Today's walk report: 110313

A race against the clock.

Clocks went back an hour last night which means a process of adjusting in a few ways. One of which will be trying to get out before 3:30 instead of before 4:30. My 1st photo was at 4:26 PM... so I guess I was out the door about 4:10 PST. I don't get along with this messing with the clock business too well.

Anyway, I was losing light quick. I put my Canon 500D closeup attachment on the 70-300mm, went with that and only snapped some flowers. Right now I have to get off this computer. I'm getting some carpal-tunnel-like symptoms on my right arm from a lot of precise mouse movement so I need to chill out on that.

1/2 of these are focus stacks consisting of a few to as many as 10 images, the rest are just single shot snapshots.

I don't know what this is, maybe some sort of coreopsis. This is a fairly tall shrub, 4' +, just starting to bloom. Which seems early... a reminder to myself to look it up from pics last year.

A pink sage, I think I have the name recorded somewhere... I'll look it up later.

The same...

Another no ID.

Red Mountain Sage, aka, Fiery Sage (Salvia darcyi).

I know this one from my sister's blog the other day (see I pay attention), Senna (Cassia) bicapsularis.

Tecoma Stans.

I assume this is a Callistemon. That flower is tiny, at best 3cm long.

Today's walk report: 071613

Stuff in my garden, walk inspired.

Okay, I didn't know what else to call this. This is another one of those posts where I'm trying to come up with an idea since the Monday-Thursday walks are becoming more and more mechanical. They are, primarily, EXERCISE. Go figure. With music.

Something odd did happen on the walk tonight though. Briefly... I saw this lady walking a dog. The woman was dressed for exercise, the dog (maybe an Aussie mix or English Shepard mix--something tailless) was on a leash. I walked maybe another mile and the dog was by itself and appeared to be in a bit of a panic not quite running but moving quickly up the street. Someone in the neighborhood was getting a spare leash from their house and was going to go after her so I stopped and explained I had just seen someone one street over walking the dog and gave a brief description. Strange.

Oh, gardening... A ditch effort to get some pictures up. I thought I'd show a few plants I have growing (trying to) at home that were inspired by my walks to the garden. Since I'm pretty lame in the garden department I look for inspiration wherever I go. I get help in the garden department from my sister but I also observe plants and see what seems to do well in the area--targeting plants that may be indestructible and survive the sorry conditions of soil and whatnot here. Whatnot most likely being me.

Images are from both this year and last. I'm basically winging this.

Verbena, from the botanical garden...

Verbena at my house.

 Another variety of verbena I planted today.

This one worries me a little. First, the Desert Willow (Chilopsis linearis) from my yard. I JUST took this out in the dark.

What worries me is I'm thinking 6' away from the side of the garage may have been a wee bit too close. Chilopsis linearis can get up to 40' tall.

Another one that might eventually need more breathing room than I gave it. Emu Bush (Eremophila polyclada.)

Mine...

Their's... and this is just half of it. There's a eucalyptus bush dividing this, there's just as much off to the right.

Blue Hibiscus, Alyogyne huegelii from their garden.

My Alyogyne huegelii, planted today.

Yesterday I mentioned the Tecoma stans on the campus. Here's mine, planted yesterday.

I also have a potpourri of sages, the idea of which came from the garden on campus. Some of mine have done better than others. It's all a mystery to me. These are silver sages from the garden. I tried one silver sage last year and it lasted about a week. Paying $10-$12 for a plant and having it quickly die on me is something I find very painful.

The sage which has probably done the best for me although it's looking rather tired right now is the Hot Lips (Salvia microphylla) seen here in red near my front door late April.

The biggest inspiration from the botanical garden has probably been the wildflowers. I did pretty well with my sowing of wildflower seeds last year and look forward to it again this year. The most impressive thing a year ago April in the botanical garden was probably the California Poppies. I did well with the poppies in spring.

Here's what I saw at the botanical garden May 2nd, 2012. This year wasn't anywhere close to this and most of the poppies were gone by May this year.

One of my poppies and some Gilia tricolor April 7th.

Thanks. (Gee, I hope that dog found its owner or vice-versa.)

Today's walk report: 071513

Real quick...

That was the walk and so should be my report. I blasted through the 8.25 km southbound neighborhood walk and about the only thing I saw that was interesting was a feral parrot. It was talking to me too. No DSLR, no 300 mm lens and it was only a parrot, you've seen a parrot before, right? Not that trite, lame, boring, stupid shit hasn't stopped me from posting in the past. Anyway, it reminded me of my old neighborhood and my walks there once again. We had lots of feral parrots in Windsor Square. I remember one time this couple, early 30s, dashing about near our house (yes, I was married, with a son, a house and a cat named Mickey) they were gazing up in the trees with a certain earnest panicky look. I asked what was going on and they said their parrot got out and they were trying to find him. I had to snicker, right, freedom or you and his cage, certainly he'll fly right to you when you call. I think all I said though was "good luck."

That's about it for the walk, it simply got done. I also went to the local garden center and picked up some plants today. Most of which have to wait for a cooler morning tomorrow before they go into the ground. I did bring a camera to the nursery however so I may as well brighten up this post...

Also, this was left off my post yesterday. This had been missing an ID in this post from 6/28. This is Gold Star Esperanza (Tecoma stans). I know that now because I bought one. It's the only plant I got in the ground today before the weather got too brutal to be digging in the dirt.

Speaking of digging in the dirt. Back in the days when music videos were made exceptionally well. A few of them were, anyway.