Nevertheless, the spring wildflowers are coming to an end — but they’re going out with a blast of Clarkia! There are very few of the Showy Farewell to Spring (Clarkia bottae), the pale pink ones with white centers which I often see in the foothills.

The most populous flowers overall are the Elegant Clarkia (Clarkia unguiculata), which come in a wild range — from deep magenta to salmon to carnation pink to nearly white. I’m amused that different colored flowers seem to come off of the same plant, too.

Note the magenta-ish one sprouting on the upper-right of an otherwise pink stemfull of flowers.

There’s yet another set of Clarkia blooming as well — also called Farewell to Spring (Clarkia amoena), but showier than the Showy one. Like the Elegant one, this comes in several colors, such as red with white splotches, white with hot-pink splotches, pink with red splotches, etc. All with a rather floppy poppy-like form.

True to their name, these flowers herald the conclusion of the annual wildflower season in our garden, even though there are some Mountain Phlox and Calpops making an appearance. While it’s sad to see them go, summer will soon bring forth fruit, veggies and the (continuation of more) perennial flowers.

Anyhow, as April progresses, more and more flowers are popping up in the backyard. While the fivespot remains comparatively shy, I’ve seen over half a dozen individual plants. Whoa.

The fivespots seem to prefer sunny borders. Field view of a mound (single plant).

In my last entry, I forgot to mention that vast majority of the wildflowers are these tall, reddish-veined dudes with succulent stems. Lots and lots. Yet no flowers, failing to help in identification. I got my answer this past weekend during the Going Native Garden Tour: Clarkia unguiculata (formerly Clarkia elegans), also called Mountain Garland or Elegant Clarkia. (It’s a Clarkia, which would make Samuel proud. Moreover, these guys are ¡muy hardy! to the point of outcompeting many weeds. I think I’ve found a solution for the stubborn parking strip.

But since the Clarkia haven’t opened up yet, I’ll offer some Bird’s-Eyes Gilia (Gilia tricolor).

The first ones to bloom, the many baby blue-eyes, are petering out. But now we also have a bunch of composites opening up, mostly tidy tips and tarweed.

Tidy tips.

The seed mixes also included a couple lupines, but they seem few and far between. Perhaps our soil isn’t nitrogen poor enough? I guess that’s something good in many other ways, though!

But the point of today’s post is to record the first results of the wildflower seeds Simon sowed in the backyard at the end of December. I had went wild and bought several annual mixes from Larner Seeds, who specialize in native Californian plants.

So just a few days ago, I saw some quarter sized blue things bobbing in the wind: Baby Blue-eyes (Nemophila menziesii)!

Today, I saw a cousin of the Baby Blue-eyes, the Fivespot (Nemophila maculata). I’ve occasionally seen these while hiking in the hills, but never had luck — except one specimen in the parking strip several years ago — growing them at home. Perhaps they prefer the backyard over the frontyard; then again, I’ve seen only one plant so far.

Both of these Nemophila have been recently relegated to the Hydrophylloideae subfamily of the large Boraginaceae (borage) family, rather than the former Hydrophyllaceae. I’ve labeled the photo album containing bigger images in the old way, because it helps me remember that these small geranium-like plants are not geraniums (nor borage).

Returning to the fruit trees, I finally photographed the apple blossoms. Well, one of them, the Braeburn, which has such lovely red-tipped buds. Open flowers certainly are useful (for the bees and other arthropod friends), but I’m so very impartial towards the demurely tight-lipped state of closed buds. The first three photos in this album show them in greater detail.

WENK. Wenk wenk wenk!

Now I have proof: young Western Scrub Jay bossing over backyard fig tree! Okay, only indirect proof, since none of the pictures actually showed the bird’s beak snorfing in the fruit. Though I certainly do see a lot of that. When looking through the lens I must’ve had the anthropomorphic desire (bad habit?) for the bird to look at me, rather than stuff its face.

Things of course get louder when a mockingbird comes over to eye the figs. Along with another adult jay (with an acorn in its mouth), yelling at the young one. “Hey! Stop with the fruit fast food, and help out with the food storage chores!”

Since I’m not huge fig fan, this fruit loss doesn’t disappoint me much. I view it more as end of summer avian entertainment.

Currently they have twenty-four exemplar species pages, tens of thousands of authenticated (but not detailed) species pages, and about a million other species pages with minimal, unauthenticated data. Assuming that there are nearly 2 million species to document, that’s not too shabby for an initial proof of concept launch! Filling in the blanks will be ongoing work, because biology is a growing and dynamic field, after all. But if the content is informative and well-crafted, I certainly don’t mind.

I’ve been watching this site since its launch, and a few of my criticisms below have already been resolved over the past month. The EoL still has a long road to travel, nevertheless it’s great to see the progress and improvement.

Easy start

The EoL won’t allow the general public to contribute until later this year. Indeed, some incomplete pages contain a request for contributions in the future. The site does allow account creation, though. (Rather than using the visual CAPTCHA for account creation, I tried out the audio version, which was easy.) But I can’t do much of anything, other than to select preferences for email notification, password changes, language choice, and two settings regarding levels of information.

Overall, the site’s layout is visually clean, and images and text are easy to view and read. The Explore section at the top of the homepage, and in the right sidebar of taxon pages, serves as a nice teaser, without interfering with the rest of the content.

Taxon pages: content & detail

Part of me is surprised at the range in the quality of writing. Part of me isn’t, since there are multiple contributors. The Peregrine Falcon entry, touted as an exemplar EoL article, could have used a grammar and style check. Problems include my peeves (yeah, yeah) about incorrect use of it’s (and even its’) as a possessive, and failure to capitalize formal nouns and adjectives. While I don’t expect literature, the tone felt stiff and awkward. On Wikipedia, by comparison, the featured articles are of a higher caliber.

A colored horizontal stripe between the page header and taxon name denotes the kingdom. Green for plants, red for animals, blue for bacteria, aquamarine for Protozoa, lavender for fungi, grey for viruses, brown for Chromista, and purple for Archaea. (Ironically, the EoL lacks introductory descriptions for kingdoms, hence my Wikipedia links to the lesser-known ones.) Elementary accessibility dictates that color should not be the only way to convey meaning. A brief text label (even in addition to the color stripe) would be beneficial.

The media panel near the top is smartly arranged into Images, Maps and Videos. However, there’s a wacky bug where viewing an image (via the browser’s context menu command), then returning back to the taxon page displays an translucent overlay stating “You have been logged in (out).” This occurs even though I don’t explicitly click the login (or logout) link.

The Table of Contents in the left sidebar neatly organizes the content for each species. However, I don’t understand why its sections are inconsistent between species —at least for well-known organisms in the same kingdom. Take the cacao and tomato entries, both marked as exemplar articles: The one on cacao has a section on Relevance (covering culture, cultivation, uses, nutritional information, etc.), which is oddly absent the tomato one.

I doubt that the Detail slider above the Table of Contents adds any value. Sliding to the right displays scientific name, and more items in the Table of Contents and media panel. Wouldn’t the introductory content in the central column suffice as an initial view, with a complete Table of Contents? (Abridged content, especially in organizational tools such as tables of content, seem unreliable or contrived.) No matter what I do, I’ve yet to succeed in moving this slider all the way to the right (beyond 75%) for a full detail view, even within an exemplar article. Is this to help reduce confusion for those with less education, or cognitive disabilities? It fails, IMHO, by feeling dumbed-down, somewhat condescending, not to mention perplexing. Please, just remove it.

On a related note, the account preferences for levels of detail strike me as unnecessary and a bit baffling. What I see for the taxon name near the top of the page, and the initial position for Detail, depends on whether I choose “Information intended for beginners” (common name only, Detail at 25%) or “Information intended for experts” (both common and scientific names, Detail at 75%). The taxon name for the middle “Information for any audience” choice is the same as the beginner’s choice, but Detail defaults to 50%. The difference between selecting “Only information that comes from authoritative sources” or “All information” is that the latter displays external links to unauthenticated sources such as Wikipedia and Google. Frankly, this complexity in adjusting the information volume is not worthwhile.

Speaking of helping to understand, there ought to be a glossary or dictionary of common terms used throughout the site, perhaps accessed from the top menubar. What does IUCN, under the species name, stand for? In such cases, a simple title tip with a short definition for the abbreviation would help.

Taxon pages: classification & navigation

Located in the upper-right of the page, the Classification box allows me to navigate the biological taxonomy. Unfortunately, while the EoL claims it wants the advantages of Web 2.0 appearances and behavior for the site, my experience says it’s jumpy and sluggish. In addition, they omit the (-) text button after the selected Kingdom in the Text view, which gives a brief but annoying sense of disorientation. Why not consistently use (+) for expanding and (-) for collapsing throughout the trees, for all taxa?

Anyhow, the Text view of the Classification box contains names that are also links to the respective taxon pages. Click on Animalia, and I get the page on animals. It works at all levels for which there’s some content written, so I can jump between class, order, family, species, and so on. But there’s a bug: Empty, unwritten taxa have a label of Not assigned. This is fine, except that sometimes I can keep on clicking the (+) button to yield another Not assigned (-) which is also clickable and yields yet another.

(Speaking of pluses and minuses: On the homepage, they should not use a plus sign for a bullet point. It’s a point, a statement, not a navigation tree to expand! A dot, circle or arrow would be more suitable.)

Ever since late February, clicking Graphic in the Classification box gave me a message that the web browser needed Flash installed…which, uhm, it already had. The Graphic view now works, but as another reminder that it’s under construction, it only animates views of the taxonomy trees. Nothing happens when I click any of the names, such as loading a taxon page, even though they look like links.

What does the third Classification view, Source, do? Clicking it sluggishly displays a popup (over the box) describing the classification resource. Looks cluttered. Why not just access it via the Table of Contents, under References & More Information, or Additional Resources?

Searching

The EoL has a ubiquitous Search tool, of course. Site search seems geared towards finding species, with Name of organism as a prompt within the Search field. Fortunately, in reality site searches aren’t limited to just the species taxon. (Also note that in Camino (at least in v1.5.x) the search field buttons are blank due to a bug with native buttons; this is not a problem in Safari or Firefox.)

Search engine optimization also appears to be in progress. For example, searching for Theobroma cacao in Google listed the EoL link on the second page; neither Yahoo! nor MSN had an entry within the first five result pages. If they want more visibility, it should’ve (ideally) been on the first page of results.

According to the FAQ, the EoL’s next version, due during the latter half of this year, should contain “embedded semantic information.” The taxonomic infrastructure for the site is advancing. The taxon page source back in March contained generic meta description and keywords, referring to the entire EoL site rather than the specific page viewed. But as of this writing, such pages now include a title with taxon name, and very basic description and keywords. The search engine results remain the same, though it does take time for engines to update their indices.

I still care

Many of my complaints could be addressed if and when the EoL implement more Wikipedia-like standards: Namely to allow more people to edit, especially to correct simple mistakes and encourage better writing, as well as to incorporate intra-site cross-references (i.e., linking terms and names to other entries).

They offer three venues for feedback and communication with users and developers, which admittedly I haven’t gone through much. First, they have many forums. Second, they started a blog in January (running WordPress for news and quick updates. Third, they recently opened a community-run wiki for comments and errors. Wouldn’t both forums and wiki potentially confuse users by having more than one place to look for help, or to post comments and corrections? Why not have article-specific discussion located at the given EoL entry, similar to Wikipedia, to better focus on such issues?

I still look forward to using the EoL, lest you think this essay implies my giving up on the project. A few moments of exasperation, true, but no, I’m far from hopeless!

You should check out the EoL if you haven’t already done so. If you have questions, head over to the extensive FAQs or watch the video tours. In fact, the site offers a survey, which you can access from the right side of the homepage. Let them know what you think!

There wasn’t much of the miserable rodent left. But my morbid curiosity (with permission from PG&E and the fire department) allowed me some picture taking. I think it was a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk, or possibly a Cooper’s Hawk. Hard to tell, with its belly singed and tail obscured. (I restrained myself from turning it over.)

Continue onward to view a raptor memorial, as well as for additional bird news. I.e., this serves as a warning about a dead animal photo; it’s isn’t gross IMO, just sad, really.

If you want to see other pictures of this incident, let me know and I’ll send you links. They’re more gruesome compared with the one below, so I’ve hidden them somewhat.

However, on a much lighter note, and also related to the title, we’ve been watching a pair of Mockingbirds making a nest in one of the honeysuckle bushes. It’d be great to have a mockie family in the yard. I just hope they aren’t in danger of rodential or feline harassment, since the bush is on a not-so-high fence.

Mockingbird sez, “Eh? Wot?”

It is a definite pleasure to watch and listen El Mocko sing on our chimney. They are so cute while in gathering or bathing mode. (So far neither has decided to dive-bomb us, which would be awkward; they do swoop at cats that meander into the yard, though.) One of them was torn between hiding away, taking a bath and checking me out. Such smart chaps!

No avian tenants yet in the birdhouse, even though we still Chickadees and Oaktits in the yard. Wrens continue to sing loudly and fly about; they’ve been carrying snacks and nesting bits, but it’s unclear where their nest is.

Update 10:30am: I had written this entry on 23 March. This morning, however, I saw a Mockingbird egg on the fence near the honeysuckle. My guess is maybe our neighbors saw it on the ground and placed it there. My other guess is the local Bewick’s Wrens might’ve been the culprit who knocked it out of the nest in the first place. (Or the House Sparrows, or the California Towhees eyeing the bush; they’re other birds seen in the vicinity.) Or maybe a neighborhood cat popped it out…though the honeysuckle seems too dense for anything larger than a small bird. Many suspects. I still hear the mockie singing, but I’m crestfallen because I doubt they’ll continue to nest nearby.

Update this evening: I’ve seen the Mockingbird fly into the bush twice since I last wrote. Perhaps there’s hope for viable clutch and fledglings this year! (S/he could’ve been moving nesting material to another location. Who knows?) Those beasts are certainly persistent.

Before bathroom remodel.

But finally, finally two years ago, we got everything stripped down to the studs, and in about a month we had a lovely functional bathroom. (Designing and planning always take the lion’s share of time!) Not in pink. In greens and blues, since bathrooms are easy to associate with water, after all. It took me a couple years to get around to uploading the pictures, but there you go.

After bathroom remodel (though shower doors were soon installed).

“Birders, are ye?” Well, I prefer the term bird watching, mainly because Simon and I are very amateurish about the whole avian sighting thing. We’ve gotten into the habit only about four or five years ago. Having a garden helps, I tell ya. Along with binoculars.

I highly recommend the Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Western North America as a guidebook. Since I often hear the birds before I see them, having good audio guides also help, such as the Peterson Field Guides Western Birding by Ear (a good teaching and learning resource) and Western Bird Songs (more comprehensive).

I also link to the corresponding page at the awesome Cornell Lab of Ornithology for each species. Their videos require QuickTime (pretty, but limited), and their audio samples require RealPlayer (ugh, why not MP3?), although the latter comes in both Mac and Linux versions. On to the list!

Common visitors

These include our year round avian neighbors and reliable migratory visitors.

• American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos)
• Western Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma californica)
• Nothern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos)
• Anna’s Hummingbird (Calypte anna)
• Black Phoebe (Sayornis nigricans)
• Chestnut-backed Chickadee (Poecile rufescens)
• Oak Titmouse (Baeolophus inornatus)
• Bushtit (Psaltriparus minimus)
• Ruby-crowned Kinglet (Regulus calendula)
• American Robin (Turdus migratorius)
• Yellow-rumped Warbler (Dendroica coronata)
• Bewick’s Wren (Thryomanes bewickii)
• California Towhee (Pipilo crissalis)
• White-crowned Sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys)
• Golden-crowned Sparrow (Zonotrichia atricapilla)
• House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus)
• Lesser Goldfinch (Carduelis psaltria)
• Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura)
• European House Sparrow (Passer domesticus)

Occasional visitors

Sighted now and again, usually a few times annually.

• Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis)
• Cooper’s Hawk (Accipiter cooperii)
• Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura)
• Nuttall’s Woodpecker (Picoides nuttallii)
• Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum)
• Hooded Oriole (Icterus cucullatus)
• Brewer’s Blackbird (Euphagus cyanocephalus)
• Brown-headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater)
• Townsend’s Warbler (Dendroica townsendi)
• American Goldfinch (Carduelis tristis)
• Black-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis)
• European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris)

Rare visitors

Some birds we’ve seen only once or thrice.

• Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias)
• Great Egret (Ardea alba)
• Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus)
• Rufous Hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus)
• Hermit Thrush (Catharus guttatus)
• Yellow Warbler (Dendroica petechia)
• Black-throated Grey Warbler (Dendroica nigrescens)
• Orange-crowned Warbler (Vermivora celata)
• Black-headed Grosbeak (Pheucticus melanocephalus)

Lorelle’s encouraging Blogging Challenge article impelled me to write about my most common, and to me one of my worst typos, absent words. (This had been sitting as a draft for several months, mainly for gathering examples.) In spite of the frustrating “Gah, how did I miss that?” feeling, the easy thing about online publishing (like WordPress) is that it’s oh-so-easy to edit. Little time is needed for fussing —plink— there, it’s fixed!

Well, for blog articles. Comments posts are more difficult, since a commenter can rarely re-edit a comment. (Although the site moderator usually can.) Being able to preview comments does help, though it’s not a ubiquitous feature —at least not in WordPress. (But that’s where the Comments Preview plugin saves the day.)

Anyhow, my most commonly administered booboos:

• Forgetting small words like modifiers, prepositions, or even articles. The absence of a to, of, the or a falls under the “whoops, spaced out” category. But leaving out a no or not, utterly changes the intent, i.e., the angrier “$%#@, screwed up!” category.
• Or, worse, when my hands (but not my mind) actually forget a key verb or noun. “Just reservations” when I meant “just made reservations.”
• The following is an odd situation, considering how I irked I become when people cannot remember that its is possessive and it’s is the contraction. (Remember, no apostrophes in possessive pronouns! Hers, theirs, his, ours, its.) My Achilles’ heal of homophones is your vs. you’re. Perhaps the auditory part of my brain keeps interfering with the hand-touch aspect of language: “Your going to confuse you’re possessives with a contraction.”

Or, are you? What mnemonics or tools (other than spellcheckers) do you use to help you avoid typos or other writing flubs?

Yellow-rumped Warbler and the Avocado of Gluttony (February 2008).

At the end of January, Simon cleaned out the house previously occupied by the Chestnut-backed Chickadees. They came to feast on seeds from volunteer sunflowers in October, but I haven’t seen them again until recently.

Nest of former chickadee tenants. (February 2008).

Mockingbirds tentatively started singing around the end of January. Now they’re singing frequently, flying around chak-chakking at anyone threatening their favorite trees.

This past week, though, everyone has gone nutso! The Bushtit mafia flies from bush to tree to hedge and back again. Gangs of House Finches, Lesser Goldfinches, American Robins and Cedar Waxwings argue and take baths. Pairs of chickadees and Oak Titmice vie (possibly) for the birdhouse. Bewick’s Wrens belie their surreptitious nature with loud BWEEE-chivi-chivi-chivi’ing. Black-eyed Juncos forage for snacks. And another reminder that young Cooper’s Hawks use our backyard for hunting practice and…make pit-stops at birdbaths?

“Bathe or hunt?” Cooper’s hawk on arbor, seemingly considering the birdbath below. (Photo by Simon, February 2008)

There’s a squirrel who made the mistake of tucking away an avocado (from a tree a couple houses away) in the apricot tree. Which has no leaves or big enough holes for cover. Which is also a big meeting place for birds. Suffice to say, after too many bites stolen (stolen? who took the fruit from where and when?) by Mr. Yellow-butt, Ms. (or Mr.) Squirrel decided to store the rich stash elsewhere.

Hyup! The squirrel with the Avocado of Gluttony. Observe its kyoot belly. (February 2008)

More bird pictures in the avian gallery.

A brief chronicle of The Squirrel and the Avocado.

I’ve been dragging my feet about writing up what pretty much amounts to reviews. While I do want to keep track of such things (the embarrassment of accidentally purchasing an extra copy of a book has happened more than once to me over the years!), I don’t always want to write a long essay on everything I watch and read. So why not a mix of both capsule summaries and longer articles for items which move me to say more? Yes, that feels more reasonable to me.

It’s easy to warn of spoilers by placing such content after the standard <-- more --> tag. But trying to find a good balance of opinion and description of a work is difficult.

Just do it. Because this site is an extension of myself, mistakes and flubs will happen, but will progress will occur. However slowly.

Anna’s Hummingbird: Scritchy scritchy complain scritchy… BzzzzzzPINGk!

Black Phoebe: Pfee pfee. (Wag tail.) Pfee.

Western Scrub-jay: (Insert loud, rasping squawk of choice.)

…And: Chichichi chichi chichi hyeenhyeenh! Hyeenh hyeenh! (Repeat.) Chestnut-backed Chickadees have become our neighbors.

Chestnut-backed chickadee during a bath: “Hey! I haff not yet coiffed my feathères.”

A couple years ago Simon gave me a birdhouse for small wren-like birds, which he mounted on the backroom wall, near the apricot tree. Nobody visited, until last Summer, when I heard a hammering sound coming from the backroom. The neighbors next door were remodeling, so I nearly shrugged it off. I went outside to see a Nuttall’s Woodpecker widening the birdhouse’s entry hole. Unfortunately, the woodpecker lost interest and never nested there.

Last month as I was staring at the apricot blossoms, and heard a couple of chickadees calling to each other, with beaks full of blossoms and grass. They flew in the direction of the birdhouse, perhaps scoping it out.

For the next several weeks I’ve continued to hear chickadee chatter. Tenants at last? Yes, especially when any of the jays or mockingbirds come nearby. Oh boy, do they raise a(n auditory) stink when either human or bird come near the apricot tree, and therefore their domicile.

Chickadee loudly expressing disapproval, with a beak full o’ tasty crunchies.

Two weeks ago I started hearing a high pitched Peepeepeepeeeee. Chickalets! The parents remain quite defensive of their foraging grounds, yelling in that incongruously giggling voice. It sounds like there are at least two youngins. They’re gradually developing that chattery giggle their parents have. (Checheche che che che.)

Just yesterday we saw one of the kids for the first time, poking its head out of the b-house. Like most young birds, its mouth has this amusing “scrowling” expression, made noticeable with a contrasting yellow beak (unlike their parents’, which are black). It’s a sign that they don’t have full plumage, or adult coloring. But they do have enough feathers to make me wonder if they’ll fledge soon. I will upload more photos to the creatures album.

Scrowlie gawking…staring… photo by Simon Fraser.

Maroon PCH iris.

The first one I saw blooming this year in our garden was a Pacific Coast Hybrid (PCH, usually a hybrid with Iris douglasiana), which we got last year from a California Native Plant Society plant sale. No interesting variety or cultivar name for this one, its label had read “Iris PCH: Huge maroon w[ith] black fall[s], buff outline.” The flowers aren’t huge, about the same size as other cultivated PCHs I’ve seen. Still, pretty.

I keep thinking that PCHs usually bloom later, like late Spring or Summer. I’ll keep an eye on the older PCHs in the garden —although those might need dividing and/or fertilizer before they flower again.

Several of the bearded irises are also in bloom. I enjoy how the flower goes from a neatly folded bud to the unfurling state. Sure, the bud might seem unexciting, and the unfolding part a bit chaotic. But for me the colors then often seem more rich and saturated, compared to when it’s completely opened.

Top view of unfurling “Terra Rosa” bearded iris.

More pictures are in the gallery’s iris album.

There are a few more apricot images in the plant album.

The Blenheim apricot has a brief blossoming period. This year I noticed the first buds opening a week ago. Last Saturday, about 80% to 85% were open. Today, I think it’s around 90%.

Like the blossoms, the fruits seem to come all at once. By early June or thereabouts, we’ve got a couple of weeks, maybe a scant month, if we’re lucky, to gather as many of the aromatic, tangy, sweet fuzzy jewels as possible. Many do fall, rotting, food for birds, slugs and insects (not to mention sticky shoe accessories). Yet many happily end up as jam, chutney, compotes, tarts, so many snacks and meals. I’ve yet to experience a better tasting, more versatile apricot. Moorparks have a longer season, and Turkish ones are imported year round. Neither have Blenheim’s personality.

2006 was a bad year: rains occurred for a week or two after the blossoms had opened. I don’t know if the showers deterred the pollinators, or simply washed a away the buds, pollinated or otherwise. The end result was no apricots, not even one to eat out of hand. There were a few at the very top of the tree, but those became a snack for wondering birds. That was the first year we had a zero crop. I hope we get a nice yield this year: No rain in sight for at least a week. There were only one or two bees last Saturday, but I think I see interest growing daily from the Apidae community.

The trip to the Philippines in early 1997 marked my first overseas venture. I used my then-falling apart, now-defunct Ricoh SLR camera. I originally digitized the pictures with a flatbed scanner (thanks, Jed!), but I’d like to redo it sometime, if I can find a scanner that would handle 35mm film negatives. If anyone has pointers on such a tool, do let me know! (I could also clean out the annoying mirror crack that appears in most of the pictures; can crop only so much.)

Philippines (1997)

In late spring of 2002, we took a trip to France, my first time on the European continent. Most of the time was spent in Paris and Provence. We started and ended the trip with brief stops in England.

France and a bit of the United Kingdom (2002)

A request directed at architecture / city history buffs: Name this building! Seriously, neither of us remember its name or location, other than being in Paris. At first I thought it was the Panthéon or Opéra, but I’m not so sure…

Which famous Parisian building is this?

A sound by the shore:
The crack, crack of stone on shell.
Satisfied otters.

Cherry blossoms fall,
But not here. Fat, complacent
seagulls drift on kelp.

Oh, aquarium!
Poor Zed Lopez and nj
Imprisoned at work.

Toxic jellies drift
Lionfish sting fast and fierce
Rays stab hapless prey

Floating moon jellies
Iridescent surface
Gliding smoothly by

Purple, pink and green
Anchovies drop their jaws: Gawp!
Silver blades flashing

Pulsing kelp forest
Langorous waving tendrils
I think I’m seasick

Stilts and curlews and smelts, oh my!

Sing the following to the theme of “The Log Song,” of Ren and Stimpy fame.

What pulses and waves
In dangerous graves
What never lets out a yelp
What hides all the crabs
The shark and sandabs
It’s kelp, kelp, kelp!
It’s kelp, it’s kelp
It’s green, it’s brown, it’s tall
It’s kelp, it’s kelp
The slimiest plant of all.