There’s your problem!
Shadow Play
I noticed someone in my nearly empty office building watching while I took some pictures on the nearly deserted parking lot upper level just before sunset.
I’m sure she thought that I was acting like a child.
I hope it was with a sense of admiration and possibly some slight envy instead of with scorn and adulty judgement.
Not that I care…
Filed under Photography
Minimal Convective Activity
With a front moving through last night and making a mess of rush hour in LA I was hoping to see some convective activity (clouds building up into thunderstorms) when the sun came out.
It looked hopeful for an hour or so, but then fizzled as the winds came up. Instead of thunderstorms I came out to a car covered with pine needles, pollen, and debris.
Not a decent trade.
WE Build Weather
While the weather down here in the LA Basin tends toward boring, you don’t have to get far up into the mountains and high desert valleys to find places where you’ll have it in the 40’s in the morning and 90’s in the afternoon, with thunderstorms and some most interesting clouds.
Filed under Photography, Weather
Clouds Don’t Care
It doesn’t matter how stupid, hateful, ignorant, racist, misogynistic, homophobic, or clueless we get as individuals, or as a species.
Clouds don’t care.
Nor does it matter how intelligent, loving, resourceful, inclusive, or insightful we get as individuals, or as a species.
Clouds don’t care.
I wish I could be a cloud.
Filed under Deep Thoughts, Photography, Weather
Owls
During dinner there were two mockingbirds out in the back yard making quite a ruckus. I thought that it might be a mating or territorial thing. I grabbed the camera and headed outside. And noticed something in the tree on the hillside just below our back yard…
Oh. My. God!
She is spectacular! A Great Horned Owl.
I was moving slowly, not wanting to spook her – every time I moved that head would swivel, but the body never twitched.
She was sitting in this one patch of sun as the sun set behind the house in back of us, her feathers illuminated perfectly, her “horns” making her easy to identify. (Well, that and the fact that I’ve heard them ever since we moved in here.)
It’s truly astonishing how far around that head can swivel, probably 270° or more!
I kept shifting toward the right and closer to the edge. By this time I was only about fifteen feet from her. And then…
…I saw the other one! (I might have squeeeed just a little bit.) At first I thought it was just a rug or coat or something thrown across the fence. THEN THE HEAD SWIVELED AROUND TO LOOK AT ME.
I had heard the male hooting a couple times while I was out there. I’ve heard them calling back and forth many times and when I’ve done some research it seems the call of the male is deeper, more bass. That was his call.
I’m guessing that this is the male and the one up where I could see her was the female. In part it’s the size difference, but also the calls. This one was about fifty feet away and down in the shade, where it was hard to get a good picture as it was getting dark.
I’m also struck by how different his coloration seems. Might be the lighting. (Might not be – see the picture below of the female in this same spot a few minutes later.)
The mockingbirds were still out there, taking every opportunity to dive bomb her. At one point she hopped down onto another branch.
From there, just as the sun was setting, I got a good view of the feathers on her breast and tail.
I was lucky enough to be ready when another mockingbird strafing run came by and she hopped down another branch.
That’s a large wingspan! The white tips to all of her feathers when deployed are quite a sight.
The male finally got sick of the mockingbirds and flew off down the hill. I saw him a few time gliding from tree to tree, but the female soon went down and took his spot on that fence corner. (Compare her size to the male perched at the same spot a few pictures above.)
As it got dark I watched her and listened to them occasionally calling back and forth. The mockingbirds continued to be pissy and loud, but their attacks were all no-hitters. Meanwhile, a few straggler butterflies were wandering by, the hummingbirds were hitting on the feeders and buzzing the ice plant flowers near me, and the house finches were flitting all over the bushes for a last snack for the babies back in the nest as it got dark.
Not bad for the middle of a megalopolis!!
Filed under Critters, Photography
Awkward
When you’re behind the Domino Pizza delivery guy – at the Jack In The Box drive through…
Filed under Silly Shit
WE Build 2019
I think this is my sixth “Women’s Empowerment” Build (WE Build) at the non-profit where I work. It was a great event and the predicted nasty weather held off enough so that it didn’t interfere at all with what we needed to get done.
Damn – I’m tired!
Up at 03:45 to get up to Palmdale at 06:00. We’re (“we” = Homes4Families, where I’ve worked for the last 3.5 years) just starting construction on a 56 home subdivision there for low-income veterans. One of our big events, every Mother’s Day weekend, is the WE Build, where we get hundreds and hundreds of women on site to do some heavy-duty construction. Over the years we’ve done everything from framing, fencing, landscaping, pouring concrete driveways and sidewalks, base and case, painting, building concrete walls, jackhammering holes for tree planting, and so on.
This was my sixth WE Build, but the first where the weather was a potential issue. We just don’t get much rain in May out in these parts.
When the sun finally bothered to come up, it was pretty, but threatening.
The rainbow just before we started was very pretty, but also meant that there were showers in the area.
Our turnout this year was huge, which is a fantastic thing. This is our first WE Build in Palmdale since we’re just starting the project there (notice all of that flat, only recently graded dirt!) and the support we’re seeing from the community is wonderful.
My staff job for the day was to work with the women starting a block wall along the main road. I obviously don’t do this on a regular basis and learn just enough to be dangerous, but I know where to go to get answers so I’m not completely useless.
Today one of my primary jobs ended up being tying rebar together. It turns out to be a painful job since the wire is hard and stiff, sharp, and you’re often operating in semi-confined spaces such as that pillaster in the lower right. The can cause you to come home with an “interesting” array of scratches and punctures on your hands.
But that’s a fantastic wall!
Once we were finishing up cleaning and storing tools and equipment at the end of the day, the thunderstorms finally moved in. We never actually got hit with a downpour, but we could see them all around us, along with the lightning and thunder.
Finally, as always, I managed to stuff about two months’ worth of exercise into one day. I will be paying the price for that over the next few days, I’m sure.
Still, a great event for us. I’m just sooooooo sore and sooooooo tired at this point. And a little sunburnt. And a lot scabby on my hands.
Filed under Homes4Families, Photography
Then Came A Touch Of Rain
It didn’t take much.
Rain in SoCal in May is reasonably rare. The average is 0.31″ for the entire month.
Today’s official total at Van Nuys Airport was only 0.01″. The closest weather station to us reported 0.10″.
It wasn’t even enough to wash the layers of dirt off my car. It was only enough to make it splotchy and look worse than normal.
But the white and pink rose bush took it hard.
As it’s supposed to, I guess. The rose bush didn’t seem to mind. For all I know there are critters out there that are going to eat well over the next few days on these rose petals.
But I’ll miss them.
Filed under Castle Willett, Flowers, Photography
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 