walk ranged from 63° to 71°F. Here are some pictures from today.

Saturday, March 28.

Hong Kong Orchid Tree (Bauhinia × blakeana).  

 Turk's Cap (Malvaviscus arboreus) a common understory shrub where it occurs in Texas and is an important food source for female and juvenile ruby-throated hummingbirds (Archilochus colubri) and black-chinned hummingbirds (A. alexandri). Each individual flower lasts two days but contains more nectar on the first day. I see black-chinned hummingbirds here but they're not especially common. I'm well out of range for ruby-throated hummingbirds. I had never seen this plant before. The flower is about the size of my pinky fingernail.

Pelargonium sidoides, commonly known as the African geranium or South African geranium. Both images are from the same plant but show drastically different colors.

 Penstemon heterophyllus, 'Margarita BOP'. The BOP stands for "Bottom of the Porch," where the original seedling was found by the nursery that discovered the cultivar.

 Monarch butterflly on Clytostoma callistegioides, or lavender trumpet vine.

 Monarch butterflies on  Verbena bonariensis, commonly known as purpletop vervain, tall verbena, or clustered-top vervain. 

 Globe artichokes (Cynara cardunculus var. scolymus). The tallest of which was about 7 feet. I had no idea that artichokes grew that tall.

 All of the above images were taken at or near the campus arboretum. From there I walked to the botanical garden but I didn't get any pictures I care to show. For the most part I sat on a bench and went Zen. I did see male Allen's hummingbird, Laukki. In fact he flew right at me and hovered about 6 feet above my head as I sat. Two thoughts crossed my mind, is he greeting me, or am I about to get peed upon?

For the second time in as many weeks, in precisely the same spot in the garden, The Moody Blues, The Story in Your Eyes came up on my phone's shuffle play. I was introduced to The Moody Blues by my sister. She had the album, Days of Future Passed and I remember listening to it with her in this very room, probably just a few months shy of my 12th birthday.