While I've been gone (from the blog, that is), spring has really sprung here, and now along comes summer. I was driving down China Lake Boulevard today and the electronic sign said it was 90 degrees! On March 31st! I was not happy about that. Tomorrow it is supposed to be 91. It's going to be cooler on the weekend and next week, but really, 90 degrees in March. Not necessary.
We had some fabulous storms this month too, including one about ten days ago that resulted in this gorgeous snow on the mountains west of town (that's the southernmost tip of the Sierra Nevada range).
Pretty cool, no? Our little valley is entirely surrounded by mountains, and after this storm the mountains to the north were also snow covered, but I didn't get any photos of them.
But now it is spring again, or rather summer, and there are wildflowers everywhere. Last spring we were so good about learning the names of all the flowers, and now I find that I have forgotten almost all those names. But there is no time like the present for learning them all over again, and in any case the boos don't know the names and might like to learn them, so we are starting to work on that. Baby B recognizes one flower, the desert dandelion, and as we walk along he points them out, except he just calls them dandelions. I say "Yes!" and then add, pedantically, "DESERT dandelions." I'll try to post some wildflower photos soon.
We have also been seeing quail almost every day, rabbits, and today I saw a lizard. The first lizard of spring, or rather summer.
With all this warm weather, one of our tortoises has decided to come up out of her burrow and rejoin the living. She came up a couple of weeks ago, but then went back down again when it got cold. Last weekend she came up again, so we gave her a bath in order to rehydrate her. Here she is having a bath.
Isn't she sweet? The other tortoise, however, has not made an appearance, and this is unfortunate, since there are folks out there eagerly waiting to adopt her. Tonight we shone a flashlight down in the burrow, and there she is -- she didn't somehow vanish into the earth or anything like that. But she's not coming out. So tomorrow we are going to try to get her out.
How does one get a tortoise out of a burrow, you may ask. Well, the first thing we have been told to do is to poke her with something, like a stick. She is six feet down in the ground, but I am thinking a broomstick might work, or maybe the non-sharp end of a hoe. Rocket Boy is home tomorrow, it being Flex Friday, so we will work on this together. One of us will hold a flashlight while the other one pokes. If the tortoise moves her legs, we will know she is alive. If she does not move her legs, we will know that she is either dead or sick. If she moves her legs, there is a chance that she will then walk out of the burrow. If not, or if she doesn't move her legs, we will probably have to dig her out. Stay tuned for further developments, which I will try to report on tomorrow.
Looking forward to seeing your wildflowers - particularly the dandelions.... and, of course, waiting with baited breath to see if there's any response to a good poke.
ReplyDeleteBut, 91. I agree. That is obscene.