I’ve been wanting to explore Mendocino village for awhile, but to be honest, the usual crowds of tourists swarming the place put me off. So I was very happy when I got a chance to do some exploring the other day. It was rather late in the afternoon, most of the shops were closed, and the weather didn’t exactly invite […]
I just keep finding more and more photos from our stay at The Sea Ranch in Sonoma County back in September 2022. I thought this would be the final set, but there are still quite a few more images for me to go through. Every one of them brings back great memories, and I hope you enjoy them as much […]
The dirt trail running parallel to Hinkle Creek is roughly a half mile in length, passing through oak woodland inhabited by a variety of wildlife. The murmur of the creek is never far away even though much of its banks are crowded with prickly blackberry bushes. The location is not exactly isolated; visible just up the steep hill to the […]
My favorite part of spring-like weather this time of year is the appearance of many types of birds, each sporting unique and colorful plumage. I shot most of these images along the Hinkle Creek Trail; the bluebird, magpie and mallards were seen at Phoenix Park. Above, not a perfect capture, but I like it because this female Lesser Goldfinch seems […]
Whenever I head over to Phoenix Park in Fair Oaks, I usually try to find time to walk a little farther, through the neighborhood behind the park and over to the bluffs. There I can always find a slightly different view of Lake Natoma than the one I normally see, with a wide vista of Mississippi Bar below me. On […]
The arrival of spring is a slow process with a number of stages along the way — especially in a place like the Phoenix Park vernal pools. I wanted to have a look around after the rain cleared just to check in for the first time this year. It will be awhile before the flowers start popping up, but it’s […]
It’s been quite awhile since I last visited the trail along Hinkle Creek and I figured I was about due to return! I was curious to see if there had been any changes — but for the most part things looked about the same, much to my relief. One spot along the trail that I especially remembered is a small […]
The longer I live here, the more convinced I am that the cats have become our new landlords.
I’ve been reading Nathaniel Philbrick’s excellent book, In the Heart of the Sea, about the whaling ship Essex (it sank in the Pacific Ocean in 1820 after tangling with a sperm whale and became Herman Melville’s inspiration for the novel Moby Dick). The surviving crewmembers, adrift in the ship’s boats, had to decide where their best chance of rescue lay […]