Weekly Photo 17/52 for 2013: Clover Among The Rocks

Weekly Photo 17/52 for 2013: Clover Among The Rocks by Kristen Koster on FlickrToday’s weekly photo post is not a flower and it’s not purple! We still have plenty of those in the yard. One of the things that fascinates me about the vegetation here is how persistent it is. When and where there’s enough water, it will grow. Several of the streets have cracks in the pavement, and sure enough, grass grows because of the aggressive irrigation. These clovers have decided to grow despite

We’ve been inundated by urban wildlife this week. We have a pair of turkeys who have moved along the ditch between our drive and the neighbors’. I finally caught a picture of them on my iPhone the other day. Today, we had a young Southern Pacific Rattlesnake on the patio today, but while that photo was good enough to use for identification, it wasn’t a great shot and I didn’t think my mom really wanted to see it. She’s going to freak as it is. There are also the various hummingbirds and songbirds who visit the yard, but after the spectacle of the snake, I saw a new bird with really long tailfeathers that I didn’t recognize, but I think was a roadrunner. By the time I grabbed my camera and switched lenses, he was gone.

Settings: Sony A33-SLT • 1/500 • ƒ/5.6 • ISO 1600 • 300 mm

Weekly Photo 14/52 for 2013: Birthday Bouquet

Weekly Photo 14/52 for 2013: Birthday Bouquet by Kristen Koster on FlickrToday’s weekly photo post prolongs my birthday celebration from Wednesday. These are the Peruvian lillies my mom sent and DH’s family also sent flowers too so even inside our house looks like Spring now! Hopefully everyone is starting to enjoy a little Spring in their corner of the world, well except for those of you in Australia or New Zealand and other areas south of the equator… time to snuggle up for some Autumn coziness!

If you’re curious about some trivia from my birthday, check out this post from 5 years ago where I did a Thursday Thirteen round-up of things that happened on April 3, 1968. And yeah… now you know exactly how old I am. And some days I feel it, plus a couple decades. =)

Thanks to everyone who sent me Happy Birthday wishes from all over the internet, they were greatly appreciated!

Weekly Photo 12/52 for 2013: Iceplant

Weekly Photo 12/52 for 2013: Iceplant by Kristen Koster on FlickrToday’s weekly photo post could be considered cruel and unusual punishment for those of you stuck in winter mode. Here, spring has definitely sprung and the hills are green (this is usually seen as a bad thing here because by fall it will make abundant tinder for raging wildfires) and the flowers and trees are blooming. From the amount of pollen on our cars, I’d think we were back in Austin, TX. I’ve never seen it so thick here. I got to watch a stand of pines dump pollen on a couple of students walking beneath them the other day. A good strong breeze caught the trees and it looked like someone had taken a huge bottle of yellow talcum power and dumped on them.

The iceplant pictured here is a succulent that’s used for sunny hillsides and in some of the medians on the streets. Once it gets in full bloom, like phlox, it looks like someone came along with a bucket of bright magenta paint and stood and swung it. Apparently, it also spreads to cover the area really well and can be quite invasive as well. Good thing it’s pretty.

Settings: Sony A33-SLT • 1/100 • ƒ/5.6 • ISO 100 • 35 mm

Weekly Photo 11/52 for 2013: Flowering Hedge

Weekly Photo 11/52 for 2013: Flowering Hedge by Kristen Koster on FlickrToday’s weekly photo post is NOT a daisy! Spring is starting to burgeon here in full force. It’s been in the low 80s this week and the flowers are loving it.

This also means that it’s warmer at night and that means foggy mornings. I was going to grab a shot of the sun coming over the hills this morning, but I got sidetracked and by the time I remembered I had been going to grab my camera, the effect I was looking at had gone.

Timing is everything. Ok, maybe not EVERYTHING, but certainly a huge chunk of getting some of those great shots! The other day I was coming back from school and a plane flew between me and the summit and the way the sun flashed off it was very cool, but of course, the plane veered off and I didn’t have my camera with me, let alone turned on and ready.

Settings: Sony A33-SLT • 1/100 • ƒ/5.6 • ISO 250 • 55 mm

Weekly Photo 10/52 for 2013: Purple Daisy 2

Weekly Photo 10/52 for 2013: Purple Daisy 2 by Kristen Koster on FlickrToday’s weekly photo post is another of the purple daisies from our front steps. The photo didn’t quite come out how I wanted it to. The flower itself looked as if it were purple in the center and white on the tips of the petals.

I should have gone back inside to grab my Sony, but we were heading out to the dog park with Olivia. Didn’t think to take pictures over there either.

It was rainy here last week, so we should be getting some more variety in what’s blooming soon as the temps this week are expected back in the upper 70s if not 80s.

Settings: iPhone 4S • 1/120 • ƒ/2.4 • ISO 50 • 4.3 mm

Weekly Photo 8/52 for 2013: Fungi

Weekly Photo 8/52 for 2013: Fungi by Kristen Koster on Flickr

Today’s weekly photo post is of the giant fungi growing on our dying willow tree. There are several of this variety at the base of the trunk and on a couple of the higher branches. There’s also small white fungi along the upper branches that almost make it look snow covered. Yeah. Not likely here, right?

We’re going to have to call someone to take this tree down. One substantial branch already fell and several more were trimmed off. It’s a pretty sad-looking specimen at this point.

Settings: Sony SLT-A33 • 1/500 • ƒ/5.6 • ISO 100 • 250 mm

Weekly Photo 7/52 for 2013: Bird of Paradise

Weekly Photo: 7/52 Bird of Paradise by Kristen Koster on FlickrToday’s weekly photo post shows off the brilliant color of the birds of paradise just beyond our pool. This photo was taken around 5pm and our property is tucked down over the hill from where the sun sets, so the lighting is all indirect and muted.

Even in the low light, these flowers shine with an inner glow.

Settings: Sony SLT-A33 • 1/160 • ƒ/4 • ISO 400 • 100 mm

Weekly Photo 6/52 for 2013: Almond Blossoms

Weekly Photo: 6/52 Almond Blossoms by Kristen Koster on flickrToday’s weekly photo post is of one of our two almond trees which has begun to blossom. The crows tend to get all the nuts before we even have an inkling that they might be ready. Apparently, almond trees are a lot of work to harvest and require quite a bit of pampering so that the crows don’t steal all your hard work anyway. Oh well.

I love how the blossoms cluster like that.

Settings: Sony SLT-A33 • 1/500 • ƒ/5.6 • ISO 800 • 300 mm

Weekly Photo 3/52 for 2013: Silk Floss Tree

Weekly Photo (3/52) Silk Floss Tree (Chorisia speciosa) by Kristen Koster on FlickrToday’s weekly photo is of one of two Silk Floss Trees (Chorisia speciosa) on our property. This tree is holding on to its blooms as long as it possibly can, despite the lows in the 20s and frost several mornings in a row last week.

I haven’t been able to get an interesting picture of the impressive thorns on these trees. The rejects from this weekly photo batch included some clouds, the moon out in the afternoon sky, some rather impressionistic ones of the back yard where I had the camera set completely wrong. But you know, in some ways I find those worth investigating because the effects are cool and if they could be applied in the right situations on purpose, who needs Photoshop filters!

Settings: SONY SLT-A33 • 1/500 • ƒ/5.6 • ISO 250 • 300 mm

Weekly Photo 2/52 for 2013: Early Gazania Bloom

Weekly Photo (2/52) Gazania bloom by Kristen Koster on FlickrToday’s entry for my weekly photo challenge is one of the confused Gazanias in the back yard. The temperatures this week have been unusually cooler for SoCal. The highs have been in the mid-50s and the lows have been in the upper 20s. Yes, the natives think it’s parka weather. I’m happy in shirt sleeves. Anyway, after the temperatures in the mid 70s last week, the plants are confused. They thought spring was here.

I’m probably only going to post one photo each week, but I’m hoping to take more so I have a few to choose from. If I can’t pick just one or have several I like, I’ll add them to my flickr stream. I ended up taking two batches of photos this week because I didn’t really like any of the ones from the first day.

And, yes, I promise I won’t always do flowers.