As seen by a roving ant

Six-Word Saturday 9.24.22

Wordless Wednesday…Jacaranda

It’s not just the plants.

South Coast Botanic Garden is unusual in being one of the first botanical gardens developed over a sanitary landfill. Here’s a bit about the unique history from the website:

During the early 1900’s the Dicalite Company began mining diatomaceous earth, but at this time it was mostly surface mining. By 1929, open-pit mining was being pursued. In 1944 the mine was sold to the Great Lakes Carbon Company and mining began in earnest. By 1956, production of the mine declined and the site was sold to the County of Los Angeles. From the very beginning, the county planned to utilize the best possible technology and to reclaim the land for future use. In the meantime, the site was used as a sanitary landfill to help meet the County’s growing landfill needs.

In 1961, private citizens, headed by Frances Young, prevailed upon the County Board of Supervisors to convert this site into a botanic garden. It was an exciting experiment in sanitary landfill reclamation. In April 1961, the first major planting took place with over 40,000 donated trees, shrubs and other plants. Since then, our plant collection has significantly increased to more than 200,000 plants. From open pit mine to sanitary landfill to stupendous garden is the extraordinary history of South Coast Botanic Garden. This continuing experiment in land reclamation has drawn horticulturists from all over the world, including Prince Charles of England, to study the feasibility of similar project. The success of the reclamation effort is apparent in the peaceful, shady groves and areas of spectacular color.

I love that! Beauty from ashes.

However, there’s more to see than just plants. The Japanese garden first grabbed our attention. On one of the plants by the pool of koi was a bright red dragonfly! Although I took a few photos and got rather close, it didn’t move. The really bizarre thing was that when we came back two days later, it was there again in the same place! My husband was sure it was dead and leaned in close, only to have it fly away. We really laughed at that.

To compound our wonder, in a nearby area, we saw two more just like it. Evidently each tend to stay in the same section, although I’m not sure how you’d tell the difference. But who cares? They were brightly beautiful and unexpected.

Under a small bridge lurked this turtle. It’s always fun to spot turtles and they usually can’t get away before you get a photo unless they’re underwater already (water deeper than this) in which case they can be gone in no time at all. This one was content where it was. Maybe it thought we couldn’t see it.

Our last critter sighting was this squirrel perched on a trash can looking rather as if it were hoping we wouldn’t spot it. Maybe it didn’t want to be seen on a trash can. But it didn’t move even a little bit.

As God contains all good things, He must also contain a sense of playfulness — a gift he has shared with Creatures other than ourselves, as witness the tricks Crows play, and the sportiveness of Squirrels, and the frolicking of Kittens. ~Margaret Atwood

Although this has nothing to do with the photo, this quote is so true that I had to include it:

Let me tell you, if you have never seen an agitated squirrel you have seen very little, nor have you heard much, because the sound of an angry squirrel is not to be forgotten. ~Joe R. Lansdale

Feeling crabby?

I hope you’re not tired of videos from the Aquarium of the Pacific. I’ll be getting back to photos but I had such fun watching the various creatures at the aquarium move around that I just had to share another one. This giant crab was really, really big and watch for a photo bombing fish.

Happy Monday. We had a safe trip home and while we had a wonderful three weeks, it’s also good to be home. I’m looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight and tomorrow I’ll be cleaning, running errands, etc. As I’ve said before, it’s a blessing to go somewhere enjoyable and to have a place to come back to that you enjoy and we are blessed.

Fall in the Japanese garden

The baptism went beautifully and it was a delightful day with family. Today we’re heading home after a good three weeks. I hope your Sunday is blessed!

Just for the joy of swimming

I’m not sure if we’re doing Six-Word Saturday today but even if Debbie isn’t, I am. Today’s another big day for us as our grandson is getting baptized. It’s also our last day in California. Sunday we head back home. It’s been an amazing time. Thanks for putting up with my periodic absences these last few days. As Arnold says, “I’ll be back” to blogging soon. 🥰

Six-Word Saturday 9.17.22

Fabulous on Friday

Several days ago we went to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California. It was filled with wonderful, wondrous things but one of my favorites is always the jellyfish (not fish at all) or sea jellies. Their unworldly appearance and graceful way of moving mesmerize me. Here’s a short video of some of them but you’ll have to ignore the audio. There were quite a few people around and no way of shutting out the sound. Just mute and enjoy!

Our daughter and I are off to Pasadena today after getting pedicures, a women’s day out, so I’ll be late in responding to comments and blog posts. I hope you have as much fun as I’m sure we will. Thanks for all your wishes for a happy anniversary to us yesterday. We had a good day, ending with a wonderful meal at Din Tai Fung with our daughter and son-in-law. Grandson spent the evening with his other set of grandparents, being a bit too little to appreciate our delicious meal. 🙂

And finally you have moonlight

I’ve shared sunrise and sunset from California. That really only leaves moonlight. From the same patio as yesterday’s sunset photo, here’s the view I saw one evening. I was pleasantly surprised at how well my iPhone 11 caught it.

I do sunsets too.

While it’s true I tend to be a morning person, I’m sometimes on the balcony at our daughter’s apartment at just the right time for sunset. Although the one the night before was better, this one wasn’t too shabby. In both instances however, the company trumped everything.

Got a leg up on you

Six-Word Saturday 8.27.22

Just FYI, we’ll be at the LA men’s rugby 🏉 7s tournament, the last tournament of the year and the one that will decide who wins the championship, both today and tomorrow pretty much all day meaning I’ll be offline most of the weekend. So you know I’m not ignoring you but just having a blast! I was hoping to have a sign made but that’s going to happen. 🙁. Look for a woman wearing a stylish woven brown sun hat and a light purple/lavender long-sleeved sun shirt, sitting next to a husband looking a little like Santa (just the beard) and rooting for South Africa. P. S. He finally trimmed the beard! Hurrah! No further clues right now but he’ll be wearing red Ohio State cap. .