Canal Trail Ride

This bike ride is all trail (with a few of cross streets) and takes about 45 minutes to do a loop. Easy! And pretty too. I stopped along the way to take some photos. I left the house at noon on our first very hot day of the season—a bad time to ride and to take photos. Without a lot of fuss, here they are.

These poppies are in great abundance along the trail, along with some purple flowers. I can't get poppies to grow in my hard, and there they are, seemingly by magic. Maybe I'll try planting seeds again next year—I'm inspired.

At this point—a glimpse of Mt. Diablo in the distance.

These homeowners painted a little mural on their shed, facing the trail behind their house.

I let these sleeping ducks lie (in the shade—it was in the 80s today).

More flowers. I think these are a type of marigold. A nice municipal golf course is up ahead.

My trusty steed.

The golf course. My son took lessons here this year. He loves golf—who knew? Beyond this is an orchard, one of very few that exist around here. There used to be hundreds of acres of orchards in Contra Costa County. My childhood home was surrounded by them (since razed and developed for housing).

Lime Ridge. There's hiking trails here.

You have to go in this spooky tunnel under freeway-like Ygnacio Valley Road. It's much better than attempting to cross the road, so thank you tunnel-providers.

You pop out, like a gopher, on the other side of the ridge.

Then you ride past a billion mustard plants, down the hill and loop back to civilization.

Riding along the Canal Trail

It's green.

Before the storm

It's been raining literally all day so I'm not sure how many blossoms will still be around after this storm blows over. This is from last week.

Au Revoir Baby Bird

The mourning doves nesting in our flowers left their chick on its own two nights ago and we think he or she might have frozen due to the cold spell we're having. The other egg never did hatch. It was a disaster this week for nearby bird life. The parents came back yesterday and sat on their chick for another day, but today they were walking around the yard, making noises and probably distressed.

I took the baby and the egg out and gave them a burial, but I left the nest, in case the parents want to try again. Apparently mourning doves can lay eggs up to six times a year. That helps explain why there are over 70 million of them in the U.S.

The only good news is that I was finally able to water the flowers and they perked up right away. Otherwise, we're pretty sad that we didn't get to watch this little guy grow up and fly away.

One afternoon in Heather Farm Park

After much rain, we're getting some gorgeous spring days. This was yesterday afternoon.

Spring, rain, cold viruses

They're all hitting at once. Here's some quick photos between rainstorms and coughs and colds. Hope you're getting some blooms without all the allergies. During the day I hear birds tweet, even in heavy rain. At night the frogs are croaking and chirruping, filling the air with amphibious love song.

Jackson took a close-up of the tomato seedlings for a school project. I'm looking forward to orange cherry tomatoes.

This bird isn't going anywhere

The mourning dove couple who are nesting in my hanging plant have hunkered down to the point where I never see an empty nest anymore. I know there's eggs in there, but they're not budging. I'm assuming the male and female take turns sitting there. Maybe if I could catch them on the swing shift, I can get a quick photo of the eggs.

Because the pot is only inches away from the window, we are truly getting to know one another. Today I was watching "Friday Night Lights" on Netflix streaming. I looked out the window and the bird was watching TV too. I'm sure it's dull to sit still for hours at a time. I'll try and provide quality entertainment as much as possible until the eggs hatch.

Guy Lewis - Sunrise

Guy Lewis is a woodworker and sculptor from Great Britain. His mixed-media sculpture is entitled "Sunrise." Symmetry, patterns—meditative state. Check out his site for more beautiful work.

Last seen on this site here.

Spreckels Lake San Francisco Model Yacht Club Regatta plus Coference Bike

Back at Golden Gate Park for the first outing of the long-standing San Francisco Model Yacht Club--a club that's been making and sailing model ships since the 1898! I do like to see some nice model boats. Let's take a look.

Nice details.

This steam ship puffs steam and plays a stirring sea shanty while it chugs around the lake.

This one runs on gas--that's a different boat club, I think.

This had a lot of war-related gore. I'll spare you.

Jackson took his boat around the lake too.

Baby turtles!

Awwww...

This was a cool and weird surprise: The Conference Bicycle. Created by the uncle of one of these riders. They invited people to join them to pedal around the lake. I sat on the backwards seat, pedaled "forwards" and we met up with some more people and had a nice chat while we rode. It was something out of a dream...

New Neighbor

This mourning dove couple has been hanging around our house lately, cooing and flitting about the roof and fence. They finally picked this hanging flower basket as the site for their new nest. Very close quarters. I hope our nosiness doesn't upset the mom too much. No eggs yet!

Cherry Blossoms

I let February go by without any cherry blossoms here. That was a mistake on my part. There's daffodils out there too, but these blossoms are always the first sign of spring in northern California.

Great horned owl sighting, plus bonus baby turtles

Hanging out in Golden Gate Park this weekend, we spied a group of people gathered around a lone tree along JFK Boulevard, across from the bison paddock. They were pointing up and holding cameras with extra-long lenses. It was a great horned owl sighting. Apparently this owl has built a nest along the main roadway in the park and had chicks in the first week of February.

It was dusk and my tiny camera could barely handle a photo of the people gathered, so I apologize for the low-quality images, but they'll give you an idea of the urban situation. People, in general, tend to be curious about owls. This one was a beaut. Really large and hooting away. She probably wanted to go hunting and all the people were making her nervous about leaving her chicks.

David Cruz has posted some excellent close-up photos of the owl and her chicks on the SFGate blog.

Quite an owl-spotting crowd. They were actually blocking traffic, but traffic was stopped anyway, looking up.

Here's the tree.

Can you see the great horned owl? She's really camouflaged.

Baby turtles at nearby Spreckels Lake.

Zoom out - view of Mt. Diablo from Heather Farm Park

Let's go fly a kite

It's fun!