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I got a new pen!!! This pen is one of those float-y scene changers with gravity and it has a sunflower growing up out of a flower bed. Super cool. I traded a friend for a regular pen and we each feel that the better end of the bargain was had.
Spouse and I went down to Monterey for New Year's. It was really warm and sunny and things were starting to bloom as we went south: sweet william, wild mustard, sourgrass (Oxalis), coyotebrush (Baccharis), and acacia. On New Year's Day we were back up north and the weather had turned cooler. But by then, things had started to bloom near home too. I went for a hike with a friend and we saw sticky monkeyflower (Mimulus) and blackberries coming into flower. Since then, the weather has been cold and we've had lots of rain, but the plants are on a roll. I'm seeing california poppies flowering and people's roses are starting to go crazy. My nasturtium on the porch has stopped flowering, though, and may not be long for this world. My lobelia has given up the ghost and I'm looking forward to planting an oregano in that pot. In California, you never know when your annuals will go - is it rain or frost that gives them the signal? I've seen people with nasturtiums that hang on year-round in the garden. Same with poppies.
My cacti have made it unequivocally known that there is no such thing as "full sun" in Pacifica. I was given four cacti when I lived in a sunnier place four years ago. In the first year of living in Pacifica, one of the two pencil cacti died. I didn't think much of it because the pincushion cactus was flowering at the time. Two years later, though, the second pencil cactus is starting to go, and the old-man-of-the-sea is looking pretty yellow on the bottom. So, a few days ago, I took my cacti on the road: onto the train and then the bus out to the sunny Central Valley where they will keep my aloe plant company on my desk. I moved my aloe out there after it started getting yellow a few months after we moved to Pacifica. It totally recovered and now looks very, very happy.
In the field, a few more Amsinckia are dead every time we check them. Lots of salad-eating is being done by somebody out there: we've had a fair bit of herbivory damage. We may need to sow some more seed and net over the top. It's labor-intensive but it's the only way to prevent the feasting. I think it's deer.
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