Spring Storm



Chris - Watch out where you rototill!

Big changes in the front yard this weekend.

Oh No!



 Just kidding.  Saturday was rototill day for the front yard, but that had nothing to do with the tree.  We had been debating whether we should remove the big eucalyptus or trim it and keep it.  I had a tree guy give me a quote on it Tuesday.  He said, "When they aren't trimmed for a long time like this, then the wind catches the branches and knocks them down.  At least it's leaning toward the street and not toward your house."  Amen Manuel, Amen.



First thing Nathaniel asked - Can we play on it?

  During the night it started to rain like crazy with lots of wind. On the way to and from church this morning we had to weave back and forth through the broken branches on the road and the water running across the intersections.  This afternoon Chris says he heard a wind burst and then a noise.  I heard a noise like someone dropping a cardboard box full of stuff downstairs and heard Chris say something.  We look out the window and the eucalyptus is down almost completely blocking the side street.  I guess that makes our decision for us.


Pretty big, huh?

  So, glad it came down in the street and not the house.  Plus, since it is in the street, the city will clean it up and we don't have to pay to have it trimmed or removed.

Then the boys played in the water.

 It's a pretty big storm - and it's still going on.  I think the city crews are pretty busy so I don't know how long before they get this tree taken care of.

Too bad we don't have irrigation ditches to play in.  They would love that.

 I'm glad we don't have a new lawn in yet to repair.  I think we'll put a new tree in the same spot.

The tree didn't even touch our retaining wall. Yay!

Anyway, we couldn't do anything about it so we came inside for warm clothes, showers for the boys, and hot cocoa all around.

Doomed Blooms

A week or so ago my little peach tree stick started to bloom... and then the nectarine, the meyer lemon, the oroblanco grapefruit and I bought a washington navel orange and hass avacado trees.  I told my mother in law that they were starting to bloom.  I was so excited.  She asked, "Are you going to pick off the blossoms or wait and pick off the little fruit?"  What???

Meyer Lemon with ant

Nectarine

Oroblanco

Washington Navel

Hass

Apparently you aren't supposed to let them fruit the first couple years so they can build stronger roots. :(
Watch out little ant.

March in the Chaparral

I went on a long run/march in the hills this week.  Some parts of the trail are so steep that I can't even pretend to jog up them.  The day was so pretty and the plants are started to bloom.  I decided I was going slow enough that it wouldn't make much difference if I stopped and took some pictures.

Wispy little clouds in a blue sky.

Single track trail through non-native grass.

I wanted to start keeping track of which plants in the chaparral bloom in each month.  I'm also trying to identify the native plants before I have to take my biology class on a field trip to identify native plants.


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California Lilac - sweet perfume floats around the hillside when these are in bloom.



Foothill penstemon



Sugar Bush



Maybe Lemonadeberry Bush?

 I've been trying to figure out which bush is the lemonadeberry.  It produces hard berries that taste like lemon when you suck on them.  I just don't want to put something in my mouth if it's NOT lemonade berry.


Trail with sun streaming through the chaparral.



Canyon Sunflower



Common Monkey Flower



Can't find it.  Maybe it's something that escaped from a garden and isn't in the native guides



The Coast Live Oaks are blooming too.



The white flowers and the green prickly thing hiding in the leaves are Wild Cucumber.



Elderberry



Even the poison oak is in bloom.

 I love it here.

Long Beach with Babies

Mark, Nathaniel, and Chris

Mark and Annie came through LA on a cruise trip so we drove down to Long Beach to see them before they flew home.  We brought a picnic lunch and went down to the beach.

The seagulls would follow the boys up and down the beach because they fed them some of their sandwiches.

It was a mostly sunny day, but windy and a little chilly.

The sandwiches were on very chewy bread.

Mark watches as Ayla tries to step over the bits of bamboo in the surfline on the sand.

The babies weren't quite convinced that a cold windy beach was fun for them.

Jane plays with a placecard while Davis stacks and restacks pillows on her back.

It was fun to see them for a little while.  Jane has changed since we saw them at Christmas.  She is almost crawling so Davis helped her work on her skills by providing "resistance training", using pillows that Jane had to try to crawl out from under.  Jane thought it was fun and Mark and Annie didn't object, so I guess it wasn't baby abuse.