Lonely little bloom, three weeks late, but still such a rich treat!

And it graces our backyard.  In January.  Here it is in blurry splendor because the photographer (ahem!) didn’t get out there until after dark.  Ah well.  That doesn’t reduce its splendor.  There were other surprises in bloom today.  They may make an appearance later.

The real one, not the palm trees one.  Although that does seem just as real.  This is as seen from Coronado, on one of these balmy January days that seem so extraordinary.  In the Midwest, there is snow and below-zero temperatures.  This is a big country.  Lots of variation in climate.  Lots of variation in lots of things.  This is good.

The sky is blue.  And white.  The water is blue.  And white.  And there is no mistaking one for the other.  Two beautiful blues.

In January.  On Coronado.  On a warm sunny day.  Southern California flaunting its finery!

Same day, same tree.  It’s another world unto itself.  Could be a landscape, a moonscape.  Clouds in the lower right?  A peek of water?  I almost cropped that out.  I do crop sometimes, but not often.  I think it’s a good tease.

An entire world in a few inches of bark.  Like the patterns in sand, the patterns in bark never seem boring or trite to me.  This tree is next to our bank of mailboxes, and it had about six places where the bark looked intriguing.  The texture is compelling both visually and to the touch.  (“Tactiley” apparently isn’t a word, although it should be.)

The thin layers are smooth and soft and velvety, quite delicate and almost translucent.  The colors range from pink to golden to tan and off-white, more like skin than like wood.  I want to put a layer into the fiber collage I am constructing, but I would guess it would deteriorate rapidly.  Or not.  And if it does?  That is the way the world is…but the orthodoxy doesn’t like its art to deteriorate or change.  Hm….I will see if I can stitch through it.  Travesty?  I shall do it with respect.

Now you can see our swathes of stones, and the white receding veins of foamy surf.  I think the sand patterns that reveal the black mica under the whitish sand are reflected in these surf patterns.  Either way, I like the linear delicacy.

A very abstract skull, that is.  It was not the usual stone.  The tides have been bringing all sorts of treasures to the beach.  The stones and shells are always beckoning, and it seems they hold a history that will be hidden from us, from us who just stroll and amble and casually look, snapping photos as if that could capture…anything.

The beach seems a place outside of time, yet recording its moments with detail and attention.

Somehow I don’t think there was any benefit for the clam/mussel.  If it was even alive.  So, where to build my house?  Ah, this looks good!  Nice and black and textured…and will make some artist-type person wandering the beach very happy when we’ve all vacated our homes, yes?

So  this is where all those rocks (er, stones) on the beach come from. The rain has exposed them; the beach itself has swaths of them, many yards wide and up to a foot deep.  They turn our walks into meandering attempts to avoid the slippery piles.

What I don’t understand is how they became structurally part of the cliff in the first place.  One would think a cliff is fairly monolithic — but here they are, our stony stones, ready to wash down and pile up on the sand.

La Jolla never disappoints: the white of the waves mimics the clouds; the ambiguous reflections; the brightness of just part of the sky, with that piercing blue, almost aching blue, reflected back into the white foam of the waves; the metallic glint on the shallows and the blurring of the horizon.  Everything I love about light, sand, water, and sky.

Trees in Southern California.  This is a magnolia that sheds its leaves over our brick patio.  They are quite nice leaves, though, thick and rubbery, and don’t tend to blow away, so they are easy to gather up.

This was just before sunset, with blue skies that were much appreciated today.  We needed the rain, but such heavy rain so fast doesn’t do enough for drought relief.  All my outdoor succulents are blooming profusely, just soaking it up.  May we have more — just a bit more moderately, please.

By the sunset.  Rained on and off again all day.  And a beautiful sky.

Another night photo, with clouds and strange lens effects.   I have no idea what produced the light to the right of the lamplight; there was no moon or star visible.  It poured rain on and off again today, with more on its way.  A bit of relief to the drought conditions; and this is a bit of relief to the night’s damp heaviness.  The faint red halo is a surprise.  I wonder if the other light is from the window of a house; but I sure didn’t see it through the camera.  Spooky light; spooky night!

It was windy.  It had been pouring on and off.  Real rain today. Downpours followed by lulls followed by more downpours.  The palm was swaying, shaking, swaying again, dramatic dancing against the black of the sky, the stems a sturdy white anchor that held the forms proudly.  Things are different in the dark.

After dark.  Cell phone photo, as usual.  Flash, not usual.  I like the effects of these night-time photos.  The dark backgrounds are dramatic, and make the colors and the reflections pop.

Abundant berries.  Multiple bunches of them.  And that acrid chartreuse again, such a great contrast.

These are the stems that support that plant.  They are a wonder in themselves.  All dotted and stripey.  Looking at them this closely blurs them and makes them more mysterious.

This plant was a few inches high a year ago.  Now there is at least 18 inches of growth, culminating in those intense red blossoms of yesterday’s post.

I would guess I have given it enough water.  The plants get a lot of water that would have gone down the drain in the days before drought and conservation.  Now leftover water and rinse water and ‘stale’ or warm bottled water, plastic-y water — all go to the plants. This one especially seems to say thank you.

You saw this at night six posts ago; here it is in broad daylight.  (Why ‘broad,’ anyway?  Is there narrow daylight?)

It’s really a gorgeous set of blossoms on my very pot-bound succulent collection.  I really don’t quite dare re-pot them all; they are thriving so well in their crowded little community.  It might be quite a shock to move out of their condo and into a single-plant home.  And they are supposed to get lots of lovely rain this coming week.  We shall see.  Leave them well enough not-alone!

Afternoon of a new day, a new year, a new commitment. Commitment to: look carefully, notice, wonder; comment thoughtfully; share willingly; connect with hope.