Egrets...I've Had a Few

Good morning, my friends. Our time here in Escondido is nearly at an end. We'll be here today and tomorrow, but then we'll move along to Boulder City, Nevada. We're still enjoying our time here, and we have yet to see everything on our list of things to do. Anything we don't do this trip will go on the list for next year.

My yesterday started with my slow-stitching. I've filled the hoop on this section now.

I decided to try the longer and larger Sashiko needle included with my kit. In the image below, the embroidery needle I usually use is shown on the right. This is the large-eyed needle I use for Perle cotton floss. The one on the left is the Sashiko needle included with my kit. The eye appears slightly larger, and the needle itself has a thicker shift. 

I prefer a shorter needle, but the larger Sashiko needle pulled the floss through the fabric easier and with less drag. I think that will help keep the thread from fraying as I stitch.

So now, I've moved the hoop to the right to stitch the right side of the turtle. That's where I'll start this morning.

We were meeting up with friends for a late lunch, but I had plenty of time to get out for a walk. The lake nearest us was the picture of tranquility. 

On the far side, I spotted our friend the Great Egret. When I'm photographing birds, I zoom in and shoot from a distance. I worry I'll scare them away if I get too close. And so he stood still for this next photo.

As I walked on and got a little closer, I took another shot.

And geez...I needn't have worried about scaring him because at that point he flew across the lake to within about 20 feet of me.

Okay, and so then I walked on. I met up again with these two geese looking for a handout.

Helllllooooooo...remember us? Got any snacks? Tostitos? Funions? Potato chips?

I get the feeling they're fond of Frito-Lay products. One might think they'd prefer Granny Goose potato chips. Are Granny Goose potato chips still being made? (Please tell me you're old enough to remember Granny Goose.)

I spotted a few new blooming things along the way. My phone tells me this next image is viburnum.

So, I walked all the way around the lake, and who did I meet up with yet again on the far side of the lake? It's our friend the Great Egret.

I'm starting to think he's just a camera ham, although it looks as if he has a bead on something here.

Across the lake there was a double-breasted cormorant. He kept flapping his wings and shaking off the water.

Also, these mallards. It appears each of the males has attracted a female. Do you suppose they’re double-dating?

My phone tells me this is Ceanothus cuneatus. (That's a mouthful.)

When I got back from my walk, I noticed Sadie had found a spot of sunshine to sleep in. 

We were getting ready to meet up with our Gang of Ten at a local BBQ restaurant. I've known most of these folks longer than anyone else in the world. I've known some of them longer than I've known Mike. 

Except for the gentleman second from the left (David) and the one fourth from the left (Jim), all of the people pictured here graduated from Vista High School. And except for the three men in the middle on the left, we were all in the high school band. Rick (first on the left) played trumpet. Tom (fifth on the left) played saxophone. All of us girls, except for Debi (fourth from the right) played clarinet. Debi played flute. I played alto clarinet and I played piano in the jazz band. (I was a terrible jazz pianist.)

So that was fun. We had a nice lunch, and it was good seeing everybody. And since our time here is growing short, we were saying good-bye until next year to some of these folks. Today we're meeting up with Jim and Debi again for wine and lunch. After that...we'll be spending most of our time putting things away and getting ready to head out. 

I’m hoping to get in a little sewing time tomorrow, but that might just be wishful thinking. Probably I won't get any more sewing done until we get to Boulder City. For now, I'll just focus on my slow-stitching. It's doubtful I can finish off the turtle before we go again, but sometimes I surprise myself. 

So that's all I have for you today. Let's all get on with our days, shall we? I hope y'all are staying warm in this cold winter weather. We can't complain here in Southern California. Nevada should be pretty much the same. We'll be doing more hiking and sight-seeing when we get there, and there's a quilt shop in nearby Henderson that I want to visit. There's still much to do on this trip, so don't unpack just yet.

San Diego Botanic Garden

Good morning, my friends. The clouds cleared off into a beautiful and warm day yesterday. It was a good day for an outing to the San Diego Botanic Garden. We've visited the garden before, but you'll see different things at different times of the year. Before we left, I made the correction to Block 12 from the Raggedy project. I like this better:

As a reminder, this was how it looked before:

Okay, and then we headed out to see the garden. We took a lovely road, mostly avoiding freeways, which took us through some unfamiliar parts of San Marcos and Carlsbad. Topping a rise, the Pacific Ocean came into view.

About ten minutes later, we arrived at the garden.

Of course, I took too many pictures. I'm going to post them essentially in the order I took them. Where there was a placard identifying them, I've posted it before the image it refers to. Where I don't know the names, there will be no placard. Maybe my phone can help me out. So, if I have something to add, I'll pipe up. Otherwise, I'll just let you look.

After paying our admission, the first structure we came to was an enormous greenhouse that housed tropical plants. When my family lived in Hawaii, we had a huge hedge of this next one. These are red ti leaves.

These next two images were huge elephant-ear sized leaves.

These were about the same size, but with the ruffly edges.

And I'm going to estimate this next leaf was about three feet from top to bottom and around 18 inches across. They were HUGE!

This is an anthurium, sometimes known as "little boy flowers."

Okay, so here's the first placard. The associated flower follows.

These next ones are growing here in the RV park. It's a kind of succulent.

This is Jasmine. Very fragrant.

This sign had some interesting information about rainfall in this area.

My phone tells me this is lantana.

There were huge hibiscus flowers in several different colors.

This looks like an organ pipe cactus, but it's a little different. It's getting ready to bloom. Those buds you see are about the size of grapes.

Bird of Paradise.

These were also seen in yellow colors, and those were known as Golden Bird of Paradise. I took a picture of the yellow ones, but it didn't turn out. Here’s one I found in the public domain:

(Image credit: "Brilliant Yellow Bird of Paradise" by fossiled is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.)

Hard to say what this is...it hasn't yet opened, and so this is just a flower bud.

This is what we've always called bottle brush. 

When we lived in Hawaii, there was a plant that looked similar. We always called it Pele's Tears, and there was an associated legend. (Hawaii has lots of legends.) I've looked for this when I've seen bottle brush before, but AI finally gave me some information about it. Here's what AI tells me:

The "Pele's tears" plant refers to the ʻōhiʻa lehua (Metrosideros polymorpha), a native Hawaiian tree whose red, pom-pom-like blossoms are associated with a romantic legend of the volcano goddess Pele. According to folklore, picking the flower separates the lovers Lehua and ʻŌhiʻa, causing the sky to weep rain. 

Here's a picture, and it's a different plant, but you can see how my memories as an 8-year-old girl might have caused me to confuse it with the Bottle Brush.

Okay, and so back in California, here are some more flowers we saw. My phone tells me this is Tufted arctotis.

This next one was an interesting tree. It was hugely tall.

This is the bark.

Looking up...

This lizard ran across the trail in front of me. I said, "Oh...a lizard!" And then it ran right up to my feet and looked up at me, practically demanding that I take its picture. My phone tells me this is a Western fence lizard.

This is some sort of blossom on a variety of aloe plant. This bud was large...like the size of a (trying to think of a good example) pineapple.

Sorry about the glare on this next one. The tree that follows is Laurel Bay. It's the tree from which the bay leaves you use in cooking come from.

My phone tells me this is Aeonium arboreum...a type of succulent.

This next tree was interesting. I've always known cork came from a tree, but I've never seen the actual tree.

Here's what it looks like. This was the smaller of two. Behind me was one nearly twice the size. We pressed the bark with our fingers, and it was, indeed, spongy-feeling.

More hibiscus.

This is phlox.

Here, I've put the plant before the placard. I wanted to use the placard for scale. This was around 18 inches across.

Here's the associated placard.

Catmint! We grow this at home, and since it relates to cats, I needed a picture. 

This next one was another interesting and very large tree.

Its bark looks like concrete.

Look at this root structure.

I like the name of this next one.

It's flower was a huge trumpet-shape, possibly about five inches deep.

We walked out on this boardwalk to the overlook.

From there, we could see the Pacific Ocean. That big tree on the right is a Torrey Pine.

These were about the size of a ping pong ball.

A red hibiscus.

This next flower was of a size that would fit in the palm of your hand.

And that was the end of our visit. As we headed back to our truck in the parking lot, we noted that someone appeared to have been blasted out of the shoes and socks here. These would have fit a child of about 4 or 5.

And I picked up a refrigerator magnet from the gift shop. I'm sorry it doesn't have the name of the place on it, but I'll be able to remember where it came from.

We had some errands to run after we left the garden. We got some lunch at a nearby In ‘n Out. We only have, I think, two of those in Oregon. They’re both too far away for us to ever get a burger there. I read recently they’re opening a third one somewhere, but it was still too far away. So, when in California, In ‘n Out usually gets at least one visit from us.

After that we needed to get a new scratching post for the kitties. They pretty well destroyed the one they had. We found exactly what we were looking for at Petco. And then…you guessed it…groceries. And then home. It was after 4:00 p.m. by then, and we were tired pups. 

Today, we’ll have a late lunch of BBQ with our gang of eight. We’ll have two extras, making us a gang of ten. A friend of the gang (also a former high school band member) is here from Colorado, and so she and her husband will join us. It’s practically a band reunion.

And that’s all I have to tell you today. Slow-stitching comes next. Have a good day, Everybody. I’m hoping y’all have power to keep warm in this cold weather.