Today's walk report: 110418

Lizard's regret.

Hopefully we're finishing up the really, for sure, last and final heat wave of the year here in SoCal. We've had temps up to 94º over the past few days and it has gotten pretty tiring.

Meanwhile, pictures from today...

This little fellow came right up, knowing Docken had bird food.

This is the same Calypte anna's hummingbird in other recent walk reports. He's just looking a lot more mature now.

A Northern flicker woodpecker who was quite evasive.

 Here are a couple of reminders to vote democrat.

 and one more.

Docken spotted this fellow. We haven't seen an egret for some time now. He was stalking lizards and he got one.

In a flash, he's got it. (Click the image so you can see better).
 

Here's the tail end of the story.

I'll leave you with a sunset from last night. We drove for this one.

Today's walk report: 010814

To the sunset and back...

and for what? I was trying to time my departure so I'd arrive atop the infamous cross country course when the sky lit up pink. I was probably 500 meters off my mark when orange was drifting down and leaving gray. Yesterday about the time I got home the sky lit up rather nicely pink. I was expecting something similar. I tempted fortune making this walk too. While my cold symptoms were for the most part tolerable I did a lot of housework and yard work throughout the day and it was catching up to me.

Just a few minutes before I got here most of what you see as was lit up orange.

I sat in the dirt and waited for about 25 minutes, imagining the sky lighting up a brilliant pink but nope. Still it was good for me to sit down. I didn't struggle with the walk but it wasn't as easy as it was yesterday and I was going in at a pretty good clip because I had stopped a few minutes to talk with my next door neighbor and wanted to make up that time. It's about 2.6 km to the top of the hill and yeah, I gotta climb up a frick'n hill whilst dealing with an infectious disease causing some grief in my upper respiratory tract. There's no way to make that "fun" however I did enjoy the walk, overall. The time sitting on the hill was fine. The music was good and for the walk home I took it easy.

Tonight I'm having lentil soup and for "dessert" Fentimans ginger beer. The strong ginger flavor feels good against the nasopharyngitis. Then cat in the lap (I'll have no choice), cozy up with blankets on the couch, a small fire in the fireplace and watch a movie... most likely 1/2 a movie but we'll see.

Today's walk report: 122713

Walk, sat, sun, set...

Today's walk report: 121613

Park and walk.

Another one of those days. I had a lot I wanted to get done today and I got enough of it done so I don't feel bad about what I didn't get to. However, one of the 1st things I did after coffee and some AM internet was to plant a couple of 6-packs of Primula acaulis, aka, Primrose, I had picked up from the local garden center on Saturday.  These went into a narrow strip of ground the runs from my driveway to the front door.

Shortly after I was done I learned the errors of my ways, bending over like I did. My back wasn't happy. Yesterday I had noticed there was some Flexeril in the house and even though I remember Flexeril being not very effective for me I decided to take one. By 2 PM I was sleepy... real sleepy. I haven't slept well to begin with in the last 10 months and I realized I wasn't going to do well at all this evening if I didn't lie down. I ended up listening to music for about 40 minutes and then the wireless feed to the living room stereo kicked out. I was on the couch in front of it. My guess is as soon as there was 2 minutes of silence I was out. I opened my eyes a few times but it wasn't until 3:40 that I got up, had 1/2 a cup of coffee, organized some paperwork for tomorrow, took a quick look outside to see what kind of sunset I might expect and then grabbed my camera and drove up to the college campus where I usually walk on weekends. Sunset was 4:48. I took my first picture from up on the campus cross country course at 4:40:43 PM.

There was another motivation for doing things this way and that was my checking out the campus to see if it appeared to be school's out for winter quarter. It appears so. They have some limited schedule for winter but it's not enough to bother me. I like to walk the campus but I don't like it when it's choked with students.

At this point it seemed everything was going toward the gray side and sunset wasn't going to be as nice as I expected.

Meanwhile some cattle down below heard the dinner bell ring. Yes, one of them is peeing on the way to dinner, wtf does a cow care.

I started to get at least a little walking in by doing what we always called the "switchbacks" on the cross country course. Yes, once upon a time I ran cross country in High School. It's really quite the miserable sport and running past a long line of pig pens about a mile into a race is the absolute pits. There are no more pigs on the campus. I kind of think the school would like to do away with this side of their history but for me all of this led to some fun and interesting experiences in my life. My sister and I lived on this campus for a period two summers growing up while our parents went on vacation. We "moved" cattle, fed them, I milked a cow and a goat, chopped the head off of a chicken... We got a nice feel for farm life. "Good bye, city life. Green Acres we are there!"

I went to the "upper deck" still waiting on the sunset to light up a show and noticed another photographer. As I hit the apex I could see he was waiting on the moonrise. He had a tripod, I did not but wish I did. I mean, geez, I did come by car. Yesterday I grumbled about carrying a tripod. I can't make up my mind.

Several minutes later...

and turning around you will see, the sunset was very nice indeed.

Tomorrow the moon is full. I'm thinking I might do this again but leave earlier, walk some on on the lower campus and then go get my tripod from the car.

Today's walk report: 083113

So long August, 2013...

and good riddance!

It hasn't been the most pleasant month, nevertheless, I've learned a lot about myself and I'm a better person for it. I'm certain to do better in the future dealing with pain in the ass bullshit than I did this month. There really is quite a bit you can do to make your own happiness. Accepting things you cannot change and finding courage to change the things you can... you know? The serenity prayer, just without the God part because it's all up to you.

However, there's very little you can do about the weather. Even though summer is likely to become more brutal in September, I'm glad to kiss your ass goodbye August! I've got one more month of summer hot, sticky discomfort behind me!

Last fall I rendered this image. Just because it was the first day of autumn. Today I put a caption on it.

The reason I did this was because a lot of people were whining on Facebook, etc., about where did summer go and whaa, waaa, waaa... Except summer has another 3 weeks. I think the whimpering is a resurging little bitch from people's school days. School's open, Labor Day weekend... oh shit, summer's gone. Well it's not and for people who live in places like I do, SoCal in a Valley, Miami, New Orleans, Dallas (well, that one--serves them right), or Mobile, summer is probably going to do its best to push its way into fall's scene. Even when it really is "gone" it's relentless in places like these.

The walk.

It was almost 6:30 PM out the door. It was simply miserable once again. I didn't hang out for pictures because standing still made me acutely aware of the perspiration seeping into my clothes. I spotted something though. I saw an Anna's hummingbird again for the first time since spring, I believe. I can look back at photos and check that but for certain it's been months since I've seen one. I took a few shots but he was way too far away and in case you haven't noticed I've taken some decent hummingbird shots in the past, so I wouldn't want to tarnish that. Anyway, I like to follow these cycles, it can tell you about other changes which are about to occur. Last year it was the seagulls, they told me when the first rains were coming. Seagulls are sensitive to changes in barometric pressure. I kid you not, here I'll Google it for you.

The other little photo op I've been working on is to catch a post-sunset bat in flight. I'm getting closer. It's a total crapshoot. I put the lens at 300mm or slightly less, set manual focus to a distance I think would be a decent framed image and I try to capture one before the light is too far gone, relying on bats which are flying toward me. At least for the most part, there isn't much predictability in the course of a flying bat. I got close today but not nearly good enough to post.

That's it. I'll leave you with the final sunset of August, 2013.

Bye bye 2011. Nice knowing ya.

The last sunset of 2011, San Fernando Valley, CA.