Fun with Legos!

My son loved (loves?) legos, but I admit I'm kind of glad he didn't take it this far. 

Birds and Fungi and Stuff

Yesterday was mostly devoted to the usual chores, plus a few hours in the vegetable garden thrown in before lunch.  That allowed me to finish up the trench filling-in that I'd started a couple of weeks ago;  I ran out of dirt to fill the holes the first attempt I took.  During the week sometime, Dino got the tractor up there and took some dirt from one spot and deposited it in another one, conveniently close to the trenches.  I shoveled and raked and smoothed and did that enough times so that it looks about as good as it ever will up there.  I had some fun with making some great rake marks in the dirt.  I also pulled out the disappointing tomato plants and got that bed cleaned up.

Today, I didn't wake up till nearly 7!  That's practically unheard of for me - my usual weekday hour is 4:15 and weekends, weekend mostly I'll sleep till 5:30 or maybe 6 before I can't stand it any more.  I rustled up some grub and a cuppa and doodled around on the computer for an hour and then grabbed my camera bag and started walking.

Dino had told me about a humungus fungus he'd seen inside an old oak tree near Turkey Crossing and I wanted to bag a shot of that as that would be the only fungus shot taken in the month of September, during any of the years I've been photographing fungi.  It's like getting a life bird or something.  It was easy to find, and yep, it was a big one all right, about 18 inches across at its widest.



















On my way to the fungus, I had one of my patented wildlife encounters.  I'd chosen a route along the fence at the bottom of Rodeo Meadow and as I was walking through the line of trees where Lion Creek comes through, I heard Big Rustling Noises.  Pigs.  I don't know what it is with me and pigs, but it seems that often enough I see them way before they see me.  In this case, I'd started to come around a big rock to get a better view, when one of the sows decided to emerge from the creek bed headed right for the same spot.  She grunt-oinked in alarm and took off at high speed, with the rest of the critters trailing along, heading up the hill toward Deer Ridge.

Here is the second reason I was in Rodeo Meadow to start with (aside from the fungus).  This is a picture of one of the new nest boxes Dino's manufactured and installed on our place.  This is a duplex box, tres fancy.  The big box is intended for Barn Owls and the little one on the side is a bluebird box - well really for any passerine that's a cavity nester and likes that size opening.  Funny that it's possible to double them up like that, especially given the barn owl's penchant for eating other birds, but it works.

















Mid-afternoon we took a walk together to the mailbox, with a stop just above the abandoned houses for a long look at two juvenile golden eagles perched in a large gray pine.  Neat!

For All You Small Engine Lovers Out There

Dino was greatly taken with this video from the East Coast of Arkansas.  Favorite quote: "If you want a Maytag that don't smoke, buy a Briggs & Stratton."

Number 92!

Quick update to crow (ha ha) about the newest addition to our list:  Double-crested Cormorant.  Dino spotted said water bird as he crossed the bridge over the Chowchilla last week on his way back from a town trip.

Photo below:  in the public domain, US Fish and Wildlife Service

Sings: Runs Down the Road All Day

Weekend before last, Dino looked out the kitchen window and spotted a Roadrunner in the front yard.  It spent several minutes exploring the area just above the front garden fence until it finally headed down to the creek.  I hadn't seen a roadrunner around here before - I've seen them in the desert in Southern California - and have harbored jealous thoughts of everyone here who has seen them.  The same bird returned around supper time to scavenge around the front garden area.  I saw it again Sunday morning and watched it as it lurked underneath the hummingbird feeders and seemed to be calculating how high and fast a leap would be required to snag one.  Evidently, it decided that the whole operation would be a waste of energy because it didn't try.  The tail on the roadrunner was longer than the actual body of the bird.  I felt so excited and interested by this that I sang the Roadrunner cartoon theme song (aloud a couple of times) and said Meep meep! at random moments, causing mild eye rolling on the part of my wonderful spouse.  When I played the aforementioned song, Dino grumbled something or other about "unmitigated violence against canines." 

Then to really make the day special, I found a present underneath one of the bell pepper plants when I went up to the vegetable garden to water:  a big clump of yellow mushrooms!  Fungus in California in August!  Granted, it sprouted in a well-watered vegetable garden but I delayed not a bit in getting my camera gear set up.  I've taken photos of this species before;  I believe it's Lepiota lutea, a fungus commonly found in gardens.  I suspect the spores came from the compost I dug into the bed before I planted this year.  This photo shows them before they'd opened up their caps; they were fully unfurled when I checked them after supper.

My ride to work last Thursday morning turned out to be interesting.  I'd gotten about a quarter of the way up the big grade (the paved area) but had to stop because I found an SUV stopped and blocking the road.  Turns out, he'd stopped because someone had driven their Jeep off the side of the steep grade and plowed it into an oak tree.  It had landed about 10 feet down, and thank goodness for the tree or it would have been a much bigger drop.  Neither one of us could tell if anyone was still in it.  We pondered how to get down to check.  I'm not exactly unacquainted with steep hills, although it's not what I'm fond of particularly, and I headed down.  I wasn't dressed for it but what the hell.  Actually, I had on a cotton polo shirt dress and my battered slip on mule/clogs whatever  you call them.  (Good gate opening footwear).  The right windows had that dark window covering on them so I couldn't see in and I did my best to scoot around to look through the front windshield, but didn't see or hear anyone.  The engine was just barely still warm, so whatever happened had been some time before.  The way the vehicle was listing downhill made me decide not to go to the driver's side door as getting crushed was not on my agenda for the day.  I climbed back up and the neighbor decided to drive about a mile further up at the big hairpin where I've gotten a cell phone signal in the past to call it in to the sheriff.  Cell phone reception is the absolute pits there, you have no idea.  By some miracle, he got through and he waved me on so I could get to work.  By the time I was making the homeward trek in the afternoon, the Jeep had been yanked out and parked at the bottom of the grade.  That must have been an interesting task for the tow truck driver, although I expect it wouldn't have been the first time someone's gone over an edge. 
I realized when I woke up the next morning that I should have had one other consideration in mind when it came to washing up after my little downhill excursion.  That is to say, I have a couple of monster poison oak rashes now on my arms and legs and isn't it lucky that it's the middle of August when the damn stuff is at its lowest ebb or I'd be even more of a mess. Dumb of me, I know.

I had some fun day before yesterday with a wardrobe malfunction.  I put on one of my summer dresses, a floral number I bought some years ago at a thrift store.  When I got to work and started getting my stuff out of the truck, I felt a little more air circulation in the area of the back zipper than one would have expected.  The zipper teeth had started to separate for almost the entire length of the zipper, exposing my back and underthings.  Luckily, for once no one was in the parking area and I scurried into my office and wore yoga clothes for the rest of the day.  I figured that I'd gotten my $3 worth out of the dress and decided not to have a new zipper put on, and ragbagged it.

Wildlife Updates:  the other day at supper, Dino spotted Something inside the front garden, which is surrounded by a six foot wire fence, and reached for his binoculars.  He thought it was a bobcat, but it turned out to be a beautiful gray fox.  We both watched it through our binocs while it nosed around, and picked up some of the rubber drip tubing to chew on and shake, which of course made Dino a tad unhappy.  When it was ready to leave, it defied gravity and sprang up to the top of the fence at the point where the steel poles meet at one of the corner and tiptoed along the top.  There didn't appear to be a lick of effort on the fox's part in doing this - it was really neat to watch.

Last, while Dino was on a nestboxing expedition, a young tree swallow was in the process of getting banded, managed to get away and tried to fly, only to land in a big pool in a nearby creek.  The bird fluttered enough in its attempts to fly again to attract the attention of a small mouth bass, which sadly snapped it up and ate it.

I was taking photos of a pretty yellow wildflower the other day, when this Western Pondhawk dragonfly, Erythemis collacata, decided it wanted to become famous on the Internet and continued to return to the same stalk near my camera setup. 

Varmint City Around Here

I'm close to being resigned to having no vegetable garden this year aside from the tomatoes and peppers.  The *%#^$ ground squirrels have gotten all of the rest of it, now even the little squash plants.  I'm pretty sure they at least nibbled the tomato plants too, and hopefully found them not tasty enough to devastate. I guess it was a dry enough winter and the squirrels produced a bumper baby crop this year and they don't have enough other food to eat?  Dino suggested that I install myself behind one of the big manzanitas in the orchard with a pellet gun and pick them off one by one, typical man thing to say.  As if.  Not to say that I don't have a big grudge. 

Furthermore, the grasshoppers are busy growing and chewing.  On one of last weekend's walks, I was snapping some shots of an interesting native plant (oh, that was probably an invasive too) and amongst the leaves:  yes.  A six-legged plant muncher. 

However, with the success of two kestrel nests around here - three fledged and five darn close to it - and given the fact that the favorite food of kestrels is grasshoppers, I feel downright thrilled that some hoppers are going to be food.  Soon and the more the better.