Live and in person, Docken and I went for a walk together today. That's right, you heard right, the secret words for tonight are, walkin' with Docken. It was the same basic, yet somewhat abbreviated walk as of late but today we were together again.
Not to bum out much of the US but... it was sunny and about 75ºF for most of this. This grab from weather dot com was snatched a couple of hours post the walk.
There weren't a lot of photo ops. This common raven, I would bet money this is the raven I first photographed here.
We walked around a bunch and mostly commented on how many things had changed on the campus. Then we drove up the hill and walked around a bit more. It was mostly fun being together.
Dinosaurs in the Valley. Um, I thought I would be able to avoid this word but I can't. We were outside the perimeter but our general impression was, this is pathetic. Especially considering the ticket price is $24.99 (Kids under 2, military and Vets are free). You decide.
Another, I gotta get out of the house walk. It was somewhat meandering and totaled only about 2.6 miles but again, the intention was getting outside and moving about. Once again Docken joined me on the phone and her company was appreciated. Here are some pictures...
There was male Calypte Anna hummingbird, Dusty, enjoying cape honeysuckle flowers same as last week. Also the same was the blinding glare of sunlight coming into my face from about two o'clock. I could not see my subject and had to put faith in autofocus.
What do you do when a turkey vulture is circling overhead? You take pictures. of course.
Wandering around, I checked the sundial. According to my camera data, this image was taken at 11:47.
I walked a bunch and with the lack of subject matter for pictures I decided to head for the car and drive up the hill. There was a cross between clear skies and hazy clouds but overall it was cool and pleasant. Despite recent rains I was a little surprised to see this much green blanketing the mountains looking north. This is kind of Chatsworth, Porter Ranch and perhaps a little Granada Hills with the Santa Susana Mountains taking up the rear.
To the south, on the campus cross-country course, a course I ran in High School (there was no joy) there was what I found to be a rather odd cycling event. I am no stranger to cycling but I had to look this up. As it turns out it's an event called, Cyclo-cross. Here's how Wikipedia describes Cyclo-cross...
Cyclo-cross is a form of bicycle racing. Races typically take place in the autumn and winter, and consist of many laps of a short course featuring pavement, wooded trails, grass, steep hills and obstacles requiring the rider to quickly dismount, carry the bike while navigating the obstruction and remount.
I'm gonna guess bicycle resellers must love Cyclo-cross. The portion of the course I could see looked pretty tame.
On my way home, I took the scenic route. Candy Cane Lane has been a local Xmas decoration extravaganza all of my life. Unfortunately, a lot of it is the same old tired decorations that have been used for over 60 years. However, this is the first time I've ever seen this banner coming into the neighborhood.
I had to park and walk a ways to get that picture. Going back to the car this German Shepherd started barking at me. I quietly called him or her a good dog and it looked at me as if it wanted to be my friend.
Last year this house had a pirate ship complete with skeleton passengers dressed in Santa hats, this year the residents decided to don the hats on cactus plants.
That's all for the walk but wait! As a special bonus... I was going through content on ancient hard drives the other day and since it's the holiday season and I found a few "lost" images, originally created for Christmas time, I thought I'd include a few. Rudy the reindeer was first drawn in 2009 (I think) Frosty came shortly thereafter. I think all of these images are from 2010-2011.
I will leave you with my personal favorite Christmas song. Merry Christmas. Have a happy day and a wonderful tomorrow.
The last confirmed sighting of the male Calypte anna hummingbird known as Dusty was on October 9th but here he is again and he was the star of the day. Rain is eminent sometime today but the forecast kept getting pushed to later and later in the day and now into the evening. Currently weather dot com is saying rain drops at 9 PM. When I went out this morning the forecast was for 3 PM. Here's the deal, it's going to rain and probably well into Sunday morning. I decided Friday evening that my best opportunity for a walk would be this morning. That's what I did.The temperature ranged between 51º and 54º through the course of my short trek.
Dusty was reliably where Dusty usually is. There isn't a lot of floral variety in his territory right now but there's a reasonable amount of Salvia leucantha, the Mexican bush sage and he seemed rather content with two large Tecoma capensis (Cape honeysuckle) shrubs that are flowering heavily.
Here are some pictures...
I wandered around quite a bit but wasn't finding too much I found appealing for picture taking. I decided to drive up to the top of the hill to see if any big birds were hanging out. Docken joined me on the phone, top o' hill. Thank you, Docken. It was quiet. No birds of prey and this common raven was the only corvid I witnessed. It took off as I approached.
Rounding the hilltop I took a shot of Elephant Mountain and headed back to my car. It was nice to get out and the cool air was invigorating.
I listened to a lot of music for much of the pre-walk morning and a good deal of the walk. I've also been listening to music for the duration of putting this post together.Just as I was typing the words, Rain is eminent sometime today, I heard this, Rain, come down, and fall forever... I found that amusing so here you go...
I know I should have done this earlier but I've been painfully busy. I mean literal pain was involved. I'm no spring chicken. I don't suppose I should advertise for "handyperson wanted" here on the blog, however... have you ever tried to find a handyman? And if you found one, then what happened? Hey, I have my own horror stories going back some 30+ years. So... never mind.
Back to what I neglected to mention here. My most recent post was last Saturday, December 3rd and it began with a report on the lovely feral cat, Stan, who lives here when he feels like it. It's only a couple of paragraphs long but I'll provide the Cliff Notes version. Stan was hurt, he couldn't walk on his front right leg. It was day two of that and he was a no show the day before. Like a good, caring dad, I was concerned. Perhaps overly so but we (Docken, Lucy and I) are very fond of Stan.
Last Sunday, that would be December 4th, Stan showed up late for breakfast. I was anxiously looking for him every 5-10 minutes. I finally decided I needed to stop obsessing. I noticed late morning a lot of his dry food was gone and sure enough he was curled up in his house which sits on a 6' table on the patio (thank you, Docken). I left him alone and almost missed his departure. Fortunately, he had stopped to drink from a water bowl at the other end of the backyard. I spoke to him from the patio. I asked him if he'd like some Friskies. He licked his chops and I rushed inside to prepare a bowl. When I went back out he was waiting in the same spot, 30-something feet away. I put his dish down, patted my leg and said, come on Stan (this is an every morning ritual). I made sure he could hear the door click shut as I went back inside and watched from the living room windows. I saw him walk toward the patio--on all four paws! He was still favoring that right front leg but he was okay! Yay Stan! By Monday he seemed perfectly fine. Yay Stan!!
Anyway, I know there are some mystery folks who visit this silly blog on occasions and I thought I should report this to those mystery people just in case Stan tugged at their heartstrings last week. Here's Stan from this morning, post breakfast...
It was a mental health walk this afternoon. I had spent all morning into early afternoon feeling a great deal of concern and a certain level of helplessness regarding our dear friend Stan, the feral cat. Stan is family for Docken, Lucy the Cat and me. Stan apparently injured his front right leg on Thursday (checked my notes, Doc). On Thursday he was a no show. Yesterday and today he has been unable to put any weight on his front right paw. I think the injury is an acute sprain of the front right carpus. We've seen this before with Mr. Stan.
Anyone reading this please send healing vibes to Stan because we love him and don't want him hurting. The good news is he's eating well and he slept in his house here on the patio from early AM until about 1:00 PM. How early? I don't know but yesterday morning, which is when I became aware of his injury, he was here before 3:20 AM. This makes me feel good, that he knows he can come here for rest. We just wish we knew where else he takes off to. Anyway, I pretty much kept an eye on him all morning so I could make sure he had plenty to eat before leaving and I wasn't about to disturb him while he was sleeping. I also wanted to get some pictures to see if I could determine the extent of his injury and to see how well he was able to navigate his exit on three legs. Note: his right paw is not touching the ground. I have photos of the pads on his paw, there's no sign of injury like a cut or puncture. A sprain can take a couple of weeks for recovery but it's not like I can isolate the poor fellow so he can be monitored. Again, Stan is feral. Stan is one of the sweetest, most unusual cats I have ever encountered. I'm sure Docken agrees.
Docken joined me on the phone (thank you!) a little later in the afternoon and I drove to the nearby college campus to go for a walk. Unfortunately, I had to contend with and avoid the, LAUSD 46th Annual Band & Drill Team Championship. There are 184 High Schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. They were everywhere. In fact, I can still hear them right now as I type and I am .84 miles (1.35 km) away from where they are doing their thing. Much of the campus was not accessible to me, I went directly to the top of the hill to find parking and some solitude.
There wasn't much picture taking, here's what I got...
A big upside, yesterday there was .53" of much needed rain and today the sky was gorgeous.
See the lampposts near the bottom center of this image? That's where I headed next after a rather uneventful walk around the hilltop.
Common ravens, there were three until I got too close for comfort. I had dry cat food for them but I didn't get chance to deliver any.
No contests between ravens, crows (there were a lot) and this red-tailed hawk, not this time.
I had a large murder of crows fly directly at me from this field but I wasn't paying strict attention and missed the shot. To be honest I was looking for stuff on the ground that the rain may have brought.
It was good to get out. I was feeling part of the scenery.
