Tag Archives: California

Three or More Tuesday!

 

My Three or more Tuesday this week is from our early morning walk at Emma Wood State Beach in Ventura on Valentine’s Day. Four Godwits on the sand digging with their long beaks to find some goodies to eat. Hey look there are 3 or more rocks and 3 or more waves, too.

For more Three or More visit Tam at The Gypsy’s Corner.

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head…

 

See the wetness out this window? We have had rain in Southern California for the last couple of days and we are promised some more rain tomorrow. I find it very refreshing being a transplant from the Seattle area. I was happy to have to pull out my great Marmot raincoat!

Tomorrow we are travelling across town to Whittier for a funeral. The Aunt of my best friend from my Russian Baptist Days in L.A. died last Saturday. My friend and her cousins (whose mom died) were connected in many different ways to my family and extended family. Our Russian community is all inter-connected in hard to explain ways. So it will be a day of tears for the grief her children are feeling from saying goodbye and a day of rejoicing in knowing she is with her Savior in heaven. A day of remembering our friendships and re-connecting and seeing the kids “all grown up”. A day of looking at someone and thinking “oh my I know who you are but I can’t remember your name right now”. Does that ever happen to you?  We will sing in Russian and sing in English. We will hear messages in Russian and a message in English. We will pray in Russian and pray in English. We will gather at the church, then head to the graveside, then we will all meet together for lunch.

“Therefore in life I’ll trust in Thee,
In death I will adore;
And after death will sing Thy praise
When time shall be no more.”

Hope you all have a day filled with an awareness of the God who made this world for us to enjoy and numbers our days…

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.

Looking At the Sky on Friday

 

This was taken last Saturday at Emma Wood State Beach in Ventura, California on our Dawn walk.

For more Looking at the Sky visit Crazy Working Mom.

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.

Outdoor Wednesday ~ The Birds!

Outdoor Wednesday is hosted by Susan at A Southern Daydreamer. My outdoor photos this week are taken on 3 separate walks during the month of January.

 

Willow and I see this Dove pretty regularly on our walks in her neighborhood.

One day the Dove wasn’t there and we understood why when we saw this hawk instead.

Dear and I spotted this great Heron on our walk on the Bob Jones Trail in Avila, California on January 19th.

To see more Outdoor Photos visit Susan at A Southern Daydreamer.

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.

Ruby Tuesday ~ Los Olivos

Welcome to Ruby Tuesday where you’ll see a little or a lot of red. Make sure and visit our gracious hostess Mary at The Work of the Poet to see more Ruby or to join in the fun. My Ruby this week is from Los Olivos in the Santa Ynez Valley known for it’s ranches and wineries.

 

I took these photos in a sculpture garden in the middle of town. (I think eclectic is a good description)

Los Olivos is noted for its eclectic art galleries, wine tasting, unique shopping, epicurean restaurant opportunities, antiques and generally friendly populace.

Many of the downtown and residential buildings date back one-hundred years when Los Olivos was served by a stage line and the Pacific Coast Railway. Our historical ambiance is preserved by a Victorian architectural overlay.
This cafe was closed the day we were there. I love how the sign says “Shut” instead of closed.
To see more Ruby head over to the Work of the Poet.
Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.

Blue Monday ~

Welcome to Blue Monday!  Smiling Sally is our hostess and you can click on her name and join in or see some more blue from around the world.

 

My blue today is a combination of sights and purchases over the last 3 weekends. This past Saturday after our walk at the beach where we found all these cool shells, Dear and I headed to Somis, Moorpark and Simi to see what we could see. We are on the hunt for a piece of furniture to fill a space between our living room and dining area at the condo. We want the piece to work both for books and some of my pretties. I’m always a little disappointed when a shop is called a Thrift store but really thinks it’s an Antique store and prices everything accordingly. Do you know what I mean? Can you feel a bargain hunters pain here?  I ended up buying this blue oversized creamer at HomeGoods in Simi.

 

The Shell Beach Sign, Avila Peir sign and the wall mural are all from our trip to the Central California Coast from January 19th. The Amtrak Surfliner is from last weekend in our hometown…

That’s my blue and now I’m off to see your blue! Happy Monday and February to all of you!

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.

Low Tide at Emma Wood ~ Birds and Shells

 

Dear and I started our walk at Emma Wood this morning well before 7:00 am. I love the colors that the early morning light reflect on the sand and water.

 

There were many sea birds enjoying breakfast from diving in the water and digging in the sand.

 

I was pleasantly surprised to capture this pelican and the head of this seal who bobbed up just at the moment I took the shot. Not a clear close-up but it’s always a treat to see seals or dolphins come up out of the water…

 

The Godwits were abundant as were Sanderlings.

 

 

The tide was out far enough so that we could explore around the rocks and see Anemones and gather lots of great shells.

 

 

 

 

These are the shells we picked up this morning. Some of the clam shells are pismo clams. Dear found a razor clam shell and a barnacle, too.

 

I really like the different shapes and colors on all of these shells we picked up…

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.

Looking at the Sky on Friday

 

We had some beautiful skies this past week in Southern California. This is a view from a field behind our housing development. The mountains you see are the northwestern end of the Santa Monica Mountains.

For more sky photos visit Crazy Working Mom.

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.

Pismo Grove Monarchs 2009 ~ B is for Butterfly

Welcome to a new round of ABC Wednesday hosted by Mrs. Nesbitt and Friends. Today we are on the letter B and my post is all about the Monarch Butterflies that overwinter at Pismo Beach, California.

Each year thousands of vibrant orange and black Monarch Butterflies flock to Pismo Beach, seeking shelter from the freezing northern winters. From late October to February, the butterflies cluster in the limbs of a grove of Eucalyptus trees at Pismo State Beach. The grove is easily accessible. It is located on State Highway 1 at the south boundary of the city limits of Pismo Beach.

 

The Pismo Beach colony is one of the largest in the nation, hosting an average of 25,000 butterflies over the last five years.

 

The butterflies form dense clusters with each one hanging with its wing down over the one below it to form a shingle effect. This provides shelter from the rain and warmth for the group. The weight of the cluster help keeps it from whipping in the wind and dislodging the butterflies.

 

Dear and I visited the Grove on a weekend getaway we had to Pismo Beach on January 18th and 19th. It really was wonderful to see this sight. When the sun warmed up the cluster of butterflies they started flying around and landing all around the grove. The grove of Eucalyptus trees was not very large. I had use the zoom on my camera to be able to get any close-ups of the butterflies.

Seeing one of these Monarch overwintering groves has been a desire of mine for a while now and I was so thrilled we could get away just an hour and a half up the coast of California from where we live to see these. This happened to be a record-breaking year for the Monarchs here with over 26,000 arriving. So the question that comes to my mind is how do they count them???

 

The Monarchs that visit Pismo Beach are a special variety. They have a life span of six months as opposed to that of common Monarchs who live only six weeks. This can be attributed to a unique fat storing system. However, even with an extended life span, those butterflies that leave in March will never return.

 

Scientists do not know why the Monarchs consistently return to some wintering sites. In North America, those sites range from the Central and Southern California Coast to Mexico. Some scientists speculate that the insects are equipped with genetic homing systems that lead them from their summer sites in the Sierras, Florida, Canada and the Great Lakes Region in North America back to their winter locations.

 

On the Central Coast, Monarchs winter in Pismo Beach, Pacific Grove and Morro Bay. The Natural History Museum In Morro Bay is an excellent resource for information about Monarchs.

ht: Monarch Butterfly.Org.

For more ABC’s on the letter B visit the official ABC Wednesday Blog.

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.

Tagged!

Bernideen from Bernideen’s Tea Time Blog  tagged me for a photo meme. I’m suppose to go to my 6th folder and post the 6th photo from it. The photo was taken at Emma Wood State Beach in Ventura, California. Dear and I walk there most Saturday mornings.

 

This walk was on January 17th. Every few minutes we’d see pelicans flying by in these great rows and very close to the water. I have lots of pelican shots from this Saturday morning…

Thanks Bernideen.

Now here are the rules that came with the tag…

1. Go to your Picture Folder on your computer or wherever you store your pictures.
2. Go the 6th Folder, then pick the 6th picture in that folder.
3. Post that picture on your blog and the story that goes along with the picture.
4. Tag 6 other people that you know or don’t know to do the same thing and leave a comment on their blog or an e-mail letting them know you chose them.

If y’all know me I’m generally a tag rebel and leave it up to you when you want to play along. If you do play let me know so I can come see your photo.

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.