Winter Has Returned to SoCal!

The calendar tells us that Winter begins around December 21 but most years it is not until February that Ventura gets its coldest and wettest weather. (This year, we seem to be bouncing back and forth between rain and snow and periods of mild and really hot weather.)We got nearly 3 inches of rain in the past five days and more is predicted for this weekend. Coming out of the Angeles Crest Forest late Friday night, I encountered rain, lightening, and snow (I was the only one on the road at the time so it was too dark to get any good photos - besides, it was cold and wet!) Yesterday the snow that had fallen at 4,000 feet elevations and higher was clearly visible from our house - yay! I've taken so many pictures of our local snow that I thought I'd add this mirror view from the side of the road on Victoria Avenue. That view is one of my favorites!

And now that we've had some good soakings, the spring flowers are really beginning to bloom!

April Irises

Wow, it's been a long time. Between getting the CROP Hunger Walk off and running (oops, making that walking ;-) and trying to figure out a one-week Alaskan itinerary, I haven't had time to blog. Oh, yeah, we also spent a wonderful long weekend in Yosemite at the end of March - I'll have to back-track a bit and post some pictures and/or videos. Anyway, with the exception of the naturalized burgandy lace tulips that have begun to bloom, we pretty much left the tulip season at the beginning of the month and entered the time of the irises. These are the ones I bought several years ago that are "reblooming" irises. They bloom several times a year rather than only once a year. The first year, nothing happened, but last year we had them yearround. This month, however, was the first time they all bloomed at once! Enjoy the pictures . . .

Leap Day

I can't believe I didn't take a picture on a day that only comes every four years, but I was busy gardening and cleaning out email on my day off. So to commemorate this special day, I've created a small collection of pictures of the bulbs that are blooming in the front yard. I used this cool widget I learned about in my MCLS Web 2.0 class - just click on the picture to shuffle through the stack:

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February 1st - Flowers and Snow

The last of the big rain left Monday morning and we've had sunny skies ever since. We always have narcissus (the smaller, paperwhite-type daffodils) blooming since November, but now the real bulbs are starting to poke their leaves out of the ground and just a few are beginning to bloom! (Click on this posting's title to see a few more new flowers.)Although it has been sunny, it has continued to be cool and I've been taking pictures of the snow every day - it is so awesome to see it not disappearing like usual! (It's not unusual to see snow on Topa Topa - just look at last January's postings or even April 2006. What is unusual is that it hasn't melted away yet.) I took this shot as the clouds were beginning to return today. Highway 33 is still closed at Wheeler Campground, so there still must be tons of snow up in Rose Valley and on Mt. Pinos.Click here for more snow views.

Winter Weather + Spring Flowers on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

It is cold again, at least for around here. It only got up to 55.4 °F / 13.0 °C for our high, and got down to 41.9 °F / 5.5 °C before sunrise. Rain is predicted all week, but only with 20%-30% chances today through Wednesday, and up to 40%-60% chance of rain Thursday - Sunday. Wish we could give Alan warmer weather when he gets here tomorrow, but I guess it's going to rain at least a little this week!Today was beautiful and sunny even though it was cool. I got some pruning and watering done and the air felt good. Beautiful clouds in the distance. Tom went fishing on the San Gabriel and ran into a little rain and saw snow fall in the higher elevations!Looking around the yard, we have a pretty good variety of narcissus bulbs in bloom. Sometimes called paperwhites, daffodils, or jonquils, here they are (click on them to enlarge).




Another bulb that is beginning to bloom is the grape hyacinth. These are actually much later to bloom than in past years; here are the first ones to open.