He’s still looking gnarly with his late summer molting, but his crest is coming back.
Red can be seen most days feeding his adopted Cowbird. If you missed the post about Cowbirds, I wrote about them HERE.
I haven’t seen Mrs. for a few weeks. Although there was a very young female Cardinal who stopped by. Maybe Red is in charge of all the children, legitimate or not?
Red’s current look makes me miss the days of old when Red was the most handsome bird in our desert.
Happy Friday! What are your plans for the weekend?
This precious kitty was inches from our bedroom sliding glass door.
I was wondering what I was up to five years ago. I looked at my blog and this is what I found:
My husband called to me from the bedroom. “The bobcat is here!”
“Where?” I asked scanning my view past the fence in the backyard.
“Right here.”
Wow. The bobcat was lounging inches away from our sliding glass door. She looked hot with mouth open breathing. But instead of panting, she was scenting her next meal. My cat Olive used to do that when scouting for birds in our backyard — before we moved to the wilds of Arizona.
The bobcat nonchalantly grabbed a bird midair and took it behind a potted plant to munch. She climbed a tree and came down with another snack of a baby bird. Another baby bird was hopping on the patio oblivious to the danger. That life ended quickly.
The bobcat moved into the shade and fell asleep on our patio, sated with an afternoon meal.
Climbing into a tree to fetch a baby bird snack.Acting casual before catching a snack.
She looks like she owns the place!
I’m a little nervous to go outside after dark. You don’t know what’s out in those trees or under our patio furniture. It’s literally a jungle out there!
Thanks to my sister-in-law for the amazing videos.
Here’s Olive our wild cat who is hanging out on the bar.
We’ve returned to our home sweet home. It feels wonderful to be back in my own home. One of the surprises was Red was waiting for me singing for my return. This vacation he didn’t hide and avoid me for weeks on end. I’m sure that had something to do with my neighbor making sure the birdseed was out every day. But Red did not look like himself. I’ll post photos later this week.
My trip highlights besides beach walks with my husband enjoying the ocean breeze would be spending time with our friends we don’t see often enough. Plus having my son and daughter-in-law with us for part of our vacation.
Here are some photos I took with my Nikon and 105mm lens on the beach. I was worried about getting sand in the camera or on the lens, but finally decided I could do it!
A man sitting and reading on the beach. I figured out to make photos black and white.
I found a piece of sea glass which is rare at this beach.
In the evenings, the misty fog comes ashore.
A sunbather enjoying a beautiful day at the beach.
Sunlight reflections on sand and water.
A Long-billed Curlew foraging in the sea.
View of where we walk looking south.
Almost sunset and time to go home.
Beach vacation has ended until next summer. It reminded me of a Madonna song “Holiday.”
Are you ready for fall? Or do you miss summertime?
While you’re looking at some of my favorite houses at the beach, I’ll be headed home. I’ve been missing my home, but I’m sure I’ll miss this beach once I’m standing on desert sand. I got the most of my last few beach days with multiple beach walks and sitting on the beach to watch sunsets. I felt like I needed to get my fill of beach time until next summer.
Here are a few of my favorite homes on our favorite beach:
This is my number one home I would like to move into and live happily ever after! I like the roof lines, the shake shingles and the tree! This home reminds me of the home I grew up in on Lord’s Hill in Snohomish, Wash.
This is a pen and ink drawing I made of my childhood home for an art class in college. it doesn’t really look like the beach home above, but it shares some of the same roof lines, shake shingles and windows.
My son’s favorite house is next door to mine. What’s really unique is you can look through the front windows clear through the home to the garden behind the house. It’s beautiful.
This is the Kutcher house almost finished after a remodel.
This is the before photo of Ashton Kutcher’s house with a little cottage in front that didn’t make the cut.
A former home of Ellen’s.
The home of George Lucas.
Kevin Costner’s home at the end of the beach.
Of view of the beach where you can see how close the homes are to the beach.
I really like the smaller homes that have preserved their original flavor.
This little cottage is hidden behind a sand dune.
I noticed this home for the first time this week! I have walked by it without seeing it for years.
Below is another home I’ve never noticed before. Love it. I took this photo with my Nikon on later walk. It’s next door to the Lucas house.
I can only imagine how beautiful the views are from all those windows!
A last look at the beach.
Which one of these homes would you like to move into?
Happy September! What are your plans for this weekend and the month ahead?
A view of the harbor in Ventura from Brophy Brothers restaurant.
One evening last week, we visited long time friends in Ventura and went out to dinner by boat after a harbor cruise. What an enjoyable evening and a great escape from a humid hot afternoon. We are on our annual beach vacation to escape the heat of the desert. Unfortunately, there’s been warnings of excessive heat most days and there are few places with air conditioning on the coast. Finally the heat warnings are over and our last few days at the beach should be ideal.
This is a view from inside the Duffy boat of our friends’ neighborhood. It’s called “the keys” and homes are on the water throughout several inlets. Everyone who lives here has a boat parked in their back yard.
I’m not aware of many neighborhoods with boat parking, although there were a few in Washington state where I grew up. Lake Washington and the San Juan Islands definitely had boat docks in front of homes.
The Bougainvillea below the restaurant was beautiful!
This is our friends’ Duffy boat parked at the restaurant. They use the Duffy to cruise around their neighborhood and drive to dinner in the harbor. It’s a cute little boat. They have a big boat too, that they take to Catalina Island.
A few gulls hanging out on the docks.
I’m getting homesick and I’m ready to leave the beach for the desert. Just a few more days and we’ll be home sweet home!
Do you get anxious for home after vacation, or do you want vacation to last longer?
Saturday we visited the Santa Barbara Farmers Market. It runs across two perpendicular streets downtown Santa Barbara. It used to be held in a school parking lot. I found that much easier because all the stands were in a large rectangle and I walked up and down the aisles knowing where my favorites were located. Now it’s spread out over blocks and blocks.
I took my Nikon camera and 105 mm lens because it does close-ups from 1.3 feet to normal range photos like above. Also the 105 mm lens isn’t as cumbersome to carry as my telephoto lens that weighs a ton!
Here are photos of people, veggies and flowers from the Farmer’s Market:
There was live music which added to the festive atmosphere.
I love cauliflower.
This is a closeup of the blue flowers that were in the flower photo above.
Interesting spelling of garbanzo beans.
One of the flower stands was all orchids.
Another was all mushrooms. I’ve never seen mushrooms like these in clumps. Have you?
The couple in the center look like they’re enjoying themselves.
A closeup of rich purple blossoms.
Lots of veggie stands feature beautiful tomatoes.
I like the name Tutti Frutti Farms.
It was fun to take people pictures, because I haven’t done that since my college days as a journalism major. I was surprised when I loaded the photos onto my laptop and saw interesting interactions.
I hope you enjoyed my day at the market. Our objective was to buy a homemade pie at a pie stand for a friend’s BBQ Sunday. We found the stand and bought a cherry crumble pie. Yum. Then with mission accomplished I wandered around with my camera.
What photos do you like best?
Do you go to farmers markets near you? What do you like best from farmers markets?
This is the view from our airbnb living room. The little cottage we have rented for nine summers has the feel of a tree house. The living room is upstairs at tree level overlooking the ocean. This is the one photo I took in this grouping with my Nikon and telephoto lens. The rest of the photos were taken with my iphone walking on the beach. I hope you enjoy a taste of California beach life.
This is our favorite beach to take walks and sit and watch the waves. This view is looking north.
There’s a canal along the walk and I caught this gull relaxing on a piece of drftwood.
This is the glimpse of the beach from the walkway that takes us to the beach. Ellen Degeneres used to own the house to the right of the fence, but sold it to have more privacy. It’s a gorgeous house by the way and sold last year for $35 million. Click on the link for a news story and photos.
The white house at the end of the beach is Kevin Costner’s estate. The tide gives him plenty of privacy because the beach is under water near his property.
We went out to dinner with friends and came back to our cottage to see this sunset out the side window.
I caught a Snowy Egret in action
A southward view of the beach.
I believe these are Willets but not quite sure. There are so many similar looking shore birds.
Father and son walking and talking.
I made them stop and pose. It’s such a joy to have our son and daughter-in-law join us for some relaxing beach time.
Which photos do you like the best? What are your plans for the weekend?
