We Found the Answer

On November 20, I was wondering about this mystery plant we had growing in the pathway. Well, on Monday we cut off a large branch and went to the Ag Office. They sent us to the Farm Bureau where there was a master gardener. Three employees gathered around and speculated and then they called in one more. The consensus is: Datura ferox or the common name is Fierce Thornapple. I certainly agree with the fierce part because of those spiky sharp pods.

This is not a desirable plant to have around and is poisonous. As you can see we chopped it down and put it in the garbage. They asked that we put it there instead of the green waste. Now there is no chance of it reseeding. The seed was probably brought here by a bird or was in one of the bags of commercial bird seed that we buy. It is also in the same family of plants as the Loco Weed found in the mid-west. We don't need any Loco Weeds here... we are pretty loco all on our own!

At their request, we left the branch we brought with them. It is rare around here and they did not have a live specimen. Now they do!

So... now we all know... Fierce Thornapple. Who would have thought?

What is This?

I don't know what this plant is that came up as a volunteer by the fence. At first I thought it was a sunflower. It had rather thick dark green leaves. But then it got bushy and grew wide instead of tall.

The flowers are white and never fully opened wide before this strange looking pod developed at the base of the blossom.

They are sharp, very sharp and look like a prickly hand grenade. I sure would like to know what plant this is and where it came from.

I think we will take pictures down to the Ag office and see if they can identify this wicked looking thing!

Apples to Apples

Apples are falling off the tree. They are ready to be made into apple sauce, dried apples or apple pies. Today I made all three. I started with the dried apples.

This handy dandy tool peels, slices and cores. It makes this whole process a lot faster. I filled up the drier with apples first, then made a big kettle of apple sauce. I saved about eight of the best apples and used them for an apple pie.

I'm sorry I didn't get pictures of the pie but by that time I had really run out of steam! I was DONE with apples for the day!

The Trap

Nature works in such amazing ways. A spider has made a web on the ground to catch something to eat. I wonder how many hours he had to work to get a web of that size. There is a hole in the very middle with a little tunnel going down. I guess he is down there just waiting for some unsuspecting little bug to make the wrong step.

Broccoli at Sunrise

The early morning sun poked over the hill to shed its rays on all the little Broccoli plants that are only a few weeks old. This is the "Arroyo" of Arroyo Grande and is at sea level. The soil is rich and dark and we have seen it flooded a couple of time from heavy rain in the 14 years we have lived here.

These fields are in constant production and they average four crops each year. Plow, plant, harvest... over and over, and over again. They rotate crops between broccoli, celery, cabbage, bok choy and many different kinds of lettuce. I can't remember these fields laying fallow. Well, maybe when they were flooded, but only until they were dry enough to plow!

Seagulls Fishing

This Sea Gull dropped his lunch. Was it a fish or a clam?

Leaf on Rocks

The Japanese Maple is shedding its leaves. A sure sign that our winter is upon us.

Waking up Butterflies

As the sun came up over the trees we went down to Halcyon to join a group from Cal Poly to tag Monarch Butterflies.

Capturing the clustering butterflies involved a very long pole and a very large net. When the branch was tapped the resting butterflies fell into the net.

This must be done while the temperatures are cold enough that they don't want to fly.

They were then transferred into brown grocery bags.

Tags with a unique number, color code and phone number were attached to the underside of their right lower wing.

All this information as well as identifying it as male or female was recorded on a log sheet. We caught some that had been tagged a month ago at a different site. They already had a different color tag or mark. This confirms that they move about within the different sites here in our area.

After they were tagged, we put them back into a second brown grocery bag and when it warmed up enough the bags were propped open so they could fly away. You can see the tag on the lower butterfly.

By 10 AM we had tagged over 2000 Monarchs. They were very much ready to get out of the bags and be on about their business!

We thank the Cal Poly group for letting us join them. It was a wonderful learning experience. To learn more check here: http://monarchalert.calpoly.edu/

What a fun morning... (all except the part of getting up at o' dark thirty!!) 

Minus Tide

We caught a low tide of -1.2 the other day. There was so much sand to drive on and the beach was swept clean.

The Seagulls and Sanderlings were having a feast on all those critters in the sand that they had access to because the water was so low.
It was a Sand crab buffet!

Dots on Monarch Butterflies

We went to a lecture given by a Cal Poly grad student. She is studying and tagging Monarchs in our area and we went with her one morning as she did a count. Look close and you will see two butterflies in this picture with yellow dots. The yellow tags tell us at what location it was tagged and has other information. There are about half a dozen clustering sites around here with Pismo Beach being the largest. I would love to go with them to do some tagging. It is done in the early morning, the colder the better. There are very long handled butterfly nets and brown paper bags involved.

The students are gathering information on how the individuals in a cluster move about and how far they might go to nectar. We see many Monarchs in our back yard but have so far not found a cluster site on our property. They do love to nectar on our Lantana and I am watching for those tags. If I saw a yellow tagged butterfly in our yard that would mean it had traveled about four miles from the site where it was tagged. We did find a small cluster site about a mile from us that the students had not known about.

The Western Monarchs travel from Washington, Oregon and Nevada and arrive in our area around early October. Some clusters go south as far as San Diego. They do not go down into Mexico. Those are the Eastern Monarchs. The Western Monarchs are here until February or March and then they mate before they start their journey back to the north. It takes them about three generations, each living around 6-8 weeks to get back. They lay their eggs on Milkweed with the first eggs being laid in the central California valley and the Sierra foothills. Then the new generation travels north staying on the western side of the Rockies. An abundance of Milkweed seems to help trigger the laying of more eggs and a new generation to continue on to their summer sites. It is interesting to note that the migration south in the fall is made by one generation and they live for about 6 months. The same butterflies make that whole long trip... they must catch a tail wind!

Monarch numbers are declining. There are good years and bad but over all the numbers are going down. They seem to prefer Eucalyptus trees for clustering in our area, although Pines or Cypress are used too. The Eucalyptus trees bloom in January and February and provide nectar as well as a roosting place. Many people are cutting down the Eucalyptus trees around here. Has that contributed to the decline of the Monarchs? They are not native trees and many groups would like to remove them all.

But that is another story for another time.

Patchy Cat

The day dreaming cat with her little slit eyes.

Leaves for Lunch

We came across a Eucalyptus leaf that had been chewed in this interesting pattern by quite the diligent creature. After some googling around I found information on the Eucalyptus Tortoise  Beetle.
They chew this distinctive semi-circle pattern all around the edge of a leaf.

Seems like they arrived here in California around 2000 from Australia and just chow down on the Eucalyptus leaves but don't really kill the trees.  I will now keep my eyes open for these miniature tortoise like guys.

Watching Woodys

The Acorn Woodpeckers are now part of our daily routine. They are quite tame and don't fly away when we come out the door. In fact, I think they watch for us to come outside because they know we just might put out some sunflower seeds or peanuts. I'd love to see their grainery stash for winter!

They seem to work together against the Scrub Jays to keep all the seeds for themselves. One will get seeds while another chases away Jays. The lookout perches up high on top of the telephone pole. It's quite entertaining to watch.

No fighting... no biting guys. There's enough for everyone!