Walk thru the Neighborhood! Santa Barbara Co, CA

 I start most days with a walk often carrying my camera. I look for things I would share with kids of all ages, well really, looking for things that interest me. If I'm bored I try digging down another level, there's always something new to find, a mystery to explore.

Today it was bunnies, three in one lump, this a drought year and vegetation is desiccating more by the minute. In less than a mile, I came across 10 easily seen Bush Bunnies, meaning there's more in the bush. What's the mystery? Dry food, little water and they are going wild!


These lessor gold finches are a puzzle as I put out thistle seed for them last fall and I still have half left. A year earlier they ate that much in an afternoon! Neighbors and I discussed the demise of these little rays of sunshine and concluded the Cooper's Hawks were predating them. Now it's summer & I'm seeing a couple flocks of a dozen or more every morning! Shooting in low AM light makes this a challenge.

 Bush poppies have been blooming since early winter and a few are still at it. I've planted a couple closer to the house and where one still struggles, but it's not happy. Seems they do better growing where they choose. Surprise! I love the sunny color. They attract a plethora of tiny beetles, good food for the birds. I wonder what I'd think if someone spoke of me that way?

 Snow drops bloom and too soon drop their petals, but then there are these lovely fruits. One naturalists says this variety grows only in the San Marcos Pass where I live. Certainly the species is wider ranged than that. Fun to have something around that is unique!

My neighbors' secret garden seen thru the trees. Monet?

Berries on coffee berry bush, do they look like the real coffee bean? Seems similar. We've picked them and cleaned them for the seed to replant at Sedwick.nsr.ucsb.edu. They are pulp filled and juicy which makes them messy to handle. I think I found one growing wild on my property. This one is a neighbor's.

Juncos abound in the winter and many migrate north as it warms. Still I find a couple or two most mornings. This one and maybe a mate were jumping long grass stalks to bend them over to rip off the seed heads. They attack with stealth and the grass never gets away!

Robby finds reason to guard against my presence when I'm wandering. He's often missed me and then followed my scent home, nearly a mile away. I suppose I'd get to a different level if had I his nose.

Welcome to our Santa Barbara "Garden"

Kill your lawn, drink more beer, BBQ more often and plant more native plants. Billy Goodnick http://www.billygoodnick3.com/  landscape architect says there are only two weeks a year when your landscaping will all look like you want it to. That's over for this year, but what we have now are many individual plants to enjoy and more subtle combinations of and color after the major bloomers are off.

Pitcher Sage; Native

I have eliminated mowing area every year and added more native plants. The advantage to killing the lawn; less water, less maintenance, grows more of the leaves invertebrates want to eat and they in turn feed more birds while the hummers and butterflies sap up the nectar. In my rural neighborhood there are still tons of native plants growing all around so I do this to lighten my load and to learn more about the phenology of the plants; who blooms when and what they look like at each stage. 

If you live in urban or suburban locations, start by looking for native plants that live with you in the neighborhood. I found only four species and 7 individuals in several blocks walking around Solvang, CA. Everything else was imported and often from other continents! So adding just a few native plants to your garden can help the network of good eating places for butterflies, birds and all the invertebrates they depend on. This creates a sort of national park of our backyards knitted together! 

Next time you decide to replace a plant or add a new one, look for a native to fill in. 

California Thrasher

Birds like the California Thrasher will love you for the return of native habitat. 

After a week of indulging my inner writer at the Santa Barbara Writers' Conference I was ready to indulge in garden views and reflect on my conference experience. It was a treat to hear all those words structured into amazing stories taking life during the week. I offered feedback and screwed up my courage to read some of my "material" and listened to the feedback in the workshops I attended.

Melic Grass & Coffee Berry

 I heard personal stories of grandma withholding her age from her much younger husband until her death at 99, motorcycle interviewing across the west, pursuing a brother's killer to death row, kayaking the Alaskan northern coast and the successful inclusion in Oprah's book club. In the readings I heard fiction tales of gargoyles, star-crossed lovers, jilted heroes and the travails of pre-teens picking out husbands.

I received gentle feedback on improving my writing and learned about marketing the products of my solitary hours with the computer. I'll try to put all my learning into action, slowly.

Deer Weed 

Golden Yarrow

At the men's table (how did that happen with all those women in the room?) on the closing night we shared that the experience of reading our works for critique was more difficult and felt more vulnerable than most things we have done as bosses, consultants, teachers  and more and that was a surprise to us. I expected I wore armor against such emotional entanglement, but my voice quavered and my heart misbehaved. I wondered what my cardio guy would say.



Meanwhile there is peace in the garden except for the caterpillar dismembering the leaf, the bird swallowing the caterpillar and the dang gopher who ate my mountain mahogany all gone!

Monkey Flower

Matillija Poppies

Manzanita

Coyote Mint

California Fucshia

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Elderberry Leaves

Blue Jeans Ceanothus

Sage

Pink Buckwheat