California!!

I have just returned from a land of dreams... It's beautiful. It's hot. It's one-of-a-kind. It has mountains, and valleys, and agriculture, and ocean coastline, and long golden grass...

It's California!!!

After sorting through the approximately fourteen million pictures that I took while there, I decided that about half of them are of the orchards and cornfields I so loved when we used to live there, and the rest are made up of other wonderful, favorite old memories: a pineapple creme cheese danish at our beloved old coffee shop, the long stretch of brown hills as they sweep up towards the beckoning Sierra Nevadas, the funny-looking little pig-melons that grow along valley roads, and blurry photos of fat magpies sitting on fence posts. The golden-billed magpie is, after all, only found in the Central Valley, and some of my earliest memories are of waking up to their early morning chatter in our mulberry tree.

So, when I first heard one during this recent CA visit...well, I was beyond excited. :)

Then there was the little mountain quail! He deserved a lot of pictures taken of his handsome self, along with many black-headed jays and a family of squabbling acorn woodpeckers.

But to begin with, here is a pic that Mums took as we were on our way down towards the valley...

A lot more coming soon :)