The roses in our front yard get lots of morning sun and do very well, as you can see.  I love the blush color, which I guess is all the rage in clothes and decorating.  I think it’s better left to mother nature, but that’s neither here nor there.  What a funny expression!  It is right here, isn’t it?!  I might even cut some and bring them in, so they’ll be even closer than right here.

The view from our balcony table at dinner.  Well, one of the views.  The other was of Highway 1, cars, motorcycles, a bit of beach, and the glorious water, with one lone intrepid surfer.  But I thought the angles and the plumage here were rather fun!

“Cloudy
The sky is gray and white and cloudy,
Sometimes I think it’s hanging down on me”

Thank you, Simon and Garfunkel.  Actually not that cloudy for me emotionally right now because I have been so busy.  Busy is good; well, it can be.   Busy socially, getting around locally, thinking about lots of thinks.  Lots of thinks, that’s it.  Cloudy, some of them, but emerging.  Emergent, perhaps?

Blue, gray, white, greenish, mottled, clear, foamy, deep, serene, active.  Sigh?

At the campgrounds, with a peek of ocean.  It is still astounding to see these flowers on 6-foot stems, masses and masses of them.  Must have been common before the drought, but we weren’t here then.  Terrific to be enjoying them now!

To coffee.  To summer.

Yellow, red, yellow, red.

And the sun glowing through.

From the train.  We took the Coaster down to San Diego and spent the day in the city.  Ate at a favorite Italian deli (salad, sandwich, eclair, affogato!)  The train ride was one of the prettiest ones we’ve had.  We also struck up a conversation with two other passengers and discovered that we all went to the same musical performance in Kansas City — presented by my college friend’s son’s band.  In about 2009, we thought.  “Thursday” at the Beaumont, with Geoff Rickly.   There are no strangers…

At my fiber meeting this afternoon.  My fellow fiber artists are great cooks!  These were filled with lentils, finely diced tomato, and feta. Very yum.  And so pretty, tied with chives!

OK, I’ll stop now.  This land is going to be developed over the next few years, into housing, hotel, and retail.  Sad?  I hope they keep some open space.  This is our fourth spring here and it’s not looked like this before.

They smelled good, too, a bit like just-mown hay.

… is a little bit of rain in late winter.

I’ve been a bit under the weather lately (no biggie) but got out today and the flowers moved me to tears.  The bird posed for me and that’s my/your/our ocean out there.  It doesn’t get much better.  Perhaps Billions and Billions and Billions of yellow and white daisies?!  And I will post another one tomorrow.   I wish I could show you just how many flowers there are and the huge expanses of glory!

When you leave and come back, you see things differently.  We stopped at a rest area on the way home today, and I took several shots looking up at some large eucalyptus; this one was clearly the best.  The symmetry?  The balance of the negative spaces?  The combination/contrast of bare branches and puffs of foliage?  I don’t know.   But I guess I don’t have to.  That’s comforting.

Now that’s one happy plant.  My neighbor’s, down the street.  I’ll have to go check on the progress of its blooms.  It looks like it should be edible, related to broccoli or something similar.  It reached out over the driveway and stopped me in my tracks.  Super-plant!!

Kind of being itself in an over-the-top way.  I think a pro would say it’s overexposed and the highlights should be toned down, but I think that’s all part of its power.  (Photographer sheepishly admits she can’t even remember exactly where this is, so no way to go back and redo the shot!) (Oh, wait, I do remember, but it’s far, far away…)

But isn’t it just luscious and perky?

Flowers on the path to the beach.  Stems more than six feet tall. Everywhere you look!  It’s not been like this before at any time during the whole three-plus years we have lived here.  Woo-hoo, let’s celebrate the rain and the results of the rain!

Actually, it has been quite a while since the rain, so these plants must store water in their roots or reach deep  for moisture that was finally plentiful enough to filter down.  Nice job!