Chorisia flower

For several weeks now, the chorisia trees in front of our building have been flowering. The flowers are stunning, like large showy orchids. It is hard to believe that these summer flowers eventually become the huge pods that ripen in spring, packed with fluffy white seeds.

Endeavour

Yes, I saw it!

Sunset, same place

shadow play

Bright morning sun shines through our glass doors everyday. Sometimes we see hummingbirds flitting about like skillfully-handled shadow puppets. And for a short while in the early morning, the plants on the patio are like a shadow stage set.

On this particular day, the house finches were doing their thing, eating the thai basil blossoms. Can you spot two finches to the right in the photo?

Can you see one flap its wings?

special guest

We had a great time hosting Fiona two weeks ago. There is no one like an old friend, and nothing quite like having an old friend come visit your new home.

We loved the quiet, retro picnic area vibe of Trails Cafe in Fern Dell. The dappled light was peaceful, and adults were enjoying talking while kids played and joked. The food was also inventive and delicious.

An awesome sycamore in Fern Dell:

We enjoyed watching the skater scene at Venice beach:

Friends!

on the farm, in the city

You might not believe that this is LA, but this farm site is tucked away in a bowl in the northern part of the city. I took these photos about 2 weeks ago, when the farm was full of huge, vibrant flowers like gomphrena, celosia, black-eyed-susans, scabiosa, sunflowers, zinnias, prairie coneflower, statice, and dahlias.

While volunteering here, so far I have helped apply compost tea, spread compost and use the "no till" method to gently incorporate it, done some weeding, and spread mulch for weed control.

sunset, labor day

At sunset on Monday, the clouds turned so bright pink and were so swirly, it almost looked like we were witnessing an aurora borealis! We had a picnic on top of the hill at Barnsdall Park with some new friends, and hope to do this more often.

Although it looks like downtown in the background, it is actually Century City. As urbanists love to remark, LA is multi-centric-- it doesn't fit the typical downtown/suburb pattern. Facing west as we are here, you can also see the Hollywood Hills, and you can imagine somewhere out there is the Pacific.