Harvesting Seed

Readers of this blog know that I have been tending a California natives garden bed. They also know that I've been harvesting the seeds of some of the wildflowers for next year and to share with friends & family. I've clipped and plucked seed pods of the blue (Arroyo?) lupine, the "standard" orange California poppies, and the "mixed" California poppies. That leaves the Yellow Lupines.

Well, the last few days have been stupendously hot, so I slacked and didn't get out there to clip the seed heads. Today is also awfully dang'd hot, but not nearly as bad, so I took my clippers and my paper bag and braved the afternoon heat.

I am horrified to report that an insane number of Yellow Lupine seeds have already ripened and exploded all over the place! I am going to have SO many Yellow Lupines next year that I'm not sure what to do about it.

Oh, well. It remains to be seen how many actual seeds I managed to harvest.

In the meanwhile, I'm finding that the "standard" orange poppy seed pods seem to continue to hold onto a percentage of their seeds after they explode. In some cases, the pods seem to still be chock-full.

Well, back to extracting seed from pods!

Pollinator Update

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the pollinators in my garden and beyond. The first photo was of a Yellow Lupine and "some bee."

Well, I found out this morning that this bee is the Yellow-faced Bumblebee (Bombus vosnesenskii). 

This ID came to me through an unusual-to-me source: The newspaper. Specifically, the Home & Garden section of the San Francisco Chronicle dated June 14, 2009 that my brother left in my favorite chair. He had spied an article called "Give bees a chance" and thought it might interest me. You can find the article online in their archives.

The article talks, not just about bees and wasps, but about hummingbirds, butterflies, and moths (and beetles, flies, and bats!). They mention the Anise Swallowtail as being one of our local butterflies. They and the Western Swallowtail are quite remarkable when floating through the garden!

Here's where I get on my soapbox. A couple of the commenters on the online version of the article were touting planting Sweet Fennel to support the Anise Swallowtail. Now, granted, the Anise Swallowtail will use fennel as a host plant (the plant that the caterpillar eats before becoming a butterfly), but fennel is not only not native to the area, it's considered an invasive weed. Gah!

For those of you who want to cut down on invasive weeds, help the local ecosystems, AND feed the Anise Swallowtail, try planting its NATIVE larval foods. (OK, they might be a trifle challenging to come by, but you can try.)

• Southern Tauschia (Tauschia arguta) is definitely a Southern (well south of Monterey County) California plant, so not for the Bay Area.
  
• Woolly-fruited Lomatium (Lomatium dasycarpum) is found pretty much throughout California (except the Sierras).
  It's available at Bay Natives, Native Here Nursery, and Oaktown Native Plant Nursery.
• Common Lomatium (Lomatium utriculatum) is found even more widely throughout California than the Woolly-fruited variety.
  It's available at Annie's Annuals, Native Here Nursery, and Northwest Native Seed.
• Pacific Oenanthe (Oenanthe sarmentosa) is found throughout much of California, but especially along the coast and Coast Ranges. This is also known as Water Parsley, so it's probably going to want a wet area.
  For those of us looking to do drier gardening, something else might be a better choice. If you are still interested, try Native Here Nursery or Friends of Sausal Creek Nursery.

So, please don't (as a couple of the on-line commenters suggest) go out and plant fennel all over the place! Help out the Anise Swallowtails (and all the other pollinators out there) by planting a few more California Natives!

Trip to Baylands/Shoreline

A little over a week ago, a couple of friends and I took an afternoon "hike" (OK, it was more of a stroll or amble) in the area where the Palo Alto Baylands meets Shoreline Park. I don't usually do photo-hikes in the afternoon (or late afternoon). I usually go out in the early morning. 

As it turns out, the morning really is a better time. That afternoon, the wind was blowing and gusting and keeping us from being able to hold still long enough to get truly steady shots of birds or anything else. We even tried leaning against a signpost to steady ourselves, but the wind was causing the post to vibrate adding yet another component to the unsteadiness of photos. But I still managed to get a couple of shots.

Quite a few terns (Forster's?) were alternating between their encampment on an island in the Charleston Slough and the creek on the other side of the levy.

Also on the creek side of the levy was a small flock of American White Pelicans who were mostly bathing and preening.

Of course, there were seagulls and other shorebirds lurking amongst the pelis. And the occasional pelican wheeled through the sky.

Over on the Shoreline side of things, down in the Coast Casey Forebay, we found a few wading birds such as this Black-Necked Stilt

and these American Avocets.

You know, it's amazing how very blustery it was up on the levies and how very calm it was down in the forebay. Still, trying to take photos of the forebay from up on the levy made it quite challenging to remain standing!

On a California native plant side-note, the Blue Elderberry trees along both sides of the levy were heavy with ripe and ripening berries. I sampled several and they were tasty. Not 2-die-4 tasty, but still...  Mark tasted them, but didn't think much of them. Chris wouldn't even try them. Like someone else I know, he doesn't eat "random plants."  :-)

But it makes me look forward to the time when all the Elderberries on my own tree will start ripening. And I'm highly amused that the tree continues to put on fresh buds and blossoms!

A Trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium

Over the last month or so, I've suggested to my brother a couple of times that we should take a weekday trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium one hour to our south. Well, yesterday morning he suggested it on his own. So, I packed up my camera and away we went.

This is where I tell you that, a-way-back-when, I joined the aquarium when it was about 1 year old. I've maintained that membership since then, even when I lived out of the area and even when I didn't go for several years in a row. (I let my membership lapse this year cuz their membership people turned into jerks.)

The aquarium is even more awesome than it was the last time I was there. They have added quite a lot of features targeting kids (which is great! I love watching kids get psyched over science stuff), but they've also added non-age-specific features.

One of the things I have mixed feelings about is that the aquarium used to be solely focused on the California coast and the deep canyons off the coast. It was a truly unique resource in that respect. They had a little bit of everything they could bring back to the confines of the aquarium without having it die on them. Granted, the colors of the life in the cooler oceans are stupendously boring (to the untrained eye, but that's who they are inviting into the aquarium) primarily having various muddied shades of brown and gray and green. But I like it, just like I can appreciate all the shades and textures of greens in my California Natives garden.

Above is a Leopard Shark in the Kelp Forest. Sharky is mostly shades of gray with a few splotches of brown here and there. The kelp is muddy shades of yellowish- or brownish-green. The water has a slight murk to it. But these are all good things! Strictly-blue water (blue because of the way light refracts through it) is "dead" water in that it has no microscopic life in it. The slightly-green murk is life! (Actually, if you were out diving in the kelp forest visible from the back deck, the water would be much greener and murkier. They filter the water slightly so you can see the exhibits better.)

So, even though the life in the local environment is quite beautiful to me, I can see where it could be considered "boring" to the family of five who would be plunking down on the order of $125 just to get in, looking for value for their dollars.  Now the aquarium is bringing in exhibits from around the world so they can bring in the color factor, the oddity factor, and the cuteness factor.

Among the cuteness factor exhibits is this absolutely adorable flock of penguins from South Africa. They mostly seem to stand on the edge and stare at the humans and look like they're worried that the humans will come through the glass. But they are quite cute. Also cute are the two different kinds of freshwater otters.

For color they've added tropical fish such as this Blue Tang above and the what? Zebra-Striped Angel (got me what it's called) below.

One of the first exhibits they added for the freakiness factor was the jellies.

Most of the early jellyfish exhibits were the bland-colored, small jellies that were here on our coast and were totally cool, scientifically speaking. (See what I meant about mixed feelings?) But they have now put these guys in a tank that is optimally painted, lit, and filtered to really show off their uniqueness that folks would have completely ignored if they were in a tank that was painted, lit, and unfiltered in a very natural way.

The latest addition to the freakiness factor are the Sea Horses and their kin. The Sea Horses and Pipefish mostly moved WAY too fast for my camera to capture them without being a complete blurrrrrrr. But the Sea Dragons are a different story and they're MUCH more freakish. Viz:

What you're looking at is not a chunk of seaweed. What you are looking at is animal. In fact, it's three animals! There are three Sea Dragons clustered together here. I have photos because they don't move very quickly. As a matter of fact, they actually seem to drift through the water, looking for all the world like broken-off chunks of kelp. That's their camouflage! Looking like something that holds no interest for a predator. Here's another:

Again, three Sea Dragons adrift like chunks of seaweed. Very funky, very amazing, very "Ooooooh!"

But I also like the bright pink anemones from our coast. "Oooooh!"

And you know I like the Ruddy Ducks from previous posts, so here's a close-up of an adult male Ruddy Duck sporting his blue summer bill.

Yes, his summer bill is a chalky turquoise blue. Go figure. The aquarium had a breeding pair and two youngin's. Isn't he cute?

They have quite a few species of coastal strand birds, but most of them were hiding behind a dune where I was hard put to get a shot of them. But this one Killdeer was resting out on the sandy "beach" in the aviary.

Really, the bottom line is that the Monterey Bay Aquarium is truly awesome. There are plenty of exhibits that hold the interest of hypered-out kids, folks with a science bent, those who long to take adventures around the world, and those who just want a show. I've barely touched on what there is to see and do simply because there is SO much to see and do (and the lighting is SO low that I was hard pressed to get *any* decent photos out of the day).

You should go.

Slacking

Yes, I've been slacking-off on writing a new post for the last few days. I even went on a photo-hike and have photos to use in a post, but no, I've been slacking. 

Well, I was just over on Facebook where a friend was bemoaning that she was procrastinating and wondering how she could turn the power of procrastination into money or some sort of environmentally-clean energy.  One of her friends posted this link. I am SO ready to sign up!

When I quit procrastinating, I'll do a post about my hike.  :-)

Getting Up Before the Sun

I have a long, long, l-o-n-g history of getting up before the sun. Given that I've made my living in the software industry for the last 20+ years, that makes me rather an odd duck. (Many software people stay up till long past midnight then drag their butts out of bed, pound down a highly-caffeinated soft drink or two, and get into the office in time to check e-mail and go to lunch.)

But all those folks who don't get up till 9 or 10 AM (or even later!) miss out on some of the coolest events of the day. (At least I think they're cool.) Take this morning as an example.

I sleep with my windows open whenever possible. I like the fresh air. I also like the sounds the birds make when they're waking up, bathing, fixing breakfast, ...  The Black Phoebes perch on wires or fence tops and call in quiet voices: fi-BEE, fi-BEE, fi-BEE. The male Mourning Doves periodically call: COOO-coo-coo-coo. The House Sparrows chirp-chirp-chirp. The Lesser Goldfinches whistle their disappointed sighs.

And all that is very soothing and peaceful for me. But the really cool part comes when I get up as the day is starting to get just light enough out to make out the birds in the yard. That's when the hummingbirds show up at the hanging bird bath for their morning ablutions. Usually there's just the one hummer at a time. It'll sit on the rim and repeatedly duck its head and bill into the water, letting the water cascade over its tiny shoulders and body, shaking and fluffing its feathers to let the water get into all the nooks and crannies. Between dips, it'll swing its bill to the left then the right to wipe the collected crud off on the side of the bath. 

Once the hummer decides that this process has gone as far as it can, the little thing will lift off from the edge and fly across the surface of the bath dragging its lower half through the water. After doing that a few times, it will go back and sit on the edge. But this time it will sit backward and swish its tail in the water. 

It's all quite amazing to watch because hummingbirds are too tiny to stand in the bath, dipping and wriggling and flinging water far and wide like their larger brethren.

This morning's extra-added interest was afforded by the fact that there were, not one, but three hummers out there vying for a position at the bath. The three were all jockying for position, trying to run each other off so they could each have first dibs at enjoying the Birdie Spa alone. 

One morning a few months (several months?) ago, I got up to find three hummers all enjoying the Spa at once. They each had staked out a quadrant and were going through their morning ablutions. The cherry-on-top for that day was that only two of the hummers were our ubiquitous Anna's Hummingbird. The third was one of the rusty-orange species such as Allen's or Rufous Hummingbird. Quite a sight!

I've never seen hummers use the bath at any other time of day. And, no, you're not going to see any photos of the morning ablutions. Bad light, bad angle, permanently scratched and cruddy glass to try to shoot through, etc all prohibit anything approaching a decent photo. Or even a crappy one.

What a difference a day makes

On Monday I blogged about "Garden Blogger's Bloom Day" and had photos of virtually all my flowers including this sunflower.

Sadly, this morning it looks like this.

What're you gonna do? Life goes on. But you might notice a honeybee trolling around the center of the disk. And you might notice that the outer disk flowers are developing seeds quite nicely (as evidenced by the separation between the flowers).

While we're engaging in a little nostalgia vs today's reality, here's a nostalgic look at the street end of my natives bed back in late May.

And now, not quite two months later, people are using terms like "ratty."

Not that I blame them. It does look quite ratty out there, but now it's my turn to go out and trim out all the rattiness so that it can have a slight resurgence of growth. And, while I'm at it, I can harvest a bunch of seeds for next year's garden(s) and for friends' gardens.

Garden Blogger's Bloom Day - June 2009

It turns out that someone has determined that people who write blogs involving gardening should write about what's blooming in their yard on the 15th of every month. They call it "Garden Blogger's Bloom Day." I Googled it and found that it seems to have started around March 15, 2007. (I didn't see any over evidence of it before that date.)

So, what the heck! The Free-Range Turtle is as much about my garden as it is about flowers in the wild, birds in the wild, sculpture in the wild, climate discussions, and so on. So, I guess I'll take a whack at the whole Garden Blogger's Bloom Day.

There are, apparently, no special rules here. One can make a list... or not. One can post photos... or not. One can use common names or botanical names (or even no names if one is using photos I'd guess). One can include fruits and vegetables and weeds... or not. I think I'll try a variety of formats and see which works best. (Tell me what you think!)

First, all the photos in this post were taken this morning. Second, I didn't include the blooms that I consider to be "weeds" in the collection (where "weeds" are defined to be plants that I didn't plant, the previous owner didn't plant, and that I'd rather were gone but am too lazy to chase after each-and-every-one... e.g., dandelions, non-native oxalis, etc). 

Oh, man! Where to start?!? How about with the flowers that are fading...

 

Both of these are California natives. On the left is Sulfur Buckwheat. When its blooms are new, they're bright yellow (hence the name), but the fade to straw to rust to brown. It's actually a lovely effect. 

On the right is one of the last of the mixed California Poppies. There are only a few stunted orange flowers left and the mixed colors & forms are starting to follow suit. (They also come on later than the orange versions.) I spent an hour or two yesterday harvesting seed pods of the orange variety (having about 10% of the pods explode in my fingers, spraying seeds everywhere as soon as I touched them) and trimming about 18 inches of floppy foliage off the driveway where it... um... flopped.

Here's a tiny surprise inflorescence on a Ceanothus (of unknown species or cultivar that came with the house) right next to a small cluster of berries from the initial wave of bloom. Birds are supposed to love the berries.

And the once-rampant Yellow Lupines are all but gone, leaving behind long, curving stalks of seed pods. (The blue lupines are long gone and I've harvested their seeds. Now I'll be starting on the Yellow pods.)

 

Neither of the bloom-y bits above is fading... yet. On the left is our locally native Sticky Monkeyflower which is perennial and likely to continue blooming till it gets blazingly hot and dry in late summer or early fall. On the right is Clarkia amoena, Farewell-to-Spring, which should continue to bloom for a month or two (or more, with water).

The Blue Elderberry (also native to California) is still blooming, but has also started putting on great clusters of berries. The Sticky Monkeyflower and Clarkia pictured above are growing beneath this Elderberry, as do the Poppies and Lupines also pictured above.

Even this Penstemon 'Margarita BOP' grows beneath the Blue Elderberry. The penstemon is also a perennial and should continue to bloom well into the summer and maybe into the fall, depending on weather.

This Rosy Buckwheat is native to California, but it's not native locally (which would explain its issues with not really thriving here). It's native to the Catalina Islands. But it sure is pretty! And not likely to last long. *sigh*

The scary... um, rather, botanical name of this Narrow-Leafed Milkweed is Asclepias fasicularis. It, like others of the genus Asclepias, are larval host plants for the Monarch Butterfly. I don't have enough of it to attract the buterflies, but I like the idea. It is native to California.

This shrub, referred to as Purple Potato Plant, may not be officially native to California, but it sure looks an awful like our native Deadly Nightshade to which it is related. It blooms pretty much all year and the big, solitary, bumbly bees love it.

Native? Non-native? Well, Helianthus annuus is native to most of the US -- including California -- but this guy is a cultivar intended as food for humans. I planted seed a couple of years ago and they came up, bloomed, made massive quantities of seed, and dropped most of them in the bed that I turned into my California Natives bed. Right now, it's about the only thing blooming at the west end of the bed since the poppies and lupines have pretty much given up.

This is another inherited plant, this one a vine, that seems to be another Solanum -- related to Deadly Nightshade. It grows rampantly, has to be hacked back constantly, and blooms year-round.

This Impatiens is likely native to Jamaica (I saw them growing wild and huge along the roads there), but I started with a 6-pack of them about 12 years ago. They are treated as annuals in most of the lower 48 because they're so tender, but I still have one of the originals PLUS a bunch that came up from seed dropped by birds in a planter across the walkway from the original.

This native Seep Monkeyflower, Mimulus guttatus, is relatively new in my garden and has only recently started blooming in greater abundance. It likes moist places (hence the "Seep" in the name), so I put it under the bird bath.

This red climbing rose is no native, but I have no idea what its species or cultivar is. It came with the house, has been quite unceremoniously ripped out by the fence crew, and stuck back in the ground in a corner. That was, what? six or eight years ago? And there's a native Western Virgin's Bower that has been trying to smother it for the last four or five of those years.

This red Canna Lily is really starting to pop its buds, so I thought I'd include it. Not native to California, but, when it's treated nicely, it grows to over 5' and shows its flower heads in my bedroom window where the hummingbirds come to visit.

I also have hanging pots of plants, including this ivy geranium and its relative below, the pink geranium.

A number of years ago I planted one of these native Western Columbine. Sadly, it died. But not before it managed to reseed itself in one spot. Then another. Then another. Then a few others. Yay! And these dainty little guys are hummer-bird magnets!

Not strictly native, but these Coral Bells are pretty little hummingbird attractants.

Man! but this is getting long!  I'll break into list mode here:

• Hollyhocks (like the Impatiens, one six-pack planted a dozen years ago that keeps volunteering)
  
• Nandina (landscape shrub known as Heavenly Bamboo)
  
• Lobelia (the blue bedding type)
  
• Calendula (again, keeps reseeding from a dozen years ago)
  
• Nasturtium (see "Calendula")
  
• Begonia sempervirens (one remaining from a 12-year-old 6-pack)
  
• Parsley (keeps reseeding)
  
• and some unknown purple-flowering landscape shrub.
  

Wow! That was way too long! Gotta come up with something different for next month...

Weather in the San Francisco Bay Area

I grew up in the south bay, but I've traveled around the world and around the US, and I've lived on the east coast (mid-Atlantic states) twice for two years each time and in the Sierras for a couple of years. I grew up camping in northern California in the summer when recognizing weather patterns meant survival. I offer up these tidbits as some of my bona fides with respect to knowing that there are places that have "weather."

The south bay pretty much does not have "weather." 

"Weather" is a three-day snow storm that dumps seven feet of snow. 

"Weather" is a morning of monsoon rains that fill the streets (that were designed to act as waterways during "monsoon") and the front yards almost to the house foundations (then drains away within two hours). 

"Weather" is freezing rain that glazes the streets so slick that you can parallel park (or un-parallel park) by pushing on the side of your car. 

"Weather" is waking up to a clear, blue sky, spending a warm summer morning hiking or water skiing, then watching the sky turn black in the span of an hour, then watching two inches of hail accumulate in a half-hour while the temperature drops 40 degrees... and stays that way overnight. 

"Weather" is sitting in the house with all the windows open and all the appliances unplugged while the thunderous pounding of the rain on the roof competes with the thunder and the instant CRACK of lightning as it strikes the lightning rods of the house you're in and all the houses around you with only seconds between the blinding flashes of lightning... and smelling the ozone in the air.

Growing up in the south bay, I can tell you that we have two seasons: Dry and Wet. The Wet season used to start somewhere around late October (you might get rained on while Trick-or-Treating) to early December. Wet season would end somewhere in March or April. The rest was Dry season. 

Except that you could usually count on one half-day of cool, misty weather in June, right around the time that the local cherry crops were ripening. (The south bay area used to be one big agricultural center before we started growing silicon.) I say that because it confuses me when folks who grew up here are surprised when it happens. Every time. 

What is different is that we're having more and more years where the entire month of June is mostly cool and icky or warm and icky. And by icky I mean cloudy and moist. OK. We're back to weather in other locales. Our Junes are turning into the Junes I experienced at the New Jersey Shore.  Do we chalk it up to Global Warming? I don't know.

Plethora of Pollinators

Each day that I go out to my California Natives garden bed (sometimes a few times a day) I see at least a half a dozen different species of winged pollinators visiting the various blossoms in that bed. The biggest and most obvious is this bee -- though, not being an apiarist, I have no idea what species it is -- who is giving my Yellow Lupine a good going-over.

The yellow on his head, shoulders, and aft-end is not pollen. The orange saddlebags on his hind legs is pollen. But, as I said, he's the biggest and most obvious of the pollinators out there working over all my flowers. 

Of all the visitors, there are a few different bees (including this guy and honeybees), a variety of flies (who seem to be mostly just shopping), and a LOT of different wasps. While some of the species of wasps are nearly as large as Mr. Bee (above), most of them are much smaller. One is as tiny as an ant! Some are brighter yellow and highlighted with black. Some are such a pale straw color that they seem almost transparent. Besides being all different sizes, they come in a wide variety of shapes, though many of the wasps are sort of in the generic "wasp shape" with the skinny waist.

Here's another example of a pollinator. This one is working over a sunflower, though I could tell you whether it's a wasp or bee, let alone what species!

The point is that all of our plants need a wide variety of insects for effective pollination. Different plants need different pollinators. Some plants require very specific pollinators. Approximately one third of our agricultural crops in the US require sufficient pollinators to be able to produce all that... produce. 

So, what do you think happens to all of those pollinators when people spray insecticide around indiscriminately? In the past, I've had neighbors with beds of prized roses who would completely freak out whenever he saw an aphid. Out would come the pump sprayer and the gas mask and he'd be out there spraying in a breeze strong enough to cause his spray to drift all the way across my yard! (What the hell! He's gassing his aphids, my pollinators, and ME while he's wearing a respirator!)

If you've been watching the news, maybe you've heard of Colony Collapse Disorder. This is a not-as-yet-understood phenomenon where the entire population of worker bees from a colony of honeybees will simply disappear.  CCD has been on the rise in the US in recent years and the growers are worried that there won't be enough honeybees to pollinate all the crops.

Well, that's where the native pollinators come in! A number of vineyards in Napa (and other) counties have been striving to be more "organic." (No discussions here as to what "organic" means other than to say that one intent is to rely less on artificial/chemical means to grow healthy products.) 

Anyway, one of the things they are trying is the use of interplanting the rows of grape vines with native flowers and surrounding each of the fields with hedgerows of native trees. (Frequently, these hedgerows can be planted where cannot be reasonably grown and harvested.) The introduction of the native trees and forbs invites all sorts of insects to come for a visit and to live in their natural habitat. The idea is that, of all the insects that come to live in the trees, many will be pollinators. But the extra-added bonus is that many of the insects will also be what gardeners and farmers call "beneficial insects." These are insects that eat (or otherwise parasitize) the insects that cause crop damage.

One popular example of a beneficial insect is the Lady Bug.  Yes, Lady Bugs are cute as the dickens. But Lady Bugs provide the VERY cool service of sucking the life out of the aphids that suck the life out of our crops (and rose bushes)! So, that Fine Neighbor of mine, instead of gassing the aphids, pollinators, and ME out of existence, could have gone to a reputable dealer and gotten some Lady Bugs to take care of his aphid infestation. (In reality, he didn't have an infestation. He had a couple of aphids.)

Some wasps make sure their babies are going to have food by laying their eggs on (or in) crop-munching larvae (caterpillars). When the eggs hatch, the babies eat the larva. Tomato-munching larva... all gone.

By the way, the "organic" vintners are finding great success with the interplanting. Pest insects are being kept in check without spraying and the vines are being quite effectively pollinated without having to rent portable beehives. 

 If you note that insecticides won't kill each-and-every pest that you spray for  -- while killing most of the beneficial insects and pollinators indiscriminately -- and reconcile yourself to the occasional pest and a teeny bit of crop damage, you might find yourself quite pleased with the results of using more natural methods of pest control.

Ooh! And the extra-added bonus of having all sorts of insects around, keeping each other in check?  You will have written a dinner invitation to all manner of birdies who will come by to eat whatever insects they can find!

Shelley!

As promised when I started this blog, should Shelley make an appearance, I'd post a photo of her. Well, here ya go!

I found Shelley rampaging around the yard several days ago.  So I brought her into the house for a soak and a scrub and a quickie exam to make sure she's OK. 

In general, she seems quite fine. One of the scutes on her upper carapace seems a trifle scuffed and chipped, but it doesn't look like it's infected or cracked through to the skeletal structure. No eye or ear problems, either. She's plenty active and strong and evidence would seem to indicate that she's been eating quite well.

She's once again out rampaging in the wild and I haven't seen her in several days.

Farewell-to-Spring

No, no. I'm not bidding farewell to Spring just yet. That's the common name of the California annual wildflower Clarkia amoena. 

Along with all the California Poppies I've been inflicting on you, I also planted these Clarkia. Now, as the poppies and lupines are fading away, the Clarkia are starting to bloom, as if to say farewell to the spring wildflowers.

Rather like the "mixed" poppies with which I've regaled you, the Clarkia come in a wide array of a variety of two-tone pink colors. The "brochure" says that, with irrigation, they can last up to 3-4 months. Since we're in a serious drought year (following on the heels of two other drought years) and are admonished to cut water consumption, these guys likely won't last that long.

The "brochure" also suggests that they make long-lasting cut flowers, but I'll most likely leave most of them in the garden to go to seed.