This is my neighborhood!

This is my neighborhood!

An oak in Ojai

Matrimony Spring

This is a spring coming out of the bedrock near the road. You can drink out of it without getting guiardia. It's good water.

A few Moab trip pictures

Sorry about the long delay in updating the blog.

Earlier this month, me and Sara drove to Moab, Utah, where we saw my friend Eli, Sara's friend Pete, and various other old and new friends. Here are a few pictures... I have more I may post later.


This is a crazy dust storm in the Antelope Valley. It was very windy, but the ground was also disturbed by poor land management, making the dust storm worse. It messed with the joints in my car door, which still seems to be damaged. It was also very disturbing to drive through, because visibility was near zero at times.



Sara drove for a lot of the trip. She did a good job.



This is tamarisk, a bad, bad plant that is infesting Utah and other areas.



The high passes of Utah were covered in snow when we drove over. Through the first portion of the trip, there was quite a bit of rain and snow.. which was nice to see in contrast with the unpleasant drought in California.



Rain and melting snow filled up some washes in the area. Water coming out of the mountains was red from all of the red rocks, sand, and dirt it passed through.

I miss the rain, and running water. Drought is no fun.

This year has been full of windstorms, and since it has been so dry, there have also been some dust storms. This is dust blowing its way towards Santa Cruz Island from the mainland. Dust storms have happened in this part of the world for hundreds of thousands of years (at least), and you can actually find thick, buried layers of dust on the islands.




A hummingbird





Another windstorm formed these wave clouds over the Topa Topas (as seen from Piedras Blancas)




Me and the rocks

standing in the sandstone as the world unravels

Sara and Mormon Rocks




Me with silverwood lake and a bromus fire



the fire from the high ridge behind Green Valley Lake



not much snow



sunset point, as tradition dictates, and always good.



Little Green Valley

More storming over the Topa Topas. This was in late March.

More Oaks

The sun in an oak

A storm over the Topa Topas, and the back of Anna's head.
This storm made a ton of wind but no rain in Ventura.

Sara in the poppies on Figueroa Mountain. This area seems to have gotten more rain than areas further south, and had lots of nice wildflowers last weekend.

"Blue Dicks"

Fiesta Flower near Figueroa Mountain Road (by Neverland Ranch, as it turns out)

There aren't many wildflowers out this year due to the dry weather and the frost. However, Goldfields only need 4 inches of rain or so to bloom, and Malibu has had more than that, so the commonly seen patch near Paramout Ranch is blooming - albeit to a lesser extent than most years.

Early morning rain clouds banked up against the ridge behind Santa Barbara

Bio-Remediation - Using willow cuttings and rocks to reduce erosion.

This is what happens if you text while driving... you crash into parked cars.

It's a 'Tricot', a very evolved plant

Sara in the poppies

These are pictures of the San Rafael Wilderness in Santa Barbara County. It is beautiful out there but very dry this year.

I want to apologize again for the horrible formatting of my blog lately. Blogger changed their layout and it is nearly impossible to get the blog to work right at the moment. Currently, the layout looks great on the edit screen but comes out funky when i publish.