Numbers 97 and 98. House Update

Quite a few folks chimed in on the flycatcher - verdict:   Willow Flycatcher.  Neat!

Then, last week, number 98!  Another flycatcher - Greater Pewee.  There were two of them, although I wasn't able to capture a good shot of both together.  My initial thought when I saw the first of the pair was that it was a Phainopepla, but it became quickly obvious that was not the case, although the size was right.  They put on a good flycatcher show, swooping out for insects, then back to the perch until the next bug caught their attention.

The house project is coming along - in fact, we've got some walls up now.

Tuesday, all of the house building material showed up as promised - our uphill neighbors helped out hugely by stationing themselves at the top and bottom of the big grade and making sure the trailers going in and out didn't cause problems for the other drivers on the road.  They were still finishing up when I got home from work.  But two days later, the framing was up for the shop building and also partially for the rest of the addition. That was exciting to see when I came home.

Wednesday Bill came into town and we used up my lunch hour at the door place looking at doors and door hardware.  We picked out a super nice front door with two sidelights and an art glass window in the door itself. 

Saturday, we made a trek to Fresno to look at possibilities for kitchen countertops, lighting, tile and hardwood flooring.  I unerringly picked out the most expensive granite countertop as the one I liked the best and had to ask the saleswoman to point me toward the more middle range choices.  There IS a budget involved here.

The front of the house as of Sunday afternoon:



The interior of the new shop building - look at the view out the side window - love it.

Taking a Different Perspective

I've walked by this corral on a neighbor's place many a time.  Had never looked at it this particular way before.  I love it when that happens.


Yesterday, Dino gave himself at least a partial day off to go birding with one of his Audubon friends, this particular expedition being designated as a "Raptor Run" day, aka an Audubon Society citizen science project.

When he got home, he did head right back outside to continue working on the water lines, which are definitely getting there.  Some days seem to bring a few more obstacles than one would think absolutely necessary.

Saturday's walk had me in arachnid and insect mode.  The first fly is Minettia flaveola, a common fly in California.  The second fly is a bee mimic, I have not been able to figure out species yet - we'll see how much peering at flies in insect field guides I can take.

 



Finally, I spent quite some time sticking my macro lens in the direction of a Green Lynx spider who was guarding her egg sac.  These spiders seem to believe that tarweed stalks make good egg sac substrates, as there were four or five of them scattered in one relatively small area in our Upper Rodeo Meadow area near the road.

 

95 and 96. The verdict on 97 is still out

Great walk today!  Bird #95:
Vesper Sparrow

 

Bird #96:
Green Heron (juvenile)

Can't count this next one yet, probably a Willow Flycatcher, but we're still waiting for a couple more of our birder friends to pipe up on the ID.



And finally, lest the mammals feel left out, some of those blankety blank wild pigs.

 

 

Big Fun. Except For Those Who Had to Work

The house project is really underway now - six cement trucks rumbled down the grade yesterday to pour the foundation for the addition.  Once they got started with it, there was no such thing as stopping - a veritable whirlwind of activity it was. 

Digging and Construction Oh My

We've been planning for what seems like forever about getting an addition built to the ranch house - and now after a year of working with the builder and the contractor and a couple of different banks, it's starting.  Dirt is being moved around for the pad where the foundation will be poured.  We heard this morning that the outer wall of the living room will be coming out Friday!  We'll be getting a temporary wall there while the rest gets built, but yipes sure wish we'd known so we could have moved furniture around over the weekend instead of after I get home from work.  Never mind, we'll get it done somehow in spite of my currently gimpy hand.

Dino has a to-do list about a mile long.

Of course I could not resist prowling around the heavy equipment that came in last week.  The Case compactor had an interesting aspect.

I took one of my usual long walks yesterday, ending up by a little pool on the river.  I was intending just to cross at the narrow end by picking my way through and across the rocks to reach the other side, but I perched on a rock midway to take pictures of a butterfly.  After a few minutes, I realized that about a half dozen bullfrogs had gotten over their initial fright at my approach and had risen to the surface to bask. These frogs are invasive - they eat the native minnows and the baby pond turtles and are generally frowned upon, although it can be said in their favor that the blue herons find them quite tasty.  (Note: perching on a rock in the middle of the river while keeping the gear from falling in - extra credit.)

The butterfly in question - a Woodland Skipper, I believe.

What Did You Notice Today?

I'm in the middle of reading a book called "The Tangled Bank" by Robert Michael Pyle - all essays originally published in Orion Magazine.  The essay "Roll Call" caught my attention this morning, with this quote: "In the country, many people (though fewer every year) still take their livelihood directly from other forms of life.  Townspeople are less likely to connect with nature on a regular basis.  Some, such as bird and butterfly watchers, wildflower and mushroom fanciers, organize their free time around nonhuman encounters.  But such folk are uncommon overall, and considered strange by many of their neighbors:  eccentric, obsessed, if harmless.  The majority, in fact, shows little awareness of other life forms beyond cats, dogs, lawns and fellow humans."

I decided it would be interesting to follow his suggestion to make note of all the species I could today, to the best of my ability.  Of course, I was at work for 8 of the day's hours, and unless there's a spider hiding somewhere, I'm unaware of many additional life forms in my office (aside from my house plant and lunch species, as noted below).  I didn't go out of my way to find any of these, I only noticed what I saw on my usual rounds.

Birds: House Finch, Common Raven, Mourning Dove, Ash-throated Flycatcher, Western Kingbird, California Quail, Acorn Woodpecker, Western Scrub-jay, Brewer's Blackbird, Anna's Hummingbird, Roadrunner.  This is actually a bit of a light bird day for me, for some reason, although the roadrunner was a good sighting.

Mammals:  Ground Squirrel, Gray Squirrel, Homo sapiens ssp. sweetii (my husband), Homo sapiens ssp. moronius (the icky person in the jacked up F350 who tailgated me on the way to work until I found a safe place to pull over), Homo sapiens (all the other generic folks in town and non-icky drivers), dog, horse.

Reptiles: Fence Lizard

Insects:  a light insect day also.  Only a couple of ants in the house - evidently they are giving us a respite at the moment.  These were ants of medium length, stocky body, dark brown and a strong formic acid smell.

Cultivated Trees/Plants:  fig, apple, Italian stone pine, the old olive and walnut trees on the neighbor's place, rose, a large number of plants and trees in town that I can't name, the house plant in my office Zamioculcas (Zanzibar plant), oleander, juniper, rosemary, quince, pomegranate, iris, mugo pine

Trees/Shrubs/Wildflowers/Grasses:  Interior Live Oak, Blue Oak, California Buckeye, Mountain Mahogany, Manzanita, Lichen, Moss, Wild Oats, a large number of other grasses and forbs not known to me, Tarweed, Bull Thistle, Turkey Mullein, Wooly Mullein, Datura, Purple Milkweed, Pearly Everlasting, Blue Elderberry, Yerba Santa, Poison Oak, California Broom, Manzanita, Deer Brush, Cedar.  I have no doubt there are many other species I could have added to this list if only I'd known what I was seeing.

Species or products thereof that I've eaten today:  peanut, chia, coconut, sunflower, mango, cow milk (yogurt), bacteria (yogurt), grape, cinnamon, vanilla, chicken eggs, carrot, tomato, tomatillo, onion, coffee, almond, cocoa, wheat, black beans, lettuce, bell pepper, cucumber, celery, asparagus, red cabbage, apricots and whatever spices were in the jarred salsa.

Other:  sheep (the lanolin in my hand cream), whatever the old carbon life forms that ended up producing the gas in my truck, the bacteria or virus that made my hairdresser feel too unwell to get to my haircut appointment today, various natural fabrics in my clothes and household, and whatever wood the fence posts and utility poles are made of.

A picture of a species I ate the other day (not today, darn it):  wild blackberry.  Yum.

The Hot Dry Season

A couple of weeks ago, we took a short overnight trip to the Bay Area to visit my parents. When we came back on Saturday afternoon I'd just sat down with a nice afternoon cuppa, ready to relax and unwind when our neighbor called to say:  "Are you aware there's a fire on Lily Peak?"  That's about three miles or so away from the house.  Nope, we hadn't noticed that.  Good thing he was taking on the phone round robin chores.  After the big Carstens fire from a week or so before that, which wasn't close to us but was pretty scary anyway, I'd identified a group of sentimental mementos that I'd be sad to lose.  I scurried around and got those loaded up in the truck, just in case, plus a couple changes of clothes.  Then we went up into the orchard to watch.  Within not too long, there were helicopters bringing in big underslung buckets of water to dump on the area and we could see the vehicles of the fire crew on the top of the ridge.   (Binoculars came in pretty handy here.)  One plane came by and released a big red plume of fire retardant on the back side of the peak where the fire must have been at its worst.  It was difficult to make out the forms of the firefighters in the smoke, but we could see frequent glints of light off what I guess was helmets or face shields.  Basically, they put most of it out in about an hour's time, with a couple of daylight hours to spare.   We've done the best we can to make the house defensible if it comes to that, what with clearing a big area around the house, placing the big water tank on the top of Ant Hill, choosing the best fire safe roof, etc etc.

Since then, it's been just pretty doggone hot.  I'm getting as much cooking done first thing in the morning on the weekends, or making cold suppers.  I haven't really felt like shouldering my big camera bag with its 30+ pounds of equipment and then sweating my way around the neighborhood. 

That means that you're stuck with this iPhone shot of a super nifty California King Snake that I found sunning itself in the middle of the road while on my way home the other day.  After I took the picture, I waved my arms at it and it decided to head back downhill to somewhere safe for snakes.