Smoke tree blossoms~Macro Monday~061112

The smoke trees are blooming here in the desert.  They usually start blooming in May and by now, they are covered with delicate purple flowers, like these.  The bees love them, so I had to be very careful!  They were darting in and out among the blossoms, fully loaded with pollen.  Fortunately, they weren't agressive!  Also, be sure to look at the thorn next to the blossom.  Yes, smoke trees have long thorns on them!  Macro Monday for June 11, 2012.  To visit Macro Monday, please head on over to Lisa's Chaos at:   http://lisaschaos.com/

Sprinklers at the park

I love the sprinklers at the park, or anywhere!  If I see sprinklers on, I'll run toward them (I know...I'm a true desert rat!).  I love the effects that they create, like the top photo.  These were only on for about 3 minutes the other morning at the park.  They didn't bother the birds there.  In fact, they all enjoyed the puddles left by the water runoff!

Birds at the park

Well, the whole gang of them still appear to be at the park.  I've noticed that the white ducks live there all year.  The Canadian goose was still there Monday morning (I awoke at 3:30 a.m....sigh...) Somebody was out feeding more of the ducks at the other end of the park.  I like to keep tabs on the ducks now.  It's easier to walk around the park than up at the dirt roads of the golf course because it's HOT and DRY up there!!!

Not much going on....

Not much going on and the temps haven't helped, although today it is only going to be in the low 90's here.  And, I'm on jury duty standby, which means I have to check in between 10:30 and 10:45 a.m. this morning and then maybe appear an hour later!  Oh, joy!  That means that somebody will have to cover my class if I leave...I'm pretty much on standby myself right now.  I'm counting the days until school is over and we head back to the Sierras....

Another lagoon~Los Angeles County Arboretum

Today is our 40th wedding anniversary and we are pretty much just staying home and having dinner with our family.  Hubby worked yesterday and I spent the day either taking a nap, watching mindless TV, or resting.  I was too tired to even drive up the hill to visit my horses (we did that today...).  I tell you, after working all week, by Saturday I simply don't have the energy to do anything!  Thank goodness there are only 10 days left for school.  Then, we head back to the Sierras for a week of R&R!

Anyway, I was going back through some of my archives (since I have nothing very little new to post about.  I've been hanging out at the park in the mornings because it's simply easier than having to walk out in an open field, along a dirty, dusty dirt road.  I haven't seen a coyote for weeks and frankly, I was getting bored.  So, I now walk around the park, keep an eye on the injured Canadian goose, and investigate the other ducks there.  There are about a dozen white ducks and some black ones.  One morning I saw 3 little ducklings, but...alas...I never saw them again.  Somebody told me the carp eat them!  ACK!  They were the only duckings I've seen at the park and there are about 60+ ducks there.   I found these in my Arcadia folder.  These are from the Los Angeles County Arboretum in Arcadia, CA (where I grew up).  Hubby and I used to stop there whenever we went to the Santa Anita racetrack, which is right across the street.  My parents lived up the hill, in the rancho area, and we could hear the roar of the crowd when the horses came close to the finish line.  HA!  I used to sneak in here as a kid and run around the park in the afternoons!  ("SSshhhh"....don't tell!)  I also took summer craft classes here every summer while my mother taught summer school (a thing of the past nowadays).  Anyway, I was reminiscing and found these and thought I'd post them.

Idyllwild frost!

The family all drove up to Idyllwild over the holiday weekend and we stayed in a two story cabin, complete with a full kitchen.  We basically just stayed there and went around town a little bit.  We all wanted to relax and enjoy a different environment and boy, was it different!  Hubby and I drove up Friday afternoon (I had a furlough day), got the food put away in the cabin, figured out who got which bedroom, and lit a fire in the wood-burning stove. It was COLD Saturday morning and when our daughter and I headed out to the store to buy some coffee creamer, I took these photos.  I thought it was snow, but the local merchants told me it was frost.  Isn't it amazing?  I can't wait for our next trip back up there.  Idyllwild is at about 6,000 feet, up a solid granite mountain (formed from the nearby San Andreas fault).  We all had a relaxing weekend and we had some good family time together.  The grandson got to feed peanuts to the blue jays and squirrels and he discovered a caterpillar making its way across the railing (probably a meal for one of the blue jays!)  For those of you who commented that how could there be frost in May, remember this is at 6,000 feet in our local mountains and a storm front moved in overnight.  We could see the clouds Saturday morning at sunrise.  And, the desert was cooler that morning, also...it was only 82 degrees that day and it had been in the 100's the previous week.

Yucca sunrise~SkyWatch Friday~052512

Yuccas and a desert sunrise...what more could I want? Well, it would have been nice to see some coyotes, but not on this morning, when I woke up at 4 a.m. and was out the door by 5:15 a.m. for my morning walk.  I got quite a surprise yesterday morning.  I decided to walk around the way I used to go (counterclockwise) and I stumbled upon a homeless person's bedding!  He wasn't there, but it spooked me enough to go the other way! SkyWatch Friday for May 25, 2012.  To visit SkyWatch Friday, please go to:   http://skyley.blogspot.com/