“My thoughts expand and flourish on this most barren hill…” ~Thoreau
In the summertime we get a regular weather phenomenon known as a ‘marine layer’ that appears in the later afternoon. This brings in a layer of moist wet foggy low-clouds that roll in from the sea. By late afternoon the fog has reached inland enough to blot out the sun. While this might seem a disadvantage… actually, when other places are broiling in the summertime, our coastal areas can have very nice and cool temperatures. And in wintertime, we often have much sunnier weather than we do in the summertime…. go figure!
At any rate…. the spread of this fog layer normally extends only to the first row of hills that are a prominent feature of the landscape along much of the California coast. The relatively flat areas between the hills and the sea are known as a ‘Coastal Plain’. The Coastal Plain is heavily influenced by the moderating of the sea. In the winter time, the relatively warm waters keep the coastal plain a bit warmer than the hill areas and inland deserts. In the summertime, the relatively cool waters will keep the coastal plain area from being too hot.
We live inland beyond the coastal range of hills. So while we have clear skies in general, we can often look at the hills along the coast and see the fog backed up on the coastal side.. trying to reach over the hills. When it does, it slides down the low spots (saddles) and drifts down like a stream… slowly the warmer drier inland environment will break up the mist and vaporize it… you can watch as it slowly dissipates and turns into a vapor and drifts off into the air…. vaporizing and disappearing as it drifts….
They say that each Hydrogen and each Nitrogen, and each Oxygen molecule has been around the world a number of times…. been breathed into and out of the lungs of great numbers of people and animals in the last billion or so years….. each of these molecules is something that is, was, and will be. Eternal as matter can be.
The fog creeps in from the sea, behind the grassy knoll
Big Sky
Fog
Panorama from the Rivenrock Cactus Plantation
Fog creeps over the Coastal Hills in California
The importance of this fog layer cannot be discounted. The fog keeps the local dry environment cool enough so plants transpire less, it reduces soil moisture loss, and as a great bonus, the fog often leaves the plants wet with dew by morning. This dew and fog being caught by the plants and dropping to the ground gives the local environment a bit of moisture in the heart of an otherwise dry summer.
The Scorpion is as black as soot,
He dearly loves to bite;
He is a most unpleasant brute
To find in bed at night.
I found this fellow running across my desk in the house today.
Luckily I had my mug to trap him, so I could take him outside.
Scorpion
Paruroctonus silvestrii …. These are the common little scorpions here in California.
They are not terribly poisonous… I’ve been stung by one once….
It feels like a nail has been driven into your skin. It really hurts….
The local site of my strike suffered a necrosis…
in ten days I had a small half pea-sized chunk of skin and meat slough off, leaving a half-healed crater in my finger. But it grew back in OK.
I got stung while digging a hole and not wearing gloves..
always wear your protective gear… if I’d had strong gloves on, I’d not have been stung….
just like when the tarantula or the Black Widow bit me… gloves would have been nice then too! LOL
Scorpion
Click to embiggen,
you can see the hairs on this dude.
A Scorpion, Paruroctonus silvestrii
I let him go in the front yard… which is just a weed-whacked wilderness really.
We have deer and quail wandering daily in the front yard….
We see tarantulas and scorpions and rattlesnakes here often enough….
there’s no need to run this guy a mile away to ‘release’ him….
but when I got close to take his picture… he got shy and curled up, all scared
when I backed the camera off he’d jump up and start to run away.
A Scorpion
Yeah, he’s a pretty nice looking little animal.
He reminds me of a lobster
Our lobsters here in California don’t have big claws….
These guys hold their prey with their claws.. and their stinging tail comes up and over their head… they will push the spike into their prey… it pushes in and holds there… you can see they will often make several little pushes to fully embed the stinger.
When I got stung, it happened very quickly….
I think in my case it just wanted to give me a ‘short, sharp shock’ so I’d know I was crushing it while digging bare-handed in the soil. In the case of a bug that it captures, it has the ability to hold and restrain the prey animal while it very deliberately injects its poison to maximum effect.
Opuntia ‘Nopaleana cochinialiffera’… AKA Nopalea grande
Opuntia ficus-indica var. Anaheim
Opuntia ficus-indica var. Anaheim
Opuntia ficus-indica var. Ojai
Opuntia ficus-indica var. Ojai
Opuntia ficus-indica var.Vandy alba
Opuntia ficus-indica var.Vandy alba
Opuntia ficus indica var. Burbanks Spineless
Opuntia galapagaea
Opuntia ficus-indica, Lynheimeri X Engelmanii
Opuntia ficus-indica, var Lynnwood fruits
Opuntia ficus-indica var Santa Ynez
Opuntia ficus-indica, var Lynnwood
Opuntia microdaysys yellow
Opuntia robusta
Opuntia Subulata
Trichocereus pachanoi
Trichocereus spachianus, four feet tall
Yucca elephantipes
Agave
Agave Americana glauca
Agave Americana variegata
Agave Americana variegata
Succulent
Succulent
Succulent
Succulent
I took a walk about the place this morning, taking photos of some of the cactus growing here.
We don’t actively sell all of the plants in our collection… but we’re always willing to negotiate the purchase of a plant or more if someone wants to explore the possibilities.
Not all states allow cactus into them without a special inspection for which the state of California charges dearly.
Some states allow cactus that has no roots… so for those states we can take cuttings of some of the plants… this may make it easier, or more possible, and cheaper to ship.
Some of our plants, such as the agave and aloe have to be sent with roots, so we wash them, and prepare them for shipment carefully.
You can see that this section of our garden is very wild and rangy. we water a few times a year only, and we don’t worry too much about annual grasses and forbs. I think that a mono-culture is in essence a bad thing… it leads to soil-chemical/nutrient imbalances, easy pest-proliferation and a less diverse plant community that helps shield against these things. So we allow the weeds to grow… we mow and weedwack, the chickens eat much also, and scratch the ground killing many of the weeds. By winter-time the weeds have been trimmed or knocked down to where they are by then only a mulch on the ground. As the winter rains fall and stimulate the new weed seeds to growth, the mulch will help to shield them from the elements… it will then rot into the soil in the next year or so. This continual recycling of nutrients is a good thing for your soil.
Pismo, Hwy 101 and Avila Bay from 4th st looking north
Pismo, Hwy 101 and Avila Bay from 4th st looking north
I’ve been spending a lot of time in Pismo this year.
Usually I just drove through it on the way to the beach….
I never realized just how much of a resort town it is…
And as I explored the back roads and small narrow streets…
I was often reminded of the Iberian Peninsula.
Some songs.. some poetry… some words are so full of images…. close your eyes and listen to beautiful prose… if the scene does not unfold in your mind, and play out in your imagination the words were not properly connected.
Al Stewart made a masterpiece with his ‘The Year of the Cat’ song in the seventies. This one comes across as a movie set in Morocco to me… beautiful…. stuning… awesome… certain to be listened to for many centuries.
On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turned back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
Contemplating a crime
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
Like a watercolour in the rain
Don’t bother asking for explanations
She’ll just tell you that she came
In the year of the cat.
She doesn’t give you time for questions
As she locks up your arm in hers
And you follow ’till your sense of which direction
Completely disappears
By the blue-tiled walls near the market stalls
There’s a hidden door she leads you to
“These days,” she says, “I feel my life
Just like a river running through
The year of the cat”
She looks at you so cooly
And her eyes shine like the moon in the sea
She comes in incense and patchouli
So you take her, to find what’s waiting inside
The year of the cat.
Well morning comes and you’re still with her
And the bus and the tourists are gone
And you’ve thrown away the choice and lost your ticket
So you have to stay on
But the drum-beat strains of the night remain
In the rhythm of the new-born day
You know sometime you’re bound to lose her
But for now you’re going to stay
In the year of the cat.
