It’s going to be a lot cooler in a few days, and we’re all going to be pleased.
maybe tomorrow
Month: September 2024
more summer sewing
It’s still hot, and I’m still sewing summer clothes. The bottom left garment is the latest effort, but I’m not sure how much wear it’ll get as the fabric doesn’t feel great against my skin. Now that I’ve tweaked the pattern to fit me, I’ll make it again in a different fabric.
Psidium guajava
I’ve never grown common guavas—this tree is in my MIL’s yard—so I don’t know if this growth pattern is normal. I don’t see it on any of the images that a quick search pulls up. Part of the flower (a sepal?) persists as the fruit grows, forming a tough ”hood”. Looking at variously-sized fruits on the tree, it seems that this hood stays the same size as the fruit enlarges. Presumably it eventually falls off. What is the purpose of this phenomenon? Is it unique to this tree?
Woolsey tribute?
We have a fairly new, almost empty, shopping centre in town (like we needed another one!). I had a bit of a wander through, and noticed this public art out front. It’s comprised of columns of burnt burls of wood. Between some of the lumps are ceramic collars stamped with words like ‘fire’, ‘ash’ and ‘transform’. There’s no plaque, but I’m guessing it’s meant as a reminder of the Woolsey Fire which wreaked such devastation on our area nearly six years ago.
Week 35
There aren’t many wildflowers out at this time of year, but hardy tarweed colours the slopes.
flower finches
From the kitchen window, I can see the huge creeping rosemary bush on the hill above the house. While I sip my morning tea, I watch flocks of finches swoop in to eat the flowers for breakfast.
tomorrow’s salad
fun times in the garden
Option 4: remove the plants to make space for something that rodents don’t like to eat. Kale?
Traveling home
After leaving the Field Campus, I spent the night with friends in Sacramento, before making the long drive back home. I’d never seen a yellow-billed magpie before. What a gorgeous bird!
Pyrola picta
On my last morning at the retreat, I sat beside another unfamiliar plant to nature journal. We had no cell reception there, so no checking iNaturalist, but I’ve since ID’d it as white-veined wintergreen or whitevein shinleaf, Pyrola picta. This perennial herb in the heath family is native to western North America from southwestern Canada to the southwestern United States.
It is not a source of wintergreen oil; that comes from plants in the Gaultheria genus.
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