We Pause Our 2024 Trip Posting for Our San Joaquin Valley Spring

    Spring arrives in February in the San Joaquin Valley. Ideally, the Sierra Nevadas have an ever-increasing snowpack to fill reservoirs which provide water first to agriculture and second for recreation. When the snowpack is too little, crops may be reduced, and there's no water recreation.

Sierra Nevadas on a day so clear you feel you could reach out & touch them.

    I loved February when I commuted on Hwy 99: the orchards became clouds of pinks and whites.

Stonefruit orchard along Hwy 99.

Young trees under shade cloth.

Almonds beginning to blossom. Bees going to work.

    February in our yard:

  

Tulip tree blossoms beginning to open. Valencia oranges ripening. Mandarin oranges from December. Valencias ripen in spring, navels & mandarins in winter.

   

Bearded Iris from Sutton's Iris Gardens, formerly of our area but in Idaho for several years now. Texas bluebonnet—encouraging them to take hold in our yard.

    

Daffodils & mini daffodils.

Cyclamen quite likes our new buddha. We created a stream bed for our new Japanese lantern. 

    Finding the buddha and lantern, which we've long looked for, was serendipity: Doug suddenly stopped along a road in Washington and drove back a bit. He'd spotted a large sculpture display along the road. And there they were: our buddha and lantern.

First California Poppy in February & more in March.

Red geraniums. Red rocking chairs.

Birds cooperating at feeder. Some like to play King of the Feeder. Chilly wet scrub jay surveys the yard after the rain.

Ponding basin in our neighborhood park after a good rain.

    We're torn leaving home in spring, as the weather is so gorgeous, but we love the Central Coast, too, and "needed" to go there for a few days in March.

View of Morro Rock from lunch on the harbor-side deck at Dockside Too.

We spoiled ourselves & stayed again at Beach Bungalow Inn, a cozy '50s-style hotel with made-to-order breakfast delivered to rooms each morning. It's a short walk or drive to the harbor.

Lots of sea otters entertained us humans, playing& preening in the harbor.

Pod of pelicans conferencing. So awkward-looking on shore & so graceful in flight. (I looked up the term for a group of pelicans.)

    The Van Man did some work on our van while we were there.

Our Promaster van last summer at Meat Cove, northernmost point in Nova Scotia.

    With new lithium batteries and additional solar, we returned home.

Driving into town on Hwy 198—art imitates life.

Sunrise.

    Winter and spring take turns: we'll get a good rain followed by nothing but dry for days. Summer on the other hand comes and stays—we average 275 days of sun a year. Yet, we have at least four suns in our back yard 

  

Sun & sand dollar. Sun, grinding wheel, & mask.

We've already picked a couple hundred lemons off our lemon tree.

  

Rain pouring off roof & down rain chain, giving the ducks a chance to swm.

    March blooms in our yard:

   

Freesias have an amazing fragrance.

  

Calendulas have such variety in colors & petal patterns.

Violas, Johnny jump-up, came from my sister's yard & reseed each year. 

Flamingo checking out beets, onions, lettuce.

  

Gaillardia—blanket flower. I love flowers like these & poppies that close at night, as though sleeping.

Calla lily. Old-fashioned Nasturtiums. Modern nasturtiums have solid green leaves & brighter colors. Mine have disappeared, but the old-fashioned ones come back every spring.

Narcissus Capisco knows it's beautiful & arrives late to the party. It blooms last of all the bulbs.

  

California Lilac. Hummingbird sage, with long flower spikes, & desert dianthus.

Tulip trees are having a second bloom. The first was early & was followed by frosty nights.

Bounty: lemons from our tree, local bread & honey.

    Doug made another trip to the Coast to kayak with some buddies.

Steve & Scott.

Scott & Doug.

Sunset, Morro Bay.

    Meanwhile, elsewhere on the West Coast, while Doug was enjoying kayaking with Steve and Scott at Morro Bay, his son and daughter-in-law in Bellingham, WA were "enjoying" a bit of snow.

View from Doug's son & daughter-in-law's window, Bellingham WA.

    We much prefer seeing our snow in the distance, knowing we can go to it just for the day then leave it behind and return home.

Snow-capped Sierra Nevadas & green fields.