MEMORIAL DAY

It's a holiday weekend and parades abound. Dickie and I drove up to Healdsburg last evening to see what was happening there. It was quite an affair. We never did get the head of the parade, but we saw plenty of flags:





There were lots of horses, too, most of them with riders, but some of them pulling a variety of coaches:




I'm not sure who this fellow was supposed to be, but he looked mysterious:




There were plenty of old cars. This one struck my fancy:




Of course, the fire department was out in force. This vehicle may be a bit ancient, but it still cuts a fine figure:




Some of the horses were quite goodlooking. Here's a pair that looked especially powerful:




These mules struck my fancy, too. I think their ears are bigger than mine:




It's always great to view the costumes. These young beauties certainly enhanced the scene:



There were a variety of smaller animals in the parade, too. These dachshunds seemed to enjoy the show:




The military was there as well. This young Navy gal took the cake:




It was a great parade. Hope you saw one, too!




THE SUMMER OF WOODSTOCK

Last year the City of Santa Rosa, home of the late Charles Schultz, the cartoonist, sponsored the erection of Snoopy statues all around the town. This summer the theme is "Woodstock" and 76 statues of that little yellow friend of Snoopy have been placed in selected areas around town. Dickie and I sought out a couple of them the other day. We hope to find the rest as the days and weeks pass. Here's what two of them looked like:







ANOTHER QUILT

Dickie and her quilting buddy, Nadine Heppell, have been working away at a couple of new quilts. Both quilts look alike. Here's what one of them looked like spread out on our livingroom floor. Nadine and Dickie have entered it in a local Santa Rosa quilt show in the month of June. You can see it there:

ON OUR DAILY WALKS

We're still out there on our walking routine as often as we're able. We travel a variety of routes. One of them takes us out to the vineyards where I took the picture of the mustard plants back at the end of March. You can look at it again by scrolling on down this blog. The vineyards look quite different now. Here'e approximately the same scene as back on March 28. As you can see, the vines are leafed out and, though you can't tell it in the picture, the grapes are growing:



Something else we still see on our daily walks along the vineyard are the woodpeckers. I caught these two ignoring the "high voltage" sign the other day:



This young green-eyed damsel in the white dress got in the way of my camera lens the other day, too:



And that's it for May!

MAY DAYS

I think I have the May Days' malaise, if there is such a thing. I know I should be making an entry in this blog of mine, but I can't seem to find anything worth saying. Sometimes, under those circumstances, it's better just not to say anything!

However, throwing caution to the winds, I'll make a stab at another blog today.

Dickie and I planted some tomatoes in a barrel in the backyard about two weeks ago now. They're coming along fine. Here's what they look like today:




Just for the fun of it, I'll put up a picture here with each new blog so you can see what green thumbs we have (or not!). They're supposed to bear fruit in about 62 days. Since we planted them on April 28, that means we could have tomatoes by June 28. We'll see!

Our climbing roses took a hit this spring. I think the frost got to them just as they were beginning to leaf out. They look like they're recovering now. The roses bloomed, as you can see in the background of the tomato picture above, but there were hardly any leaves at first. They're just beginning to leaf out again at this point.

We do have a pretty good stand of poppies in the back yard now from some seeds Dickie strewed a year or two ago. Poppies will grow anywhere in this part of the world. They multiply quickly, too. I think, if we let them, they'll take over the backyard. Here's what ours look like today:





THE MOON

I took some pictures of the moon in the early evening the other day. I like to see what kind of a picture I can get with my longest lens. This was in broad daylight. The moon is not quite full yet, but it's getting there (this coming Saturday). Here's what it looked like yesterday (May 9) at about 7:10 P.M.:





DWARF FROGS

Until recently, I had never seen a drawf frog, and I still don't know anything about them, but I did get some pictures of one last Sunday out at the ocean side. This one was hopping around on the deck of a house we were visiting in Dillon Beach. My daughter, Mary, furnished the fingers:




Speaking of dwarves, the hummingbirds that usually visit our backyard have not showed up recently. We're not sure what happened. The hummingbirds are still around. We know that. This fellow was sitting in the top of a tree we passed on our morning walk the other day:




JUST US

Guess that's enough for today. We're enjoying the beautiful spring weather. It's great to sit outside and bask in the sunshine. Here's us doing just that:

HERE AND THERE

Most of us Schmidt's got together on Easter Sunday for brunch at Gretchen's house in Santa Rosa. In the afternoon some of us took a short walk over to the Luther Burbank House. On the way I snapped this picture of some tulips in the front yard of one of the neighbors. They're a colorful lot, don't you think?:

We didn't go into the Burbank house on this occasion, but my daughter, Mary, and I did walk through the yard. There were some flowers blooming, but it wasn't spectacular yet this early in the season. I did get Mary to pose in front of this massive stand of cactus just outside the House, a place you might want to visit, if you ever come to Santa Rosa:

THE de YOUNG MUSEUM

Last Thursday Dickie and I went with Mary and Christopher and Gretchen to visit the controversial and newly re-opened de Young Museum in San Francisco. The Museum has just been rebuilt. The work on the grounds is still in progress. Some people like what they see in the new building. Others have reservations. I personally liked it. Sorry, I didn't get a shot of the whole building. There's a tower on the northeast corner of the new building which gives you a great view of the surrounding area there in the Praesidio. This is a view looking to the northeast. If you look closely, you can see the top of the Golden Gate Bridge just beyond the wooded hill:

The sculpture below stands just outside the northwest corner of the building. It appeared to be made of glass, although from this angle and in this light, you would think it had metal in it:

I suppose we spent most of our time looking at the paintings in the American section. I took quite a few pictures, but without a flash and without a tripod, not too many of them turned out well. Here's one Dickie liked by Robert Gwathmey (1903-1988). It's called "Cotton Picker":

Here's another by an artist whose name I can't recall, but I don't think you'll have any trouble figuring out what the name of the painting is:


That's about it for today. It's looking like rain again here in Windsor, although we have had more sunshine lately. I took this picture on our morning walk yesterday. I like roses:

See you again soon.

STILL WET

We can't seem to get away from the rain and wetness this year. It poured again last night and is still cloudy this afternoon, although we finally have a little bit of sunshine again.

All the rain frequently kept Dickie and me from our usual morning walks over the past couple weeks. That resulted in our not being able to keep good tabs on the killdeer nest on the local school grounds that I've been mentioning in these blogs.

After missing a day or two, we went by a couple days ago and the eggs were gone. Now we don't know for sure if they hatched or were destroyed. An extra problem with keeping tabs on our favorite birds was the fact that Dickie injured her knee on one of our morning walks the other day, so now, at least for a while, she can't go out with me. I looked around this morning again and found the adult birds, but no babies. I had the feeling there might be a chick or two around because one of the adult birds did a "hurt-wing" act while I was looking around. Here's what it looked like:

That seemed to indicate the presence of a baby bird, but I stood around and took pictures for quite a long time and no young birds showed up, so I have my doubts about there being any. That doubt was reinforced by the fact, when I left the area for a time and returned sometime later, the adult birds had moved to another area. When I approached them this time, they both flew off in different directions. I don't think they'd have done that if a baby bird was near. In any case, we'll keep our eyes open.

There's another killdeer hatching her eggs on the front property of a house a block or two down the street. I took this picture this morning, too:

I can't say for sure if there were eggs or birds under her body. I didn't want to disturb her. She had four eggs the last time I saw the empty nest a couple weeks ago. Her mate was doing a fake injury act today just across the street, so they may have babies already. I'll be checking this nest out, weather permitting, as the days go by. I think it was about a week later than the other nest getting started. I'll let you know what happens.

By the way, Dickie's knee problem hasn't kept her from working away on her latest quilt. It's looking good. She has the blocks hanging on a sheet in our front room. Here's what they look like:

That's it for today!

AH! SPRING!

Here we are again, a whole week into spring. It's still raining here in Northern California, today being no exception from the general rule of the last few weeks. I guess that one of these days we're going to wake up and find we're in the middle of summer, or, at least, warmer weather. We can only hope.

I slept late this morning since I wasn't feeling quite up to par. The extra rest seems to have cured me. Now I'm ready to go back out there with my camera when the weather clears.

Yesterday, when Dickie and I awoke, it looked like we were going to have a beautiful day, so I suggested we head for Bodega Bay and see if we could find some good photo opportunities. It turned out that the day wasn't all that great for picture-taking, being rather cloudy and overcast out at the beach, but I did get a shot or two that turned out fairly well despite the weather. As we were driving past a farm house near the coast, I spotted a young deer grazing in the front yard. This was the result:




As luck would have it, he wasn't alone. His mom and one of his siblings also turned up. Here he is with mom scampering away:



And here are all three about to disappear down the road and into the woods:


All I could find when we got to the Bay were the usual dozens of seagulls. Some were waiting for their dinner at the wharf and soaring back and forth overhead. Here's one that came fairly close:



And here's another that sat on a post not more than six or seven feet away from me, hoping for a handout:



On the way home, we noticed some egrets fishing in a flooded area just outside of Sebastopol. I stopped to take a picture and then discovered that, a little farther across the water, there was a great blue heron also fishing. I couldn't get close enough for a really good picture. This is a crop from a larger scene:




A few days ago on one of our morning walks, we came upon a pair of mallards swimming in a mud puddle at the edge of our local vineyard. This shy and beautiful lady posed for me:




The vineyard itself is a beautiful scene at the moment. The vines have not yet begun to leaf out, but the mustard plants between the rows are in full bloom. I managed to win a "Picture of the Day" at Azcolt (www.azcolt.com) the other week with a picture like this:




So much for now. See you soon.

MARCH RECORDS

As I said a few days back, our killdeers have returned to the local school grounds and, once again, are nesting on the rocks in front of the parking lot. As of today, there are three eggs in the nest. Since these birds usually have four eggs, I suspect we'll see another egg in a day or two. Here's what the nest looked like today:



Update:

I went back again today (March 9) and, sure enough, there were four eggs; so now the nest looks like this:

Notice that one of the earlier and larger eggs has been moved up (in the picture) and a smaller, not quite so speckled, egg is now nestled among the others.

It's really difficult to distinguish the killdeer eggs from the rocks around them. I've made it easier for you by cropping these shots and focussing on the eggs. As you walk by, you can look right at the nest and not see it, as I'm sure most passers by do. The nesting bird will get up and do its best to draw people away from the nest, often affecting a broken wing as it slowly moves away. Here's what that looks like in a shot I took last year:



OUR LOCAL HAWK

Every once in a while on our morning walks, we spot a hawk or two. This one flew past us a couple days ago. The image is a bit fuzzy since the hawk was moving fast and I'm not too steady with my telephoto lens, but this was one of the closest shots I've ever been able to get of him:



A FRIENDLY DUCK

I had no trouble getting close to this fellow at a local winery the other week. He was used to being fed by visitors and walked right up, as if to say, "Whatcha got for me?". Later, he stood in the water and waited for another handout as I snapped this picture:



THE INDIA TRIP

As I mentioned in my last blog, our daughter, Mary, and her husband, Christopher, just spent some time in India ( I guess they were checking things out for President Bush). Mary took my Olympus digital with her and snapped a few shots along the way. Here they are on the beach together at the Ideal Resort on the southeast coast of India:



I can't post all the pictures Mary took, but here's one of the much-revered elephant. This one was trained to bless visitors by tapping them with his trunk:



As you probably know, Ganesha is the elephant-deity of the Hindus. The son of Shiva and Parvati, he has an elephantine face with a curved trunk and large ears and a huge pot-bellied body of a human being. Ganesha is known as the Lord of success and destroyer of evils and obstacles. Here's a shot of him (center) that Mary got at a temple she visited:



So much for today. Have a good month, wherever you may be!

FEBRUARY NEWS

Dickie and I spent the better part of last week out at Mary & Christopher's Occidental country abode while they were off vacationing in India. If all goes according to plan, they'll be back today. I can't wait to see their pictures. Mary tells us she got some nice ones with my Olympus digital camera.

The weather didn't cooperate all that much. It was chilly last week. We did have some sunshine and, one evening, some very pretty skies. I took this panoramic picture of the scenery to the north of Mary & Christopher's house. It's actually three pictures stitched together:





THE BIG RACE

Yesterday, February 20, the first stage of the Tour of California Bicycle Race came through our area. Dickie and I sat out on Occidental Road for three hours, waiting for the bikers to pass by. They finally arrived at about 2:00 P.M. and I took this picture of the two who were leading at the time (Jean Marc Marino, a Frenchman, and Stewart Jackson, a Californian from Los Gatos):



The winner of the Prologue on February 19 in San Francisco was Levi Leipheimer, a biker from Santa Rosa, who was leading the peloton (a french word for "small group") as they breezed down Occidental Road. That's him in the foreground in this next shot:



According to the news, there were some 35,000 wildly enthusiastic biker fans waiting for the finish in downtown Santa Rosa, where Juan Jose Haedo of Argentina crossed the finish line first. If they do it again next year, I'd like to be there! The whole California Tour is about 600 miles long and will end in Stage 7 at Thousand Oaks in southern California.



SPRING IS SPRINGING!

The countryside is green now here in northern California. The accacia trees are blooming, as are the jonquils. This one is at the entrance to our house:



And, guess what, the killdeer have returned to the rocky spaces in front of our local grade school. They've been nosing around for the last week or so. No nest or eggs yet, but we're fairly certain it won't be long now. Here's shot I took this morning on our regular morning walk:



The last stop on the far end of our walk is at a small pasture where we get to visit with this rather intimidating old donkey who likes for me to feed him grass, but acts like he might like to nip off my fingers if I'm not careful:



When we walk in the other direction from our house, we usually stroll down a road where some woodpeckers hang out. I took this guy's picture the other morning:



That's it for today!