I was told that the reason my social security application has not been processed, ten weeks after lodging it, is because of “staffing cutbacks”.
guvmnt office
Category: Uncategorized
Quercus agrifolia
The male oak flowers are dangling hopefully, but, as with the walnut flowers I sketched last week, I’m not yet seeing any females following behind. Will keep looking!
Astur cooperii
I know it’s got a striped tail, dark back, yellow legs, and yellow on the top of its bill. But quite a few hawks have these features. (Sketch done from a photo by Ashok Khosla.)
under oak
Fun outing with the Channel Islands Nature Journalers. It was my first time seeing an elfin saddle (Helvella dryophila)! What an interesting-looking fungus.
mud wasps
We had a dinner disaster last night, when the old stove’s exhaust vent suddenly rained a flood of debris down into the skillet of beans and asparagus. Dinner went to the compost, and I remained grumpy for a while. But today I took the cover off the vent and banged the pipe to try to completely clear it. A lot of what emerged was mud wasp nests.
Mud daubers fill their nests with spiders to feed their larvae. Unlike some wasp species that fill a nest cell with one or two large spiders, mud daubers pack up to two dozen smaller spiders into each cell.
To capture a spider, the wasp grabs it and delivers a sting. The venom from the sting doesn’t kill the spider, but it paralyzes and preserves it, allowing it to be transported and stored in the nest cell for later consumption by the larvae. The mud dauber typically lays its egg on the prey before sealing the nest cell with a mud cap. Afterward, the wasp moves on to construct another cell or nest. The young larvae survive the winter inside the nest.
I’ve now sealed up the vent with foil (the exhaust fan is non-operational) so hopefully there’ll be no more dinner mishaps from that direction.
Juglans californica
We hiked in the Boney Mountain State Wilderness, following Sycamore Creek to the waterfall. We searched for newts, to no avail. But it was fun seeing signs of spring, including lots of male flowers on the native walnut trees. No female flowers yet — will be looking out for them!
spring has sprung
We’ve been living in the Portal for a week now. There’s been a lot of shuffling of furniture, shoveling of oak leaves, visits to the hardware store, making of lists, and wrangling with utilities—all while dealing with federal/state/county/city agencies on the Malibu front, and keeping our own bodies and minds healthy and sane. Right now I’m sitting at my new desk/sewing table, looking at the Pleiospilos nelii my dear friend Annette bought for me, knowing it would be a link between my old life and my current one.
Friends near and far have stepped up and given generously to us, and we are so incredibly grateful. Thank you 🙏🏻 thank you 🙏🏻 to you all. We are happy to have a roof and walls and (lovely hardwood) floors, and flushing toilets, and comfy beds. Still working on the cooking setup, but we’ll get there.
Today I went into Ojai to the weekly farmer’s markets, and spent more than I usually do on vegetables and bread, but was glad to do so. I feel I can make a new home in this community. I feel welcomed and ready for this new season. Spring: bring it on. Let’s do this.
Selasphorus sasin
in the wild
dead oak in our yard
#iseefaces
hashiworks 