Tonight's sunset

 I probably should've hung out just a wee bit longer and waited for the sky to go pink. Maybe next time.

 

Today's walk report: Wind

 It's been windy, really windy but not like last year's fire whipping tornado-like whirls kind of windy. This morning it was calm and I thought last night if it were calm I'd go out with just my 60mm macro lens and take pictures of stuff close up. The problem was between crazy dreams and loony cats, I didn't get much sleep. Early to bed, you know what they say and I was asleep sometime early in the 9:00 hour. The problem was I was awake by 11:00, switching rooms and kitty company. Lucy and Junimoon had been sleeping with me in the bedroom for a few nights, mostly in harmony but last night we were subject to cat's sometimes erratic, pathological behaviors, so I split them up and split my time between them. Ultimately this had me awake at 3:00 AM. This put me in slow motion getting out the door. By the time I was on my way, Mister Wind was blowing. Along the way Mister Wind was picking up speed and this put a damper on my photo plans.

I ended up taking pictures of much of the same stuff I've been taking pictures of for the past few-several weeks. The wind kept blowing stuff outside of my viewfinder. Here are some photos from along the way...

I'm going to forego descriptions for the most part since a lot of these subjects have been ID'd recently and quite honestly I'm tired and not in the mood. Plus they keep loading in reverse order and that's irksome. Before that Blogger said, nope... can't load your images. 
 

 
This one I'll tell ya, because I think I've identified this fungus and I can't recall identifying many fungi.

Coniophora olivacea, also known as olive duster is a species of corticoid fungus in the family Coniophoraceae. So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

 This is maybe some type of bulbine. 

 Westringia fruticosa. These are a favorite of one of my favorite butterflies, the Leptotes marina. I have not seen a Leptotes marina in many months.

 This is another favorite butterfly, the cabbage white (Pieris rapae) The flowers are Salvia greggii 'White'.

 Gaillardia pulchella.

 These are Apis mellifera, western honeybees, they have something serious going on in that hole in this tree. There were A LOT of bees, enough of them swarming around in the intensifying winds to make me a little uncomfortable.

 The winds make for downed branches from trees and there is a special level of caution in these parts for flying palm fronds. 

The thing about palm fronds too is they can fall in clumps of several fronds at a time and they fall a long way.

 As the wind picked up it was clear I should cut the walk short so I journeyed back to my car to drive home.

 You need to clear away
All the jetsam in your brain
And face the truth
Well love can make amends
While the darkness always ends
You're still alone
So drive home

 

 

Today's walk report: Rain

We've had rain for 9 out of the last 13 days. I think that's right, I had data go off line for a couple of days and it's hurting my head to fill in any gaps but it was at least 9 of 13 days. Today is January 4th and so far for the month I've seen 2.18" delivered and ya know what? I'm kinda tired of it. Nevertheless I have been making an effort to get out and walk everyday. According to "steps" recorded on my phone, I somehow missed Monday, 12/29. In fact, for whatever reason, it looks like I never even picked up my phone on 12/29. Good for me. Also, I don't use the iPhone health app steps data. I don't find it very accurate. I will use it though to help jog my memory. I measure walks on Google Earth. For most walks that's accurate within ±.01 miles (16.09 meters).

Lately, I have been putting quite a bit if faith in The Weather Channel (not a great idea) to provide windows of opportunity for walks, using a combination of local radar and hourly predictions. Right now I'm looking at...

I’m fairly skeptical of the reliability of weather models but so far I haven't gotten dumped on. Late morning today was close. I left under a slight drizzle and got home about 10 minutes ahead of a .02" downpour in the following 10 minutes. I had my camera with me and while I had a couple of plastic bags in my pockets, I really don't look forward to having to bag up my camera and hurrying back to my car.  

December 27th. I went for a decent walk but took very few photos. I'm throwing these in because, why not?

Narcissus papyraceus. Paperwhites symbolize hope, purity, renewal, and new beginnings.

 Caesalpinia cacalaco.

 
January 4th, today. I decided last night that I would make an effort to get out by late morning unless there was an absolute deluge. I used to do this all the time when there was inclement weather. I was up early dealing with the kitties and kept checking the hourly forecast, which kept changing but it looked like I was going to be okay by 10:00. Taking the car to my start off point was, windshield wipers all the way in a heavy drizzle. I was hopeful despite thinking I might be in for something like this...

 That image is only about 40% true. The location is reasonably accurate, the wet is real the rain is not. Other than a Van der Graaf Generator t-shirt, I don't own any of those clothes and I'm reasonably clean shaven. It reminded me to look for my gloves, so there's that. 

As it turned out most of the precipitation I needed to avoid was from errant drips from drooping vines and overhanging branches. 

Lycianthes rantonnetii 'Royal Robe' (Purple Solanum). I have two of these in the front of my house, rather spindly and barely 40" tall. They were among some of the first plants I purchased here over 13 years ago. I think I made a very poor choice for their location on the property. These are coming over a 7' tall wall and by several feet. 

 Duranta erecta. 

 More overhead drips.

 I mentioned the kitties earlier. Lucy (in orange) and Junimoon just before I walked out the door. This closeness is NOT usual. This took a lot of work this morning. Queen Lucy is 19 years and 9 months old today. She can be a little cantankerous. Juni will be one year old in April, she's a kitten. Kittens are crazy.

They were still good almost 2.5 hours later when I got home and joined them.

 The sock has Feliway sprayed on it. That's not an endorsement, I'm still a bit skeptical regarding its effectiveness. The sweatshirt... Lucy spent most of yesterday inside that. Another bit of madness that was, dealing with Juni, curious at every moment about what was moving inside of the gray hoodie.

 PS, if you look back at that chart above, it ended up raining again right about 5:10 and ended at 5:40 PM. I got curious. Ya know, you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. 

Today's walk report: Happy New Year

 Reflections.

Aside from this first image of a yellow-rumped warbler, all of these images are reflections in puddles on today's walk. One reason behind this is my typical routes had become too muddy from recent rains (looks like 1.29" in the past 24 hours) for me to trek upon, so I stuck with sidewalks and asphalt for the most part.

Certainly, the yellow-rumped warbler is reflecting on something.

 Here are the puddles.