A little hike. A little tea. Lovely.
post hike cuppa
Month: August 2022
lincoln blvd
Car window sketch
fakery
What is it with doctors’ waiting rooms and fake plants? I don’t know about you, but they actively lower my confidence that I’m in a place that cares for living beings.
“Yeah, we can’t even keep a plant alive, but come right in …. we’re good at pretending.”
numenius phaeopus
I had my first ocean swim of the year today, preceded by litter pickup and followed by bird-sketching. All in all, a lovely morning.
incy wincy
It’s funny, I think of orb weavers as being honking big spiders, but of course they come in all sizes. This one was only 1/8″ / 3mm long. Those are not googly eyes at the front; they are the pedipalps.
After reading that these orb weavers are called ‘trashline’ because of the debris they collect in a straight line in their webs, I went looking in the yard for them, and found a couple more. Noticing leads to learning leads to awe leads to more noticing, a delightful virtuous circle.
lewis macadams
Lewis MacAdams (1944-2020) was an American poet, environmental activist, journalist, and filmmaker whose passion was to re-wild the LA River (which was encased in concrete and fenced in 1938) and make it accessible again to people and wildlife. He co-founded Friends of the Los Angeles River in 1985, an organization which educates, empowers, and mobilizes Angelenos to repair habitat and fight for the policies that will reclaim a healthy river.
Today Urban Sketchers Los Angeles met at Lewis MacAdams Riverfront Park at Glendale Narrows, a nine-mile section of the river that has a natural soft bottom, instead of a concrete floor, allowing native river plants and animals to thrive. It was great to see egrets, herons and ducks enjoying the water. I wasn’t that happy with any of my river sketches, but here’s one of the park itself.
dacelo novaeguineae
So looking forward to hearing the merry merry king of the bush again soon.
naso lituratus
Lipstick tang, also known as barcheek unicornfish, naso tang, orange-spine unicornfish, clown tang, striped unicornfish, black-finned unicornfish, clown surgeonfish, smooth-headed unicornfish, and probably many more monikers. Thank goodness for Latin names, so we can agree on just which life-form we’re talking about. But then, genetic testing has been leading to reclassification of many species in recent times … so even Latin names can change.
narrowleaf milkweed
The native milkweed hosts lots of critters, some beneficial to it, some harmful. The most famous is the monarch butterfly (both larval and adult stages) but it’s a bit late in the year for them now.
summer shoes
My summer uniform: shorts, t-shirt and water sandals. Oh, and a baseball cap.
hashiworks 