Fall Colors and Dogs

Posted on December 3, 2017 by Robin

I haven’t taken the dogs Across the Road much lately. I need to take the time to do that for them and for me. Here are some photos from a few days ago.

Leaves are turning color and falling.

They will be gone soon.

The black walnut leaves are already gone. Or maybe this is one of the trees that is dead. I think the drought took it’s toll on some of these.

The view looking southeast.

Ginny’s ball was cracked and even with the “Chuckit” I couldn’t throw it very far. Rusty runs after Ginny every time she goes for the ball. Then he runs back with her but he doesn’t always keep up with her now.

There were sunflowers in one of these fields and there were lots of seeds dropped on the road at harvest time. Now they are all sprouting.

This is Ginny while I was on the ground trying to take seedling emergence photos.

So you know that she put the ball right under my camera.

Ginny, do you know that broken tennis balls don’t float? She spent time looking for it after she had taken it into the canal.

Back at my driveway there were beautiful leaves to photograph. A wild grape vine.

Walnut tree.

Happy fall!

Yellow and Red

Posted on September 20, 2017 by Robin

Here are some recent Across the Road photos. If I can’t have my own 100’s of acres then at least I get to pretend by living right across the road from bigger farmland.

Sunflower in the making.

I have some weaving plans to incorporate these colors but haven’t had time to get to it.

The tomatoes were harvested last week.

These are canning tomatoes.

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This was the aftermath. There were plants at the ends of some rows and at the edges of the field that were toppled over but not harvested.

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I gleaned 22 pounds on one walk and picked up black walnuts for dyeing as well.

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Tomatoes in one pot and weeping willow leaves in the other.

Shadow Pictures

Posted on June 11, 2017 by Robin

Right now I’m sitting at my desk with one Border Collie (Rusty) at my feet under the desk and the other behind the chair. Ginny has never been gun shy or afraid of things in the sky but this thunderstorm has her rattled too. Rusty is terrified. So I left the loom where I was weaving and I’ll wait it out with them. We don’t often have thunderstorms here.

I had planned to write this blog post about our walk Across the Road in yesterday’s sunshine.

Guess who with something in her mouth?

Ginny watches the Ball and Rusty watches Ginny.

Ginny constantly drops the ball in the water but this year she gets herself. Last year I was fishing it out for her.

I don’t say much about Maggie because she usually wanders ahead and does her own thing out of range of the camera. I called her over to get a photo.

The late afternoon sun gives light to other subjects as well.

Ginny found a ball that we lost at some point in the tall grass. Now the grass is gone and she saw it in a dried tractor track. It’s a good thing because the ball on the right isn’t in very good shape at this point.

Across the Road Close-up

Posted on February 1, 2017 by Robin

It has dried out enough to take the dogs walking again. I haven’t taken my camera lately because it’s cold and I have three leashes and the Ball Thrower Thing and my hands are too cold. (Don’t laugh if you live where it snows. I’m still cold.) Rusty wrote a post about his perspective of the latest walks. Here is what I see when I walk with the iPhone.

You know those gloves with the special fingers that are supposed to let you use your phone even with the gloves on? I have some too:

Do you know what I think when I see these photos? Or when I’m looking at the ground while taking the photos? What if these were satellite photos and these were mountain ranges? Can you see that?

The rain has started things growing. This is in a huge patch of thistles.

There are a few mustard flowers blooming already.

Perspective again. What if that little red rock in the hole was really a house? Then those cracks are canyons.

Uh oh! That perspective thing would make this a very scary photo indeed! Raccoonzilla.

Speaking of another perspective. Three dogs and me.

Orchard Trails

Posted on December 6, 2016 by Robin

It’s dry enough now to ride my bike Across the Road. I take Ginny to try and wear her out a bit. Yesterday I took a different route and decided to veer off the road that borders a walnut orchard. I don’t know why I haven’t done that before–veering off the road. Maybe because at other times of the year it’s muddy or weedy (including puncture vine, also known as goats’ head that puncture tires and dog feet) or being harvested. Or because I’m not the sort of person that goes off the trail.

Maybe it’s that I am not a big fan of orchards in this area. Almond orchards seem to be taking over the valley and the landscapes that I love are hidden once the orchard has been in a couple of years.

Anyway, it was beautiful view from within the orchard.

Peaceful.

Colorful.

Orderly.

However, I still love the broad landscape that is outside the orchard. This is one of the few black walnut trees remaining around the fields.

The mountains are almost obscured by the young almond orchard that is across the big canal but at least I can still see the sunset.

Sunflowers-April through June

Posted on September 16, 2016 by Robin

We have only 10 acres here, but having the field Across the Road makes it seem as though we have much more. We are careful to be good neighbors and we are grateful that we have permission to spend time exploring that property. So I feel kind of like the crops grown there are mine although I have none of the work involved. This summer’s crop was sunflowers–one of my favorites. I have way too many photos so I’ll break this into two posts.

April 12. You can just see the tiny plants.

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April 27

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May 2. Cultivating.

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June 11. They’re growing up. I sound like a proud parent.

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The rest of the photos in this post were taken throughout June.

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Birds and Butterflies

Posted on August 26, 2016 by Robin

Last week it was impossible to go to town or walk Across the Road without running into butterflies. The orange sulphur butterfly (Colias eurytheme also known as the alfalfa butterfly and in its larval stages as the alfalfa caterpillar), I found out by googling, is widespread in North America and can be a significant alfalfa pest in high densities.

The alfalfa field just south of where I walk had been cut, the sunflowers harvested, and butterflies were doubling and tripling up on field bindweed flowers and any other weedy flowers they could find.

I thought that I’d be able to get photos of butterflies in flight. Do you know how hard that is? Not possible, at least by me.

But speaking of things that fly, I did get some bird photos. I don’t usually see great blue herons in the trees.

The snowy egret is dwared by two great egrets.

Great egret in flight.

On my way home I spotted these cattle egrets which I photographed from the road.

Across the Road Again

Posted on April 19, 2016 by Robin

Now that it is not raining anymore I can walk Across the Road with the dogs again. It’s actually been a few weeks and there have been a few walks but I’m behind on blog posts and organizing my thoughts.This was taken on the first walk a few weeks ago. The dogs are on the leash until we get off of Meridian Road.The field was bedded up and planted about two weeks ago. sunflowers sprouting Can you see the sprouts when you look at one of the lines almost right in the middle of the photo? Those are sunflowers.The most exciting thing for the dogs is that the canals were filled about a week ago.On the last walk I noticed that Rusty spent more time than usual in the water. He usually just goes in when he’s hot and gets out again, but this time he spent time cruising (the best way to describe his half walking/half swimming) up the canal. I think his hips are bothering him so much that it felt better to move that way.He also needs help getting out now. Last year I helped Ginny out. This year it will be Rusty. Wet dog.The alfalfa has been cut and baled once already and is now being irrigated. IMG_0886 sunflowers Here is another week’s growth of the sunflowers.The best surprise for Ginny I think is that she got to chase the Toy into the water again. Rusty will have more of these photos on his blog.

Across the Road-February

Posted on February 12, 2016 by Robin

I took these on my dog walk yesterday evening.Mustard blooming.Mistletoe berries.Almonds just about ready to bloom.Looking west.Taken earlier in the day. One of our two almond trees is in full bloom and full of bees.

Across the Road in 2015

Posted on January 3, 2016 by Robin

I thought I did a post like this for 2014, but I didn’t. You have to go back to this post to see what it was like Across the Road in 2013. My plan is to make a photo record of the changes that I see from standing at our mailbox. To do that correctly I’d need to do it on the same day each week (or month), with the same camera, using the same lens, and at the same time of day. FAIL. Here is what I have (and it’s probably more interesting this way).January 22, 2015. February 5.February. Almonds are blooming.

April 11. An overview of Across the Road looking east. Our place is in the foreground. The dogs and I cross the road in near the houses in the middle of the photo and usually walk south until we can get on the dirt road that goes along the canal. If I take the usual route I walk along the big canal, turn left (going east) between the brown and the green, turn left again (north) between the brown and the trees, follow the tree line along the ditch until I get back to the main road, and turn south to home. That is 1.8 miles. If I don’t have much time I can take a short cut right where the main road curves and head north on a road that separates the two brown areas. If I want to vary it I can continue to follow the big canal south and there are more roads to follow that way.

In this photo our pasture has started to green up because I irrigated in mid-March. Normally the irrigation district doesn’t provide water until April or May but due to the drought we have been getting water earlier. In 2014 we irrigated in January. The green in the background of the aerial photo is hay or wheat or barley fields. April 26, 2015. The field has been bedded, ready for tomatoes.May 3, 2015June 9, 2015July 22, 2015August 9, 2015August 30, 2015 cattle egret This is a photo taken across the road, from Across the Road. (That is my pasture looking west.)The alfalfa field that is the green triangle in the upper right in the aerial photo.Beans that were planted after the wheat harvest in the are shown in the triangle that is the upper center of the aerial photo.September 5, 2015.September 9, 2015. It took 4 days, working 24 hours/day to finish harvesting this field.September 23, 2015. Back to the beans. The dry plants have been put into windrows waiting for harvest. waiting for lunar eclipse September 27, 2015.October 6, 2015. Field disked and bedded waiting for the next planting. I’m told that it will be planted to sunflowers this spring.November 29, 2015. If we have regular rain I can’t walk across here because it gets too muddy. There have been very few days that we haven’t been able to walk. December 1, 2015. View of our place, looking west across the field. We need to see more green on those hills.