SPRING! Can't Get Enough

Aw gee. The sunshine is working on me; lately I can't get enough of it but that came to a screeching halt today. During the week the weather was a lovely 60-ish, 70-ish but today the temps hit the 90s. GAK!

Oh well. I sucked up as much fresh air, sunshine - pollen - birds & flowers as I could up to now.

Have lived in Fair Oaks for 15 years and only this week discovered there is a park only a mile or so from my house that has an area set aside for Vernal Pools in Phoenix Field. The park is sandwiched between a Little League field, parking lots, and loads of residential homes. It is amazing the natural Vernal Pools there survived at all. Unlike Mather Field & its Vernal Pools, which is a bit further away, this Phoenix Park doesn't allow visitors to tromp on the pool areas so it looks so... pristine.


Only vandals tread on these yellow brick roads
Looks like a rainbow of sorts - I can't get in enough staring at flower rainbows
Mind, the rainbow doesn't last forever - in a couple of months these flowery fields will look dead as a doornail - all withered, brown and stark. That's part of the Vernal Pool ecology, so gotta see 'em while they're HOT - in a pretty flower sort of way.

Here's flowers I've been enjoying staring at this past month or so.

I looked forward to these for weeks knowing they'd pop up eventually: Checkerblooms
Close-ups of Vernal Pool Checkerblooms

Hyacinth Brodiea

These next few flowers I can still find out in pasture land. They're not necessarily associated with Vernal Pools. The first is Valley Tassel, or Slender Owl's Clover.

Can you see the owl's faces on this pinky sized tuft of white bloom?
Royal Larkspur - King of the wildflowers in my book
This next one I found growing all over rocks in a field. They're tiny suculents, and they cling to rocks like lichens. Close up they are rather pretty, like tiny golden starbursts.

Extreme close-up of Sierra Stonecrop.
Ooo! Check out the Stonecrop here... you see it growing on the rocks in the foreground, and all that yellow in the distance is more of it growing like a golden crust on rock outcroppings.

My mother would have LOVED this stuff! Here's yet another look at Sierra Stonecrop or it's other name, Dwarf Cliff Sedum.

My mother had quite the green thumb for succulents
So about now you're thinking I've forgotten about my feathered homies. As if!

Western Bluebird

These birdie pictures were taken with my tiny digital, not my big-arse SLR Canon, so no close-ups, just casual snap shots.

Poofed up Red-winged Blackbird, who knows he's the sharpest bird in the field