Today's walk report: 072417, unfolding

Unfolding... This isn't really a walk report, it's another stroll report. The strolling took place around the front, back and side yards of our property and that's not much of a stroll. Full circle, it's about 110 yards (100 meters).

Can the principles of origami . . . help scientists understand the nature of the universe?

The "unfolding" project was partially inspired by an episode of NOVA on PBS entitled, The Origami Revolution. I highly recommend it. After you finish my post you may find it, at least for now, on YouTube--here.* I have had a long term relationship with origami starting with a childhood fascination. I have, however, only dabbled in the art from time to time.

There was, for example, a stint I had with paper money folding in the 90s. Bored waiting for others to finish a meal I would sometimes fold tip money at a restaurant in creative ways...

and folding money took some other directions too...

That is technically called a cubeoctahedron, but is otherwise referred to as, six bucks. It's been sitting on my desk for years.

Another fascination for me has been how plants and especially flowers, unfold. That takes our journey right outside of the window now in front of me. Almost all of these images were captured throughout the second week of April, 2017. Yes, it's taken me this long to pull this stuff and myself together enough to get this done.

Centaurea cyanus.

Centaurea cyanus.

Linum grandiflorum.

Linum grandiflorum,

Linum grandiflorum.

Linum grandiflorum.

Centaurea cyanus and Linum grandiflorum.

Eschscholzia californica.

Eschscholzia californica.

Eschscholzia californica.

Eschscholzia californica.

Papaver rhoeas.

Papaver rhoeas.

Papaver rhoeas

Papaver rhoeas.

Papaver rhoeas.

Papaver rhoeas.

Papaver rhoeas.

Papaver rhoeas.

Papaver rhoeas.

Papaver rhoeas.

Bearded Iris.

Bearded Iris.

Bearded Iris.

Bearded Iris.

Bearded Iris.

Bearded Iris.

Bearded Iris.

Bearded Iris.

Alrighty then, now that wasn't so difficult was it, Eric? Thanks for coming along. More walk reports are forthcoming as soon as the weather (high temps) starts to cooperate a little--stay turned.

* Update on the YouTube link to The Origami Revolution, it has been deleted. You may want to search your local PBS site or try NOVA on devices such as Apple TV. It's worth looking for.

Today's walk report: 120914

The final leg of the 2014 tour, the year really seemed to fly by. I'm extremely grateful for the companionship I've had since February and am looking forward to each and every future day with my girl, Docken.

Here are photos from last weekend's walks...

I've been trying to get a really nice picture of this black-chinned hummingbird for some time now. These aren't those. Considering this behavior and the current condition of the local botanical garden (flowers are few, moving into winter) it might be awhile before I catch him at plant level again. Anyway, the fly catching thing shown here is something I suspect most people don't really see. Camera data says I'm 28.5 meters (31 yards) away, a lot of that being up, and even at 300 mm the flies aren't too visible until cropping in. Notice the bird's darting tongue in the 2nd image.

Eschscholzia californica (California poppy)

Green lynx spider (Peucetia viridans)

I spent an inordinate amount of time following around this clouded sulphur (Colias philodice) and barely got this shot off before he took off again.

The 2nd landing was much longer, having parked himself in the leaf of a western redbud (Cercis occidentalis) tree.

Buds beginning on the ever popular chandelier plant (Kalanchoe delagoensis).

Unknown succulent.

Unknown succulent.

Yes, we had rain, quite a bit considering the SoCal drought situation. We clocked in at just over 2" from 11/30-12/04 with more on the way. The rain brought mushrooms everywhere.

This is a blue marine (Leptotes marina) it's one of my favorite butterflies to photograph. They fly in such a frenzied manner and are quite small (wing Span: 7/8 - 1 1/8 inches (2.2 - 2.9 cm) so it's difficult to see how pretty they are until they land and that's not often or typically for very long. I discovered in this report that open wings is pretty much just a mating thing and a glimpse of their iridescent wings is rare. The plant is Westringia, 'Blue Gem.'

New flowers from the Tagetes lemmonii bushes, perhaps this will lure the hummingbird back.

I'll probably have a report or two before the close of 2014 but just in case, happy holidays whoever you are!

Today's walk report: 120114, rainy days and Mondays

Monday, December 1, 2014.

It looks like rain, fact is, it's been raining on and off for a couple of nights and a day now and we've got a pretty decent storm coming in tomorrow--but it looks like the fringes are already here and it's already dark outside. So... no walk today and instead I bring you these images from the last couple of weeks. These photos were taken from 112114 to 113014 and are, for the most part, randomly ordered.

A hoverfly enjoys an early bloom, Eschscholzia californica (California poppy).

Yarrow, died back.

A black-chinned hummingbird on Aloe maculata.

An empty Alyogyne huegelii seedpod.

This black phoebe (Sayornis nigricans) was fluttering between this desert willow and the pond, taking a bath below.

Don't be fooled the spines are in there.

Female green lynx spider.

A graveyard for palo verde flowers.

Some cotyledons.

Vanessa cardui, near the front door.

Vanessa cardui on lantana.

Vanessa cardui on lantana.

This was a great macro find, well, it was for the photo aspect... not so much for setting up the shot.

This is what you see when you approach this wormy cactus. I was both surprised  and excited to see just how much beauty was up close.

The unfortunate side of getting down on the ground to take pictures of the tiny pink flowers was this... It was buried unseen in the gravel on your left. I put most of my weight onto this with my right palm. I then hollered for the lovely nurse Docken to assist. Both going in and pulling them out, these spines were shockingly painful.

Senna bicapsularis.

Senna bicapsularis.

More tiny spines.

Water flower.

Yellow rumped warbler in a desert willow.

Hairlike spines.

This was another delightful surprised once view with a Canon 60mm macro lens. One could barely tell there were flowers here with the naked eye and it was certainly a pleasant surprise to see how pretty they were. I believe the plant is some type of sedum.

Throw in a tiny black ant (Monomorium minimum) for measure. These worker black ants measure 1-2mm.

We ended up walking in the rain in Sunday, 113014 with cameras, primarily to get the above photo of the wormy cactus. The forecast for the day had called for light to no rain, we ended up with .66" which was .16" more than we had so far for the season.

Meanwhile, it's now noon, 120214 and it has been raining since about 6 am, already adding an additional .5" of rain and this is supposed to continue into tomorrow. We need it badly, unfortunately, we don't really have the resources to harvest the rainwater.