Garden Goings On

Summer is waning, and the days are already getting much shorter, much to the chagrin of Ingrate the bird. He is not a fan of being left in the dark while awaiting my return from work. Perhaps faithful readers remember my blog entry last year regarding the difficult installation of the $5 Target light timer? Well, it was time to hook it up again.

Meanwhile, strange things are going on in the garden. I came out one weekend morning and saw THIS growing:

Now, I've had this damn cactus plant for about 15 years and never saw anything more promising than a damn spider web on it:

One hot spell later...this sprouts from it:

It appeared to be some sort of blossom. I kept watch on it, and 14 days later:

It started to bloom! It was not fragrant, but that suits me just fine. No need to attract any of those gangster type bees! Here it is about a week later:

Gee, like a cheap southern dame, it wilted fast once it started blooming:

By tonight, the last blooms were fading and falling to the ground. Will it be another 15 years before a bloom dares appear again?

In other parts of the garden, Killer Diller...the cat with no pity...was lazing around:

and in the front garden, a lavender bush is slowly and painfully (well, painful to look at) dying:

Before you all begin to judge my gardening abilities, let me make one thing clear. I did my Internet research! I tried everything they said, from not watering to watering to adding some kind of fertilizer to ignoring it:

I don't think this plant is long for this world. It's already lived some 22 years. I trimmed some of the branches back and the insides of the branch were DRY and DEAD. It's dying from the ground up, too. I blame the moles, which are rampant in this part of the garden, despite Killer Diller's efforts:

I am not sure what to do at this point...I want to b a good neighbor and only have pretty plants in the yard...ones that are ALIVE. But there is another part of me that wants to hack this thing down to the roots and see if it'll grow again:

Speaking of hacking, I was awakened one Saturday morning, AT EIGHT AM, to see one of the century old cypress trees in our neighborhood getting a well needed trim. I dragged my half asleep, bedraggled body to the front window to look outside and saw THIS going on:

Of course I had to grab the camera. Anytime you see guys wielding sharp knives, perched precariously on the roof of a truck IN MOTION, in foggy weather, trying to trim a tree branch some 30 feet up...it's time to grab the camera.

Fortunately, (I suppose)... no one fell off, stabbing themselves through the leg, falling through and breaking the windshield of the truck as it rolled down the hill. I have to admit, I was almost disappointed. The tree looked great after the 8 hours of trimming it took:

OK, I admit, that is not the same tree. But it's a great shot of the sun setting in the ocean!

Labor Day Weekend- Driving, Hiking and Asshats

The only way to properly celebrate a day off work is to get the hell out of town... even if it's only for the day! So I packed up DP ( Mr Monk was unfortunately still at the office), liberal amounts of beef jerky, a couple of bags of trail mix and copious amounts of water and headed down south (as going east out of the question with the Bridge closed) towards big sky, big trails and big trees.
AKA: Big Sur

As you can see in the photo below, the fog was putting up a terrific fight and wasn't giving up it's grasp on land easily:
A couple of hours, 2 packets of jerky and two cans of soda later...we arrived at Big Sur. DP was raring to go!
The first hike to Valley View/Pfieffer Falls was nice, and I only nearly died 3 times. This whole "keep walking" thing, the whole "fresh air" thing and the endless sunshine was very taxing. We did see some nice things along the way, though.
Things like Trees:

Flowers:More trees:

and finally the "Valley View" came into view:

Then it was off to the natural beauty of Pfieffer Falls:

Uh, well, the falls were there, but they were also heavily polluted with humans who felt it was OK to BATHE in the falls, EAT by the falls, and ruin any photo opportunity for others. Asshats. DP was more than happy to join them:

We then headed over to some famous overlook (McLary or McCray Falls) which has a creek that waterfalls into the ocean:

Some asshat kayakers had pulled into the beach! A Park Ranger on the overlook told us that these asshats were breaking the law, as the beach is closed to the public, but there was nothing they could do, really. So the asshats remained, spoiling everyone's photos of the lovely water, beach and waterfall with their unsightly kayaks and selfish selves:I maneuvered around the trail to attempt to get a photo without asshats in it:

Look at the color of that water! Here is the other side of the cove. Please note, no asshats on this side:

Moving on, we found more trails and more crap to photograph:

Normally, I don't condone the presence of spiders. However, I was in their habitat, so I dealt with it:

We found some old fashioned water wheel thingy that was fascinating for about 20 seconds:

Then we headed back out into the woods:

Yes, here I am, being all nerdy and taking the obligatory "look at me" photo:

and so DP wanted to take one, too. Can you see him?
The afternoon was waning, and DP was getting all cranky, (due to low blood sugar levels). We stopped for a snack along the trail:

Of course, as soon as DP brought out the beef jerky and trail mix, the Blue Jays showed up, demanding handouts: A few more photos of flora and fauna:

At this point, DP was ready to pack it in and call it a day:

A last shot at a roadside shop on the way home: