A DAY AT THE BAY

Dickie and I made a trip to Bodega Bay again yesterday so that I could put my new camera lens to work. It wasn't the best day for photography, since there was no sunshine, but there were still some good opportunities.

We saw some wild turkeys again on the way out, but they were too far away for me to take any pictures worth saving. My first good chance to take a decent picture was finding a canary bouncing around through the weeds on the roadside at beach. This was the best shot I got:




We spent quite while at Lucas Wharf where some sea lions were waiting eagerly for handouts from the local fishermen. They didn't get anything while we were there, but they did swim back and forth around the dock and give me a chance to take picture or two. Here's one I liked:



There were plenty of seagulls sitting around, too. I got up close and personal with this guy who was sitting on a post overlooking the water:




The pelicans were present in plentiful numbers, too, as they patrolled up and down the waters edge, looking for a meal. Occasionally, they came soaring overhead as this guy did:




All in all, it was a fun morning for this amateur cameraman. I do want to go back when the sun is shining. That's when my new telephoto lens is at its best.

SUMMER WANES

Here we are in August already! Where does the time go? Well, I know, but it goes so fast! There just isn't time enough for everything a guy wants to do, especially when he gets older and slower.

Dickie and I had a fun trip to San Francisco last week. We drove down to Larkspur on Thursday and took the ferry across to the Embarcadero. Since we expected the tall ships to come sailing by that point around eleven A.M., we waited. Nothing happened, so we finally decided to get a bite of lunch in one of the sandwich shops. By the time we came back, the first ship had already sailed by and, since there were only two of the big ones, we had missed half the show. Fortunately for us, the second ship was even better looking than the first (according to other spectators). Here's what it looked like:

As you can see, there were also many smaller vessels trailing along. There was also a Navy oiler bringing up the rear. It was a good show! The ferry ride itself was enjoyable. It was the first time we had taken that particular trip, although we had visited Angel Island by ferry last year. This ride takes you past both San Quentin and Alcatraz. I snapped a couple of photos at those places, too. Here's a close-up at San Quentin:

And here's a shot of Alcatraz with the Golden Gate Bridge on the left:

SONOMA COUNTY FAIR

I spent a few hours at the fair last week, too. It's free to seniors on Tuesdays, so I packed up my telephoto and drove down on Tuesday morning to see what I could find.

I found that there were other seniors taking it all in:

I found this little porker taking a nap:

And these young people enjoying a swing:

Yes, county fairs can be fun!

THE LATEST NEWS

Today is our wedding anniversary! It kind of sneaked up on us. We didn't even realize that we had reached our 52nd anniversary together until we were on our morning walk. Oh, of course, we had both been thinking about it for sometime earlier. It's just that this morning it suddenly dawned on us that the day had arrived. So we went out for breakfast to a cozy little restaurant in Santa Rosa. Here we are fifty-two years ago:




MONTEREY

Last week we traveled with our Daughter Gretchen down to Monterey to visit the Marine Aquarium there. It was especially interesting to watch the feeding frenzy when the fish were fed. Lots of fish and fowl, otters and seals and sea lions, not to mention the huge old turtles. It was a fun trip.

On the way down, we stopped in Salinas to visit the new John Steinbeck Museum. It whetted our appetites for Steinbeck's works. I think Dickie's reading his "Cannery Row" again right now. I know I picked it up for her from the library a few days ago.

We also drove around the famous golf courses in the Monterey/Carmel area - Pebble Beach, Spy Glass, Poppy Hills and Cypress Point. That's where I caught this guy grazing away near one of the greens.


OUR KILLDEER

I promised to let you know how things went with the third killdeer nest on our local school grounds. They hatched! Not sure what happened to the other two, but we saw two of the baby birds again this morning being carefully shepherded by the adult birds as we walked by. This is a picture I took a couple days ago.


That's about it for now. We've been experiencing some fairly warm weather the last few days, although it's cooler again today.

PROBLEMS

It finally happened. After only six months of operation on my relatively new computer, my 160-gigabyte hard drive crashed. For many years this was always somebody else's problem. I knew it could happen, but it never happened to me. I've had hard drives that lasted five, six, seven years, but not this time. This time I got caught. And how! I hadn't backed up my financial data or my photos in the past several months, so it all went up in smoke. I hated to lose some of the pictures and it was no fun recreating the financial data, but I'm finally getting back to normal. Dell Computer was quick to send me a new hard drive and a technician to install it, but I had to re-install all the software myself and there were a few glitches along the way.

I lost a few e-mail addresses, too, so, if you changed your e-mail address in the past six months, I'd appreciate it if you'd send me the new one. It would save me a phone call or the resort to snail-mail in your case.

One good thing that came out of all this was a slimmed down, cleaned up hard drive. I'm a pack rat when it comes to old files, programs and messages. I'm sure I won't ever miss 95% of what I lost in that regard. It's not that I didn't have enough room in this 160-gigabyte monster, but there was a lot of useless clutter that I'm sure I'm better off to be rid of.

In any case, be warned! You could be the next one to run into something like this. Back up your data, if it's important to you. You never know how soon your hard drive will bite the dust. I didn't!


THOSE KILLDEERS

Would you believe, our killdeer parents have returned for a third batch of offspring? Well, we can't actually be sure that these are the same parent birds that made their nest in this spot the first two times this spring, but it sure looks like it. These birds have now chosen the exact same spot three times this year. Earlier it was always so wet and rainy that we felt sorry for the adult birds sitting there protecting the nest. Now we wonder how they can stand the heat and why the eggs don't fry on those rocks when they're not protected.

This morning, when we walked by, this bird was sitting on the nest. It looked suspiciously like she might have something more than eggs to cover, but we kept our distance and hope to discover the truth on another day. Here's mama (or papa, as the case may be) doing her thing:



So keep tuned, we may have further news shortly. If so, I'll get a shot up close and personal with my new telephoto lens, a Canon 70-200 mm L that arrived today! I can't wait to try it out. Till then, here's a shot I took at the Farmer's Market on the town green last Sunday:

ART, WILDLIFE, & SCENERY

Gretchen and I made a trip to San Rafael again last Sunday to see the chalk art that a variety of artists had produced on the streets of that city. Chalk art is short-lived, but it is amazing what good work chalk artists can do, only to have the elements destroy it within days. San Rafael has been sponsoring a chalk art festival every year for the last several years. There are several others around the nation. If you get the chance, I'm sure you would enjoy the visit.

Here are a couple samples from the show in San Rafael:

OUT TO THE COAST AGAIN

Yesterday Dickie and I drove out to Bodega Bay to see what kinds of sights we could find to photograph.

The first thing we saw was a flock of wild turkeys. Here was the leader of the flock. Doesn't he look fierce? I'm not sure if he was doing a mating dance or trying to pick a fight. Whatever, when he dragged his feathers on the asphalt, it made a menacing sound:

The next thing we came upon was a young deer casually grazing in a field not far from the roadside. I got this picture with my Olympus 10x zoom:

Just before we reached the ocean, we came upon this doe and her fawns. They scampered away, but I managed to get this shot:

The ocean was its awesome self, a little angry that day, but beautiful. This is the familiar view from Highway #1 north of Bodega Bay:

At the wharf behind the Tides Restaurant we found this sea lion and some of his friends sporting in the water and waiting patiently, or perhaps not so patiently, for a meal from one of the fishing boats:

Back at home I found this rose in our own front yard. It looked a bit lonesome, so I took its picture:

In the park a block away I came across dozens of butterflies flitting about the flowers. Here's one that allowed me to get up close and personal:

That's it for today.

CHARLIE BROWN

The cartoonist, Charles Schultz, lived and worked in Santa Rosa for much of his adult life. Today the Santa Rosa Airport is named after him, there is also a fine museum dedicated to his memory, and, on the same grounds, an ice skating arena which was one of his gifts to the city.

Recently, in Schultz's honor, some 55 Charlie Brown statues were commissioned and have been placed at various locations around town. Dickie and I have visited 18 of them at this point and hope to see them all eventually. Here are a couple samples:

On an evening this past week several of us Schmidt's got together to celebrate Mary Szecsey's birthday at a restaurant on the Old Courthouse Square in downtown Santa Rosa. That's how we happened to take the picture below since this is one of several statues now located in or near the Old Courthouse Square:

For those who are interested and able to look around, there are maps of the locations available at the Visitors Center in Railroad Square and at the Doghouse in the Courthouse Square. Plans are to bring all 55 of the statues to the Courthouse Square during the last two weeks of September for public viewing.

BIRTHDAYS

Today is my grandson, Evan's, birthday and also the birthday of my brother, Ralph. Evan is fourteen. Ralph is exactly sixty years older. He doesn't really seem that old to me. It seems like only yesterday that he was fourteen. He really has aged well. Here's a picture of him that was taken at Christmas time:

We Schmidt's tend to be partial to the months of May and June for birthdays. I was born in May, too. So were my sons, Carl and Peter. Most of the women in our nuclear family have preferred June. Our daughters, Mary and Heidi, both picked the same day (June 2) a year apart. Dickie waited till the end of the month (June 29). Our youngest daughter, Gretchen, held out until September 23. In any case, we're all having happy birthdays again this year and wish the same for everyone else!


BACK OUT TO THE COUNTY PARK

Dickie and I drove out to the county park again today to take our morning walk around the lake. That makes it a fairly lengthy exercise, but it's always enjoyable. The great blue herons that make their nests in the tops of the redwoods were in fine fettle again today. They can be very noisy. I think it's when the young ones are being fed. The quail were all over the place today, too, calling to one another. I managed to get a picture of this guy sitting on the fence as we walked by:

SURPRISE, SURPRISE

Several years ago a friend of ours gifted Dickie with an amaryllis bulb. As I recall, it was suppose to bloom at Christmas time or on her birthday, but it never did. It has been sitting around in a pot all this time in one place or another. Dickie had about given up on it ever producing, but, lo and behold, this spring it finally came to life - and it's beautiful. Here's what it looks like:

That's it for May. See you next month!

WALKING IN THE COUNTY PARK

Dickie and I went for our morning walk today out in the county park on the west side of Windsor. It's a bit of a trip for us (about six miles out), but it's well worth it. Today we saw several large blue herons (ardea herodias). They make their nests in the large redwoods on the west end of the park where they also make a good deal of noise. One hiker told us that, when he first heard them some years ago, he thought they sounded like a bunch of monkeys and wondered what they were doing in this part of the world.

The great blue heron is much larger than most herons. The adult stands more than three feet tall and has a wing spread of about six feet. I caught this one below as he was fishing at the water's edge today:

We're still keeping tabs on our latest killdeer nest, too. The nest now has four eggs, the usual number in a killdeer nest, and is about two weeks old, so in another two weeks we should have some more baby killdeers running around the local school yard. Here's a picture I took of one of the birds standing next to the nest:

We picked up some trekking poles from a local sports shop recently. They do make it easier for people our age to get up and down the hills. My doctor suggested it would be good exercise for the upper body, too. That can't hurt.

FOLLOWING THE BIRDS

Guess what? We have another new killdeer nest. Actually, it's an old one that's being re-used. Don't know for sure if it's the same birds, but I expect that's probable. In any case, we're seeing it as it develops. We knew this pair was looking around for a likely spot, because for several days we had seen them prowling around the same area. Two days ago now, we finally spotted a couple eggs in the same nest where four eggs had hatched earlier this spring. Today when we went by there were three eggs in the nest and the parent birds were giving us the dickens for standing around. In the pictures below I've set the views of the nest on successive days side by side so that you can see what we saw. This is the same nest on successive days. First with two eggs, then with three.






OUR NEW COUNTY PARK

We made another discovery today, namely, our new county park a couple miles west of town. We had stopped by before but never really checked it out. Today Dickie fixed a lunch and we picnicked there in a grove of young redwoods. It was lovely. There are two large lakes in the park where people can fish if they want, and a path that people can walk along or ride their bikes on around the lakes. We met a couple from Scotland who just happened to be riding by. They said they were staying in Healdsburg for a week and riding their bikes each day out into the countryside. One of them was from Glascow and the other from Edinburg. Here below is a view of one of the lakes:






POPPIES

I'm much enamored of the California poppy. We see them everywhere at this time of year. Here's a picture I took a week or so ago. Somehow the blooms have a waxy look:

THE EGGS HAVE HATCHED!

It finally happened. Yesterday when we walked by, the mama killdeer was sitting all fluffed out on the nest - like she had something to hide - and she did. All four eggs hatched. From a distance of, perhaps, a hundred feet, I saw one little bird running around; although, when we got up close, he was gone - perhaps hidden under his mama's skirts, er, wings. I took the picture below. The male killdeer walked right up and tried to run us off with as mean a look as he could muster, but I stuck around long enough to get this picture:

I didn't have the heart to stick around any longer yesterday, since the parent birds were obviously upset that we were there. We did walk around the block and, when we came back, both parent birds were walking around and all I could make out in the nest was feathers. Again, the birds were upset, so I left without taking a picture - which I now regret. This morning, when we came back by, the nest was empty and the birds were gone. We hunted around a bit and finally spotted two mature killdeers in the field across the busy road. I sneaked around behind a wooden fence and finally got within about 40 or 50 feet of them when I spotted the two babies in the picture below. Don't know if there were any more. The parent birds were lucky to get even two day-old babies across that road without getting them run over by a car or truck anyway. Now, if they can just keep the horses and crows that live in that field away from those babies for a few days, the little ones might even get big enough to fly. It amazes me how quickly these birds mature. Imagine a human baby getting up and running across a busy road after one day of living!

That's the latest in the continuing saga of Dickie and Carl and the killdeer. Keep tuned!

STILL FOLLOWING THE BIRDS

Dickie and I went to see "The Parrots of Telegraph Hill" yesterday. What a great documentary! As Dickie said, you don't really expect to shed tears in a documentary, but I guess we both did. I didn't know about these parrots in San Francisco until I saw the movie. As the movie explains, they're not native to these parts. In fact, exactly how they got here is still a mystery. In any case, I'll be watching for them on my trips to the city from now on.

A bird that is native to our area is the California quail. We see them on our daily walks here in Windsor all the time. The California quail with its curved black crown feather has a little more pizzazz than the quail I knew as a boy in Missouri. Here's a couple we saw sitting in a tree on today's walk:

We're still watching that killdeer nest in the front yard of a neighbor down the road. Nothing has happened yet. The four eggs are still unhatched. Both birds were there when we passed by this morning. One of them buzzed us and the other one ran at us on the ground as if to drive us off. They really don't know their own strength or non-strength, I guess. We think there may be another nest again on the edge of the school parking lot, but we haven't been able to locate anything new there yet. There were three mature birds milling around where we think the nest may be. We'll keep watching.

DUCKS ON THE POND

In baseball, a bases loaded situation is described as having "ducks on the pond". That's not what I'm referring to in the headline above. I'm just being very literal. Dickie and I dropped by Sonoma State University the other day and took a walk around the campus. In a pond behind the commons, we came upon this bedraggled mother duck and her five little ducklings. They were busy chowing down on whatever they could find in their moss-filled water home. They hardly bothered when I walked up to them with my trusty camera. And, wouldn't you know, there was a black sheep/duckling in this family, too:

I caught this one moving away from the pack:

This fellow below lives in a lake in our gated community here in Windsor.  He
almost always takes a good picture:

ANOTHER KILLDEER NEST

Dickie and I discovered another killdeer nest the other morning. As I've mentioned before, they're not easy to spot - even when you know about where they are. Just the day before we spotted the nest which is in the front yard of a home in our neighborhood, I had said to a man who lived across the street from the nest that I knew there was a nest there someplace, because the bird was always there and was doing her broken wing act whenever we walked by. Then, lo and behold, the next day I took a careful look at the place where I first spotted her and there was the nest with four eggs in it not more than five feet from the edge of the sidewalk, in plain view.

Your heart has to go out to these beautiful creatures who don't seem to realize how risky it is to put their nest in plain view in the front yard of somebody's home, where cats and dogs are bound to pass by occasionally. Somehow they seem to manage. The first nest we saw this year hatched four live birds, two of which are still hopping around in the schoolyard when the kids aren't around and in the nearby park when they have to escape any other danger.

I took a picture of the new nest this morning. Here it is:

I'll let you know if the birds make it.


A BIG WEEK FOR SPORTS

You'll have to go a long way to find a better week for sports fans than this present one. The final game of the NCAA basketball tournament will be played this evening between Illinois and North Carolina. Dickie and I are rooting for Illinois. For baseball fans there's the opening of the Major League baseball season this week. I'm hoping my Cardinals will get off to a good start. For golfers there's the Masters Tournament that begins on Thursday down in Augusta, Georgia, where they tell us the dogwoods and azaleas are bursting in bloom. I'm a Tiger Woods fan when it comes to that game.

ANOTHER MUSEUM

Dickie, our daughter Gretchen, and I made a trip to the San Francisco Legion of Honor Museum on the last day of March. We wanted to see the Alfred Bruyas collection of French masterpieces that is presently on display there.

It was a beautiful day and we lucked out on the parking, finding a space right at the entrance on the far side of the relection pool that stands there. Here's what it looked like there:

Before we entered the museum, we toured the holocaust memorial just to the west of the reflection pool. The artist who executed the memorial was George Segal, with whom we were acquainted in East Brunswick, N.J. It's a moving and fitting work, as you will see in this next picture.

As we entered the quadrangle of the museum building which is wonderfully placed high on the hill there overlooking the Pacific Ocean, we passed a statue of Rodin's "The Thinker". I took a shot of that, too.

The museum was featuring Alfred Bruyas' collection of French masterpieces, including many by his close friend and associate, Gustave Courbet. The picture below is called "The Meeting". It was painted by Courbet and shows Bruyas (in the green coat with his servant behind him) talking to Courbet, the larger figure on the right. We were told that this painting caused a falling out between Courbet and Bruyas, who apparently considered his being a smaller figure in the painting a kind of slight.

It was a fun day! We recommend the museum on your next visit to San Francisco.

KILLDEER BABIES

A little over three weeks ago (about March 2) Dickie and I spotted killdeer eggs in a rocky area near the local gradeschool parking lot. If you've been reading my weblog, you may recall that there are some pictures of that scene on March 6 below.

We've been monitoring the nest ever since. Today was the day! All four eggs hatched. One of the babies looked a little weak, but it seems to be surviving. What's amazing is how quickly these baby birds have begun moving around. Three of the four are moving around like gangbusters and they can't have been out of the shell more than a day or so. Here's what they look like. I could only catch two of them with their mother:

It was a glorious day today after all the rain, so Dickie and I drove up to Lake Sonoma, a few miles up Highway 101 from Windsor. We took our lunch and had a picnic on the grounds of the fish hatchery below the dam. Later we drove up to the overlook where I took the picture below:

Like I said, it was a glorious day!

LITTLE DROPS OF WATER

I've been playing around with my digital camera lately, trying to duplicate pictures I've seen in one place or another. With a fast shutter speed, you can catch a drop of water as it bounces "up" from a glass. Here's just such a picture. This happens almost too fast for the human eye to register, but the camera makes the catch:

How about that?

I have a number of parrot pictures that I think are cute. I snapped these two love-birds in a pet shop several moons ago. Don't know what the one is trying to tell the other, something like "I'm your humble servant" or "What's that under your bill?", I guess.

Would you believe that I'm still struggling with the writings of Ben Franklin? I started this book last December and I'm finally coming to the end. Lately I've been reading through his Poor Richard's Almanac material. Here's a tidbit from his wise sayings:

"One good Husband is worth two good Wives; for the scarcer things are the more they're valued".

That's enough for today. Have a good one!