Today's walk report: Play Misty for Me

 Yes, misty, like turn on the windshield wipers once every 5 1/2 minutes kinda misty. What's so odd about that? 63º and 90% relative humidity, early AM on a Saturday morning, the middle of freakin' September in a SoCal Valley. Nothing peculiar about that. 

Here's the deal, besides a constant drizzly mist on me and my camera, I just wasn't much in the mood this morning. You know how you have those days when somebody might ask you, what's up, something wrong? And you really don't have much of a reply because you don't have any clear idea yourself. You just feel off, out of sorts, weird... today is one of those days. Anyway, I'm still there and I'll try to make this short. Fortunately I have some stuff already prepared from earlier in the week.

The walk today. Driving to my destination, it wasn't until I was turning off my street that I noticed, is that drizzle on the windshield? Too late, I'm already committed. 

In the garden, it was basically just a quick visit with the hummingbird king, the one and only, male Calypte anna, Dusty. Lighting was really dismal and I'm sure mist on the 1-A filter protecting my lens wasn't helping things.

This was Dusty looking up and checking either an immature male or a female Calypte anna hummingbird way up atop a  Caesalpinia cacalaco tree. I took a picture, it's hard to tell since the bird was up so high and the sky was an ominous dark gray.

This is Dusty looking back at me since I was talking to him and he hates to be rude.

At this point my feeling weird was taking on a monomaniacal spirit and the weather was encouraging it so I decided to see what sort of walk I was up to and I took off. I widened my normal lower campus loop significantly but returning home was becoming an imperative. 

The wider loop did, however, remind me of these Tecoma Stans "orange jubilee" shrubs which the campus has manicured to grow more like a tree. I wanted to see about getting one of these a few years ago but completely forgot about them. Now I know how easy it is to germinate the seeds and there will be a bazillion of them blowing all over.

I planted a Tecoma stans (Yellow bells) several years ago along the side of my garage and I find it quite lovely. I started growing a few from seed a year ago August and finally transplanted one to my side yard on June 22. It got bamboo stick support for Tropical Storm Hilary but didn't really need it. The mother Tecoma stans (Yellow bells) is next to a desert willow (Chilopsis linearis) also quite lovely. The orange jubilee has me wanting to plant one perhaps where the Tithonia rotundifolia are on the right side of the first image. The second image is the one grown from seed.

This is about the size her mother was when I got her.

High above the Tecoma stans I saw 7 mallard ducks fly over. I decided to detour back to the garden before heading to my car just in case any of them made a stop in the garden's now seriously overgrown pond (cattails, way too many cattails). No ducks. As I was making my exit I heard the sound of the "marimba" ringtone. Docken called, thank you Dockie! So I had fond company for the journey home and beyond.

The entire walk was a somewhat disappointing 1.33 miles. I'm trying to get back to 3 mile walks. 

Here are some butterfly shots from Saturday, September 9th, up through Thursday, September 14th. I had a couple of opportunities today while creating this drivel but Stan is crashed out in the backyard and I don't want to disturb him.

 

A horrible photo but you get the point. Stan.

When I wander through this wonderland alone
Never knowing my right foot from my left