More in-house wildlife

This little guy (gal) flew into the house last week. I opened the front door, thinking it might fly out...but it didn't. It flew into the kitchen instead. I was standing in the kitchen looking at it, wondering how to get it outside, when it decided to fly into the dining room. OK - getting closer to a door now. In the dining room, it flew into one of the windows - but not hard enough to hurt it. It landed on a windowsill - and I just happened to have a baseball hat on the table. So, I scooped it up & was able to grab it with my hand. It was a tiny little thing - barely weighed anything at all. I took it outside & it few away.

The next day....guess what flew back into the house? Don't know if it was the same one or not, but it was another Goldfinch. I managed to capture that one pretty quickly & get it outside. No birds inside since then....

Happy Fourth of July!

A beautiful weekend here in Cayucos. It was actually warm enough to sit on the beach yesterday and today :-)  This is the only decent shot of the fireworks I got before it got too dark.

Look at those boys

Going through some older photos and came across this one. This was from this March - and look how handsome Decker looked! The boys were squirrel hunting in mom's backyard, something Decker liked to do - even when he got old & stiff. We don't have anything fun to chase in our yard, so visiting mom's was always a treat. And then there's Riley....springing into action as always!

You wouldn't think this would be comfortable...

Riley has taken to this spot lately. We gave him a rug to lay on in a sunny spot in the yard and you would think he would prefer that but no. He just loves laying in the sun!

I'm going to start a wildlife rescue center....

2:40 AM. I wake up to a noise, not sure what it is. Maybe the blind blowing in the wind? No, it's something near the nightstand. I ignore it, then hear it again. Turn on the light, look down....to see a baby possum sticking it's head out from under my nightstand! Oh lord. I wake Jeff up and tell him to hold onto Riley. I grabbed a pair of gloves, moved the nightstand, and picked the little critter up by the tail. It had carried a snail all the way inside and was in the middle of eating it -which is why its mouth is so messy in the picture.

I carried it down the street a ways and put it in the bushes of a house where there aren't normally people. Too funny! I can't believe, of all the places in the house it could have gone, it actually came into our room! The back door was open a crack and apparently that was all the invite it needed. Last week a turtle, this week a possum, I have no idea what next week holds...

Turtle follow up....

First off, if you haven't read the post before this one, stop now and read it first. After consulting with Richard, we decided that the turtle probably had come from the marsh where Old Creek comes onto the beach. And - because the little guy was *so* active - we were fairly certain he was healthy. Even in Kasey's old crate - he was still trying to get out. I had to rescue him once: he had flipped over onto his back during one escape attempt.

Anyway, we decided he was healthy and he should just go home. I have no idea why he wandered out onto the beach. There is still plenty of fresh water flowing from Old Creek out to sea, so maybe he just was out for a walk, following the creek, who knows.

I put the crate in my car & drove down to the 24th street parking lot. I walked him (carried him, actually) down to the marsh at the creek. I had never been that close to it -and it's much larger than you would think. All kinds of marshy plants, and plenty of frog sounds. I set him down - really wanting to see him scurry off, but he just sat there. I waited for a bit, then decided he would move when ready. I bid him good luck and left.

I'm sure he's frolicking around with his friends again...at least I hope so! I would guess that's the only time I'll ever find a turtle on the beach :)

A guy walks down the beach....

And finds a turtle? I was just finishing a jog and saw this guy, just sitting there, near the water's edge. I think he wandered down from Old Creek, I'm not sure, but I decided to take him home and ask our neighbor, Richard. He works at a wildlife rescue place in Morro Bay.

I've done a bit of research online and I think it's a variety of mud turtle. They live in marshy areas. Right where Old Creek comes onto the beach, there is a marshy area - so I'm thinking that's where he came from.

He started out very quiet & calm...but he's quite active now. He crawled out of the box he was in, so now he's in Kasey's old crate!

Now that's a tiny sand dollar

Had to put the dime in for reference :-)

Spring!

These aren't in our yard, they are on campus all over in at least one spot. I don't know if you call them wild Iris or clumping Iris but they sure are beautiful. In the area where this cluster is there are probably fifteen other clusters, ranging in color form purple to white. Got to enjoy them while I can!

Rain, rain, rain....

I took this photo last Sunday, between rain storms. This is Old Creek, where it comes in at the top of the beach. You can see an Egret hanging out there...looking for something to eat! There was so much water flowing - I don't now the last time I've seen this much coming from the creek. Jeff said the Castle got over four inches last weekend - so we were probably close. I think that after tomorrow, we will be done with the rain for a while, and maybe it will start to seem like Spring after all!

Skate or Ray?

I don't know the difference between the two, and I am too lazy to go to Wikipedia right now :) Saw this on the beach yesterday during a walk. It was pretty good size - maybe about three feet from tip to tail. Regardless of what it is, I haven't actually seen one washed up before. Riley was interested, but I kept him at bay to take this photo.

A little yardwork before the rain

What an odd day. It was 38 this morning - the coldest it's been all winter. But, it was clear blue skies. We got the dogs down for a beach walk, puttered around inside, then headed out to do some yardwork. We got about 3 hours in before the hail came. And then in started raining, quite a bit actually. That's how you know it's time to quit and go back inside :) I wanted to post this picture to show how well our Orange Pincushion plant is doing. It's obviously very happy where we put it, which makes us very happy. The blooms on it are great!

Brr

We had a really cold storm move through last weekend. It dropped a good amount of hail on Saturday. Supposed to be an even colder one moving through this coming weekend...snow level down to 1000 feet!

Peppers

We planted these last May and finally have some ripe "mini" peppers. Yes, we are going to eat them :-)

Oh the indignity

This is what you get for eating a bunch of stuff you aren't supposed to. And you lose two feet of your small intestine to boot.

Sunset on old creek road

Had to stop and take this the other day. This is the view over Whale Rock reservoir looking out to the ocean. Sort of an infinity pool view. Nice :-)

It's been a while, hasn't it?

I haven't posted anything in ages, have I? You can blame Facebook, really. That seems to be where everybody is hanging out so I post there more regularly. But...I know some of you aren't on Facebook, so I've vowed to try and post here more often.

Last week, the biggest rocket to ever launch from the west coast took off from Vandenberg AFB. It was a Delta 4 Heavy. My friend Dustin & I took a little hike on campus to check it out during lunch. I've seen night launches before and even from Cayucos, they look really cool. A daytime launch, even for such a large rocket, just doesn't have the same impact. The squiggly you see on the left is the contrail as the wind starts to blow it around. The rocket itself, well, it just looked like a tiny glowing dot. Still, it was neat to see, and this was the closest I've ever gotten to the Poly "P." Plus, it was so nice out, it was a good excuse for a hike :)