a quartet of close-ups

...for your viewing pleasure!
a lovely cosmos (cosmo?) via neighbor China; the 'wild'? iris that blooms out by the road; pineapple guava (why do I not see bees going for these?); and a new one via Annie's annuals-- 'Minoan Lace'. As always, click on image to see larger!

Too much rain for roses

Yes, we just don't anticipate quite so much water-weight when the roses are in full bloom. Today it appears that a few of the climbers would really appreciate more support! Sally Holmes usually doesn't lean over into this sculpture (though I sorta like the effect), and that's Graham Thomas looking rather downcast against the red shed.

all about the wildflowers

This latest batch of wildflowers were taken at Four Springs Retreat Center, up near Middletown (1/2 hour past Calistooga)... where it was a cool and sometimes rainy weekend, but lovely nonetheless!

Sunol Regional Park in Spring

Two years ago, (and a full month earlier) Tony, his mom, Alice, & I went for a lovely hike in Sunol. We did it again this weekend, and once again it was spectacular-- but with different plants in bloom, and lots of butterflies. We've decided it really should be an annual Spring event.





It appeared that there had been a very recent hatch of these chalcedon checkerspots, and the puddles were full of good-sized tadpoles.

Some pictures from the previous hike are here.

This site helped us to ID a few of the flowers we see less frequently, like Ithuriel's Spear (blue) and the Mariposa Lily (white with red spots) but we have yet to locate this red/violet one... anyone?

Here come the roses: Golden Celebration!

Yes, roses will be beginning in earnest this next week or two, with good warm days. The first to really put on a show is this Golden Celebration (a David Austin rose) which we're training as a climber over a trellis-arch... definitely up over our heads now, at maybe 7 feet. It's a beauty.

A 93 wildflower hike!

Yesterday we took a hike-- from Shell Beach inland towards Pomo Canyon (on the Northern California coast, just south of Jenner).
As is our habit, we counted wildflowers along the way, and counted 93!-- about twice as many as any previous hike's total. Yow! (we count *everything*, no matter how small)
Six foot tall Angelicas had to be the hands down stars of the day, but we saw numerous things we couldn't remember having seen before.







I was also rather taken with the unfurling of ferns
...and it was just a spectacular weather day (with a little sunburn on the spots the sunscreen missed).