more Spring in my steps!

Last Monday when I dropped off Patrick at work, we noticed the mountains were a lot more visible than they were on our Saturday walk. So I grabbed the camera and headed out for some mild exercise and a better picture. I snapped a few more along the way:

This pony lives a couple blocks from our house. One day when I was jogging I heard him run along the fence after me. After taking this photo, he approached me & I pet him a bit. But not too much since I didn't want my hand to smell all horsey for the rest of my walk, you know? :)

Patrick mentioned in the comments section of the last blog that he found out a lot of these trees we're seeing are almond trees. When I passed under this one, I noticed some of last year's harvest still attached, so I thought I'd show you.

The range is too long to capture entirely in the photo, but here is the most dynamic section of it.

Slightly closer glance, through the barbed wire fence (the walking path dips below the field level for a bit.)

At the university the power cord is mucking up this photo, but you can see the mountains a little better.

I love the splash of color these rows of trees add to the courtyard! Back right: too bad I didn't know there was a hotdog vendor, otherwise I'd totally have brought some lunch money.

Zoomed in for your viewing pleasure. By the way, there are so many trees in bloom that last week the air started to smell like honey. I'm not joking- it is absolutely sweet (in all contexts of the word).

I'm not sure if the farmer had just been to the gate or what, but tons of cows were grouped around the field entrance. They lined the fence for quite a ways and acted as if I was the most intriguing thing on this earth.

Once the path dipped below ground level again, I felt like a gladiator. These guys just stare as if they know something bad is gonna happen to you. Other than that slight ominous feeling, I though they were pretty funny. A herd of them followed me for awhile as if they all wanted to come on back home to be my pets.

This photo I wanted of the bird, not the cows. It's called an egret, and we see them in the nearby fields quite often. Click to zoom in.

Not as interesting of a photo, but these trees border some of the roads around here. They give the land a lot more of a Mediterranean vibe.

I know it's probably not very springy by most of you all yet, but I'm sure it won't be long. In the meantime, I hope you are enjoying our photos!

A casual stroll past Casual Ct.

After the monsoon we experienced a few days ago, Patrick & I decided to walk around the neighborhood Saturday to enjoy the sunny day and some of the sights between our house and the university. We took turns snapping photos so we could share some of those sights with you now!

We're not sure if anybody actually lives here since the yard is a bit unruly, but the padlocked gate on this multi-family dwelling, inspired us to call this isolated fortress "The Commune."

Across from The Commune is a small orchard that looks lovely all abloom.

A palm on the edge of the bike path that leads to the university. There seems to be quite a few varieties of the plant, as you'll notice in other photos.

There's lots of pasture on the path to the university- you can see the cows and the mountain foothills off in the distance. The puddles are evidence of the rain we've had. I like how the sky is reflected in them.

On hazy days you may see the silhouettes of foothills or nothing at all. On clear days you can see snowcapped peaks and the foothills in more definition. On an in-between day like this, you get an imperfect view, but still a view.

We rode our bikes to the university on Presidents Day and a large group of cows was grazing near the fence. They started following us and a few even broke into a run for a full-on chase. It was hilarious! They were too far away to even notice us Saturday though.

Cherry blossoms, I believe?

A few of the trees crowded the barbed wire fence lining our route, giving us the chance to appreciate their beauty up-close.

A side-street looping us back near the start of our walk hosted homes bordered by these trees. We thought the dark, large-thumb-sized fruit on them might be olives. A quick Google Images search leads us to believe our guess is correct.

Orange trees in a few nearby yards have really tempted me to become a trespasser. Our thoughts were these might be grapefruits since they seem more yellow in appearance and the plant is larger than the orange trees we've seen. Either way, the scrumptious appearance is stirring up the the suppressed fruit-thief in me.

Fields of this golden wildflower waved gloriously in the sunlight. We picked a few to adorn our dining room table.

This full-grown tree emerging from the concrete seemed a bit of an oddity, but its location certainly gave it more character, especially combined with the vivid blue & green colors in the background.

Spiky palm plants, of some sort, landscaping a residence.

This vine flower creeped along the ground. I leaned in for a closer glance to determine whether it was a morning glory. It's not, but looks lovely nevertheless.

One thing Patrick & I noticed not long after arriving in Merced, was a stronger presence of classic cars (makes sense due to the lack of snow & salt, but still stood out to us). I have a feeling this baby-blue beauty isn't its owner's primary vehicle, though. It looks to be in pretty stellar condition!

The rust-orange, longer fur on these calves made us wonder if they've got some Highland blood in them. Three other cuties were crowding the bale of hay off to the left, but these two were more curious about us.

This waxy, wild-looking cactus was part of an island of exotic botanicals acting as a donut-hole for the circle driveway in front of someone's house. It's actually a rather messy yard arrangement, but simultaneously intriguing.

A close-up of the red growths on the cactus shown above.

More palm varieties, sheltering a huge spikey plant in the back right region of the island.

We pass this electric tower all the time, but it wasn't until this walk we noticed the vicious metal teeth protectively placed near the bottom, deterring hoodlums from climbing. Remember you can click on any of these photos to enlarge them.

Springtime colors are really starting to pop around here!

April showers bring May flowers in Michigan, but it seems that in California it's February that brings both. Strange for us, but we're relishing the mild-weather and invigorating scenes this season brings before the summer heat comes to town!

Snapshot: Winter in Tahoe NF

 Last week I went up to Tahoe NF for fieldwork after 40" or so of snow had been deposited throughout the region.  The weather was nice and I got a few good pictures.   The first picture was taken on the snowmobile ride out to our upper meteorological station and the last 2 were taken on the ride back to the truck.

 

Arachnids, decomposition, and the demise of MI via extreme heat & hungry giants.

As many of you know via Facebook or from the horse's mouth, the two of us spent the pre-Valentine's weekend constructing a compost container in our backyard. It may not sound romantic or look glamorous, and the time to build it was longer than expected. Yet it saved us some money, got us spending time together outside, and will be very helpful come garden-planting time. Here's a look at our project, with the addition of a few other pics and points:

If Patrick and I had simply bought a bunch of lumber, this project would have been over much more quickly. However, that'd be rather expensive. A junk pile of broken pallets collecting dust & rain for who-knows-how-long, near one of Patrick's work areas, provided cheaper (and re-purposed!) materials. Since moving to CA, we've been advised to be leery of black widows when poking about in neglected outdoor areas. We saw this one in the work building near the wood pile. Gave us the heebie-jeebies!

It took us several hours to pull all the bent nails out of the old pallet boards, plan the most efficient way to use the boards since there was a limited supply, and cut them to size. At least the weather was beautiful that weekend- blue skies & got up to 70 degrees!

Evidence of the tedious work that took! A lot of them were a real pain to pry free.

Mid-day we broke for a southern-style lunch of homemade chili, cornbread, and...

....limemade from the fruit of our beloved tree! Mmm!

We realized we needed more materials, so we had to make a trip to the decrepit wood pile. After a trip to Lowe's for some screws, hardware, and chicken wire, the remainder of the afternoon was spent erecting a frame.

Not exactly choice lumber. This frame is a bit rickety due to the boards being warped, and split. But it is just a means of containing decomposing food waste until we move again, so whatever.

Sunday/Day 2 we built removable front panels for easy turning & transporting from one stall to the other, and attached the poultry netting for the "walls."

Clipping off the excess wire. We got pretty far, but didn't quite finish that weekend! Even so, we thought we had earned a reward...

Sugar cookies shaped by our Michigan cookie-cutters. The watch pot never boils, but we couldn't help gazing longingly at these while they baked.

Living economically means forgoing fondue for now.... except on special occasions! We bought the ingredients for our favorite, chicken curry fondue, as our way of celebrating on the 14th. One of the ingredients is white wine, so we broke out our fancy goblets to "cheers" a glass of the leftover vino!

This past weekend, Patrick fastened the hardware to the front panels. We had a deficit of wood, but we needed to buy a piece of lumber to mount our hangboard indoors, and the remainder was enough to supplement the creation of a lid for the stall currently in use. Last night we managed to scavenge another board from the old pallet pile to finish off the cover for the other side, so the work is to be continued.....

But in the meantime, it is functional and garden planning will soon be underway!

Fieldwork, fieldwork, and more fieldwork...

Atalie is looking for a job (sent in a bunch of applications a couple weeks ago) and has her first interview for a part-time job today!  Yay!  Other than that, I've been pretty busy doing fieldwork several times a week.  The snow and rain scheduled for this week will likely put a stop to that for a little bit.  Here are some pictures from my time in the field:

Atalie snapped this at end of day on our trip up to Truckee, CA for avalanche beacon training.  This is just before Donner Pass.

Hiking back to the snow machines in Tahoe NF.

Installing a datalogger box on the side of a hill in Tahoe NF.

Oops.

The snow melted out too much for us to just drive over this road blocker so we had to cut it.

Some water in the bottom of one of our meteorological station boxes froze together all of the wiring.  It made sorting out which wires went where difficult.

One of our snow depth sensors ("pingers") with the boom on the left side broken.

Trenching and burying wires is made more difficult with snow cover- but it had to be done.

Jason, another field technician, helping bury cables.