View from San Clemente 03-14-09

On Monday, Mar 9th, I went to a meeting at a house in the hills of San Clemente - beautiful area, gorgeous views. When I was driving down the hill to go home....

...three vultures came so close to my windshield I thought I was going to hit them. Something to be avoided as they are large enough and heavy enough to go right through the glass. But they glided over to the steep slope down to the freeway (I-5 again), so I pulled off in a parking lot to try for some pictures. Didn't have much luck. Above are two in flight. The ocean is off to the right of the frame.

And here is one of them alight on the chain link fence along the verge of the highway. There was a hawk around, but hawks eat live food, whereas vultures are the garbage collectors and only eat critters that are already dead. They are a valuable part of the ecology, even if they are ugly.

From the same vantage I took this view of I-5 looking west over the pacific Pacific. At this point there is a sharp down slope to the beach below.

Slightly further south I had this view over the wild mustard to the ocean.

Last of trip home 03-13-09

The almond orchards continued on both sides of I-5 for miles - in the background of this image are the hills between the central valley and the coastal valley.
Almond orchards on the east side of the highway with the Sierra in the distance. If you click you might be able to see more clearly, but w/o a polarizing filter distant features are hard to identify. With my sunglasses on I could detect the snow cap on the Sierra - amazingly clear weather.

Now that I am further south I begin to see cherry orchards in full bloom.

The bright pink is so startling in the bland landscape of the central valley.

A few miles further south I took an offramp to get closer to this orchard. I think these might be pistachios. Seen from the highway the tops of the trees were all this orange-red color and I wondered if they were blossoms.

No blossoms. Just many small orange-red leaves sprouting.

Almost home! I'm over the Ridge Route and along the foothills and only about 15 miles from my house. The highway overhead sign reads "Diamond Bar" and Placentia is just beyond the hills.

I have a couple short trips before I drive back up to Pacific Grove for my class w/Pamela Allen at Empty Spools Seminars/Asilomar. So, a few weeks into April I'll see how much the landscape has changed along I-5. Although I might drive up on Hwy 101 just for a change of scenery and then return via I-5. However, I-5 is okay, I haven't gotten tired of it yet and I have been driving it several times a year (at least!) since the central valley portion opened in the early 1970s. For the last few decades I have thought about making a quilt based on my I-5 travels, but all I have so far are sketches, photos, and daydreams.

Driving home from SJB 03-12-09

How many pictures are too many for one blog post? I have usually made eight my limit, a number chosen arbitrarily, but today I have nine and thought about posting even more. These were all taken on Sunday when I was driving from San Juan Bautista, CA., to Placentia, CA. It is usually a drive of 5-1/2 to 6 hours, but I stopped so often and spent so much time taking pictures that it took me about 9 hours! It was a lovely day and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I hope you enjoy these pictures.

I have always observed that yellow is the most common color for wild flowers, but some years ago I read an article that said that purple was most common. They may have been talking about the entire world, which I have not seen, so maybe they are right. But I mostly see yellow when I am traveling across the USA. This is a mimosa tree in bloom quite close to SJB. They were blooming all over, but I found it hard to be the right distance away to take a picture, either too close or too far, as is this one.
In the flat valley the fog hung in pads like a layer of batting stretched between ground and sky. And higher up there was a dense layer of fog that blocked the sunlight. But it soon dissipated and was completely gone when I got over the mountains and into the great central valley.


Before I started uphill I passed quite a few cherry orchards which were just starting to blossom. Many fruit trees are cut flat on the top to facilitate picking and I am told they do the trimming with a huge horizontally mounted round blade, just like an old fashioned buzz saw. Hwy 156 joins Hwy 152 at the bottom of the hills.

The highway (152) goes over Pacheco Pass and starts descending in a wide loop around San Luis Reservoir, a man made depository for water to feed the miles of crops in the central valley. It is still very low, despite the more plentiful rains we have had this winter. You can see the distance between the water surface and the high water mark shown by the green grass above and the dirt below.

This picture is even more dramatic in showing how much the lake has receded in recent years. Click on the photos for enlargement.

I stopped at my usual Starbucks in Santa Nella, CA., which has a motel with a tall tower - it has been a landmark along I-5 almost since the highway was opened in the 1970s. I turned south onto I-5 and soon was driving through miles and miles of almond orchards in bloom - when I cracked the window I could smell the fragrance - and I had to stop. So, I took one of the infrequently traveled exits and drove on a rough road to an orchard in full blossom. After parking and getting out my camera I walked through the white-with-a-blush bowers, sniffing the air and listening to the millions of honey bees. Considering the crisis in the bee industry lately it was an absolutely marvelous sound.

How many trillions of petals must there be to cover the trees and the ground - like a light snow fall.

The sky was very clear and blue which makes the blossoms look so white.

The heart of each flower is bright pink with yellow stamens and the petals are a lovely shape.

I was following bees thither and yon trying to catch one collecting pollen and finally took this image. Click to enlarge and you can see the pollen on the bee's body.

You are getting off easy! I took more than 50 pictures in the orchard, then deleted all the really lousy ones and still have 36 left to sort through again. It is sometimes hard to decide which image is the best between several similar shots. But I do love the digital camera for the ease of taking two or three times the number of images I would have taken with a film camera and then sorting out only the very best to keep.

More trip tomorrow. But not so many images - I think.

More photography day 03-11-09

More photos from Saturday when I took a lone trip around the area just to take pictures. (You can click on all the pictures to enlarge.) It was a gorgeous day....

...so you can tell that this was taken on another day when it rained. The very similar view I did on Saturday was out of focus. I always notice animals or livestock when I am on the road. I suppose that living in suburb of Los Angeles makes me more alert to something besides people, dogs and cats. In the area around SJB there are sheep, goats, horses, cows, cattle, lots of different birds, and on and on! In the picture above the shepherd's trailer is located at the top of the fence on the left.

This is California's gold in the spring. It is unlikely that the story of the friars scattering the seed along their route to found the missions is true. More likely the seed was borne by both animals and people when the Spanish colonized the Southwest. Now the gold is everywhere the soil has been disturbed. This field is between Hwy 1 and an access road.


Further along Hwy 1, beyond the artichokes and the new strawberry fields are the sand dunes extending down to Monterey. Where the dunes are high hang gliders enjoy the winds and the thermals. I tried for pictures, but they were too distant for my camera. Seeing them makes me want to give it a try. Maybe on my 75th birthday?

I made a final stop at Back Porch Fabric Shop. This view is of the classroom/gallery. The current exhibit shows quilts made by the employees and the owner, Gail Abeloe. It is a very nice display and shows that any of the ladies at the counter can help with quilting problems and decisions on fabrics. Even on gloomy days it always seems bright and cheery inside the shop.

A last trip around the Bay to Asilomar Beach. I stopped half a dozen times to look and relax and photograph. It is a sort of meditation to look at the waves on the rocks and the birds drifting against the blue water and sky.

More animals! There are three sea lions on the rock "islands" in this picture. One on the left rock and two on the right rock. At first glance they look like logs washed up and dried in the sun.

I have never observed Canadian geese doing their nesting on a rock pile in the ocean or, in this case, a bay. The male is on the left preening his feathers and the female has come out from behind the shrubs to see what he is up to. He strenuously objected to a gull sitting about where he stands. But later he flew down to the ground cover that was right beside where I was standing and proceeded to peck and search for something to eat. I was a little leery because geese bites can really hurt, but he didn't object to my presence. I suppose that comes from living in a tourist area!

Tomorrow photos taken on the way home with almond trees abloom on every side - lovely fragrance, beautiful blossoms.

Cauliflower color! 03-11-09

Pat Spillane answered the question about what happens to the color in the purple cauliflower when it is cooked:
Couldn't resist answering your curiosity question: does the purple retain it's color?No - actually - it bleeds into a dark "blue", which is not particularly attractive in food. So, after one serving of cooked purple cauliflower, the rest of the delicious veggie was eaten raw. It's mild and delightful that way. You learn something all the while, don't you???
Thanks Pat. I found that purple potatoes do the same thing and are not very appetizing on the plate! Wouldn't the purple cauliflower look wonderful on a plate with celery, carrots, jicama and other veggies with a veggie dip!

Birds and plants 03-10-09

I decided to stay another day in San Juan Bautista so that I could do some more photographing and enjoy one of Mary's special salmon dinners! Saturday (a perfectly gorgeous day) I drove down the mountain with my camera, but before I got to the highway I encountered these five hen turkeys strolling along the road. I pulled over and stopped and, of course, they headed away from me. After I had snapped a few images my camera flashed the 'out of battery' alert. I flipped it off and on for another picture and then again, but then it was REALLY out of battery. So, I drove back up the mountain to charge the battery for half an hour - enough to carry me through the rest of my photo excursion. The hens think they will get away from me and cross the road.
But I was still too close, so they went on into the field at a fast clip.This is the most clear and focused image I took - unfortunately their heads are missing. Might be some kind of ominous forecast.

I drove west on Hwy 156 to Hwy 1 and turned south to where I had seen the artichoke fields close to the highway. Several readers were interested in the artichoke picture I posted the other day. Here is another view of a field.

The round green baseball sized "fruit" sticks up above the leaves.

And here is a closeup of artichokes on the plant. Mary tells me that the one that grows right out of the top of the plant is the best one - it looms large here. I don't know how many times they go through the field harvesting the 'fruit' that is ready, but I'm sure it is quite a few. A local produce stand has different bins for different sizes of artichokes from baby to primo.

In the picture above showing the field you can see a patch of oxalis on the left. This is a better image of a single wild oxalis blossom and bud. The foliage is clover like and the plants are usually found in fields, along roadsides and other places where the soil has been disturbed. The hybrid plants found at nurseries have leaves of different colors and shapes along with flowers of many colors. They are sometimes sold as "Shamrocks" for St. Patrick's day. It is easy to tell the difference between a field of wild mustard which is a bright yellow and grows about a foot tall and a field of oxalis growing at most about eight inches tall and is a greenish yellow - very pale. I probably have a hillside full out back, but I haven't looked since I came home. Tomorrow?

Quilt from TCQC 03-09-09

It was a very busy but wonderful ten days with Mary and Joe in San Juan Bautista. Lots of rain, but we weren't out in it much and when the sun was shining the hillsides were green, the birds were singing and the new little sprouts were 'misting' the trees. If you look just a little bit aside from straight on the leaves are there. It was great to visit our Asilomar friends and hit some of our favorite restaurants. I was having such a good time I didn't want to come home. But the drive home yesterday was also spectacular with miles and miles of blooming almond trees. More on that w/pictures another day.

"Oak Trees" Mary Leakey 1999 38"W x 30"L

This is a very special quilt for me because my good friend Mary made it using Ruth McDowell piecing techniques. And I was there to see it go together. The tree trunks are made of silk from the Talbots (ties) Outlet in Carmel Valley. [And now there is another Talbots outlet in Gilroys' huge outlet mall.] Mary and Joe live in an Oak tree woods with this particular tree growing in front of the house. It is such a quiet location up in the hills away from the 'flat land' hustle and bustle. Mary was a very good friend of Judy House of Virginia who attended Asilomar classes for many years, but unfortunately she succumbed to cancer in July of 2005. Judy is the one who talked Mary into taking the Empty Spools Seminars classes. So, I also owe her a debt for this gorgeous quilt.

Blog delay 03-09-09

I drove home from San Juan Bautista yesterday, making many stops to photograph, eat, nap, get gas, etc. It turned into a long, but enjoyable day. Today I have a 'pattern try out' class and will be gone most of the day. I hope that this evening I will be able to get back on track with my blog and post a TCQC quilt and pictures showing springtime along I-5.

Love, Del