Today's walk report and STAN!

 Happy Father's Day to all of the dads who bump into this post. I had a warm Father's Day greeting via the phone late morning from my boy but earlier I had another very special visit from feral feline friend Stan. The big deal there is that Stan has been AWOL since May the 4th at around 5:00 PM. Since Stan was first under the care of Docken beginning in April of 2017 and since I took over the reins in November of 2019 he has never been absent for more than 6 days and that only happened once. On several other occasions he was a no-show for 4 days but always showed up again on the 5th day, waiting patiently for breakfast on the patio. There were many, many days where Stan would hang out for most of the day here. Stan, again, is feral. I have only touched an outreached fingertip to Stan's nose on less than a dozen occasions. Many times I have worked in the yard with Stan crashed out on his lounge getting within a few feet of him but we both understood proper proxemics between us. Arm's length plus another foot or so has been the general rule of thumb. 

 
The story of Stan's absence and the surrounding circumstances is a long one and I may dedicate another post to it in the near future because I'd like a written record. 43 days and Stan was dearly missed but I kept thinking he would show up again. Every time I looked out onto the patio I thought I would see him and I checked dozens of times everyday. I also searched the neighborhood many times. "Abner, who's that person walking up and down the street hollering, STAN!?" "I don't know Gladys, some tall nut-job I suppose, now please, take a spoonful of your medicine." Friday's walk was actually two walks, I came home from the first walk, guzzled some Gatorade and headed out again. The second walk was dedicated to looking for Stan.

 
There were two recent sightings from a trail camera set up on the patio. The trail camera was a birthday gift from Docken. Thank you. Reviewing files on the trail camera became an early morning with coffee ritual once Stan disappeared. There was always this hopeful anticipation. I now think that both if these recordings might actually be of Willow, a stray female who was hounded by three other males back in March. Stan seemed to be more like a guardian to Willow.

Willow on March 18th.

Willow got knocked up by one of the three other males. Just a couple of days before Stan's disappearance he brought Willow to the patio for breakfast, she was the third female cat Stan had brought to the patio and the energy was--he was protecting them. He brought her here on May 3rd and I brought food out to both of them. On May 2nd I had a cat carrier set up in my garage and I tried to get a hold of Willow while she was eating on the 3rd. I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to do but I wanted to find a safe place for her to have kittens. I had picked up Willow on another occasion but this time she wasn't gonna have anything to do with that. She showed up again on the trail cam near dawn on the 5th. I suspect she had her kittens on May 6th. Again, this is part of a much longer story and I need to go back and confirm dates. I’ve edited this a few times already. Anyway, I'm thinking the two recent "black cat" sightings from the trail camera on 5/30 and again 6/10 are not Stan but rather Willow. For one, black shows up black on the trail camera. Note the plant containers on the patio and patio table in the second screenshot. The rubber mat hanging over the patio chair is gray. So is the low profile cat bed behind the left patio chair. And of course the patio is concrete gray.

I relocated the camera so the 940nm no glow IR LEDs lit the patio and not the ficus trees.

Check out Willow here, notice her legs and shoulders and the shape of her head. 

 More to come on this story. Two short conclusions as to Stan's long absence. One, it had something to do with Willow and her kittens. I'm still quite concerned about that chapter. Two, it has a lot to do with Stan's recent nemesis, one of the cats that was hounding Willow back in March, an orange and white tabby I named Julius. This image is from March. Julius also showed up on the trail cam last night and frequently shows up on camera spraying plants on the patio late evenings.

Here was Stan today. He's safe and he looked well. Stan is my buddy. I love Stan and Docken loves him too. It's been over 7 years. Stan is an amazing cat.

Onto today's walk, June 16th.

I decided to go back to the Braille Trail. I wanted to check on the Anna apples again and see if they were approaching ripeness. It's been two weeks.

The apples didn't appear any more ripe than they did on June 1st. Even the ground squirrels don't want to have much to do with them. It probably got a stomach ache.

How do I know that was a ground squirrel? It's more than just a guess. Here's a shot from the base of that tree.

A little wider...

Nice accommodations, I'd say.

Back to the tree for a moment. What's else is trying to drill holes in 'dem' apples?

Petunias.

One of the hoop houses had its door wide open. Looks like it's dedicated to growing some succulents. I mostly composed this image because it's a panorama that was basically coming toward me standing outside the door and I wanted to see if that would stitch okay.

Some Opuntia cactus, AKA, Mickey Mouse head cactus.

 Monarch butterfly on narrowleaf milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis). The insect is a milkweed bug, Oncopeltus fasciatus.

Oenothera speciosa, evening primrose.

Iris germanica. bearded iris.

Canna lily.

This female red-tailed hawk has been profiled here before more than a couple of times. I've seen her for a few years now. This is how I learned that large wing feathers don't seem to grow back once lost.

Trying to get a better shot of her had me entering into this grove of palm trees. I have a story coming soon about the proliferation of palm trees in this part of SoCal. This is a vertical panorama. Some day I'm going to make an effort at bringing more than one camera lens so I don't feel the need to do stuff like this.

Myrtus communis, the common myrtle or true myrtle, native to southern Europe.

Catalpa speciosa, northern catalpa.

I took this picture because I thought I might want to bitch about an old tire lying around in here, apparently for years and what you can't see is that it's sitting right behind the campus "operations" buildings. I didn't even see the ground squirrel sitting on top munching on something when I took the picture. I was pretty far away and the squirrel is well camouflaged in front of the woody mulch.

I choose this song for Stan. I find it very cheerful and uplifting. It came up right around the time I was walking just to get a walk in and then heading back to my car. Thank you for coming home today, Stan.