Last weekend: in its most happiest habitat, predominantly here are Yellow Monkeyflowers within massive rocks at Pinnacles National Park, California. #MonkeyFlowers #PinnaclesNationalPark
Flowers
American Gold Finch digging for sunflower seeds the other day. #AmericanGoldFinch #Birds #Fujifilm
Our native plant garden in the front yard. It looks unmaintained but I swear it is! Nearly everything is flowering including sage, Ceanothus, globe gilia, & manzanita (nearly done flowering). Our Clarkias will be blooming soon. Bees (native & European) and ladybug larva are insane this year.
Here’s yesterday’s Bullock’s Oriole looking right at the camera. #BullocksOriole #Birds
Bullock’s Oriole in our backyard Ceanothus. This is our first backyard Oriole! Wow. #BullocksOriole #Birds #Fujifilm
We planted our vegetable and herb seedlings today. Our home compost has turned out real nice. Took several years to build up enough for use. The worms do most of the work since we can’t get the compost hot enough for long. 🌱
Our young “New Century” Asian Pear tree is in full bloom. Our “Hosui” Asian Pear isn’t mature enough to flower and cross pollinate. Maybe next year!
European Honeybees were all over our manzanitas yesterday. 
First bloom of our a front yard Ceanothus today. So many more to come. So. Many.
A hard freeze likely tonight and tomorrow night in the North Sacramento Valley. Hopefully a light breeze will keep the temps higher. Tonight we did cover up our young trees. Cold days means bees have not been foraging -not great for our nearly full bloom nectarine. Now a freeze
Pepper garden update🌱
Before our trip to Germany, I pruned the first big leaves off a sunflower because they were shading out a pepper. Now the sunflower has a flower near each prune cut. Great for attracting bees to our peppers!
Gorgeous dragonfly in the backyard today. Lucked out with the lighting.
One front yard clump California Fuchsias is blooming. This one is always a month ahead of the others. Not pictured, but our yarrow is flowering too. And the Toyon is still very popular with all kinds of pollinators. Meanwhile our neighbor struggled with a gas powered lawnmower.🌱
Backyard is looking good. Peppers & tomatoes are flowering. The elderberries are still flowering.
Our front yard Toyon (first photo) and Yarrow (2nd photo) are blooming. Just the California buckwheat and the California fuchsias are left to bloom. 🌱
Pineapple guavas have been blooming for a few weeks now. The Mockingbirds love munching on the flower petals.
Wild California Grape flowers.
Here’s a magenta flower from one of our cultivated California Wild Roses.
Avocado flowers! 🌱🌳
Poppies (1st photo) are now in full bloom and clarkias (2nd) are about to do the same. 🌱
Now in bloom in our backyard: cultivated California Wild Roses (pic 1) and Elderberry (2). Still gorging themselves: ladybugs. Everywhere in our front yard. They’re just decimating aphids. Ladybugs particularly love coyote bush (3) and sage.
More Point Reyes National Seashore photos from last Monday: bumble hovering near a flower, elk, and another coyote.
The freeze we got a few weeks ago, down to 28°F, did no clear harm to our plants. Mandarin, Valencia, Meyer lemon, & avocado flowers fine. Our nectarine is setting fruit as shown by this cute little green ovary. And ladybugs are all over our California wild roses 🌱🌳
Front yard is looking really nice. I’ve been trying to rein it in with lots of pruning. I know our annual wildflowers super appreciated the 0.38” of rain last week. 🌱
After weeks of warmer than normal weather, weather swung the other way and we had freezing temps for a few days. Had to cover up the weaker & less freeze tolerant trees. I don’t see damage to my earlier than normal blooming trees yet: all citrus, all stone fruit, one avocado 🌱🤞
Gilias were the first annual flowers to bloom in our yard. Can you believe these are just as or more aggressive at spreading compared to poppies? 🌱
First bloom for our Valencia orange tree. About three weeks early compared to 2020 & 2021. 🌱🌳
Honey bee approaching a nectarine flower. 🌳🌱
Our New Century Asian Pear tree, seeing as it’s already showy as heck, will be glorious in a few years. 🌱🌳
