Not Seen at Home

Cardinals, the state bird

Guardians goodies

Mixed household with an Ohio State/Michigan flag

new-to-me license plate

rust!

Four kinds of filling
(I could only find poppyseed this year)

A whole bookcase of souvenirs from A Christmas Story movie

History of peanut butter and chocolate buckeyes

Water!!

 

Things I Acquired Today

 

I found a beautiful California Buckeye on the ground.
The early runner beats the squirrels!

Mail from Germany

Library books

A tissue pack - this might have made the happiest because seeing it transported me back to our town in Denmark, where I often saw them on the ground.

Fruit from two neighbors including a new-to-me fruit (in the upper part of the picture, the ones that look like tiny tangerines) called calamondin, which is a cousin of the kumquat

Outing!

I have been deleting events from our family's digital calendar so I started adding things (bake bread, mail postcard) just to give myself a little lift when I heard the ding of the digital reminder.

This week we had a real event on the calendar! Today is the first day the local botanic garden (now called California Botanic Garden) is open to the public, but we had a chance to visit earlier in the week.

Timed tickets were required and we chose to go just before dusk.

I had never seen so many California Buckeye trees in bloom.

It was also a good time for Matilija Poppies.

As always I looked for bones from owl pellets.

I know other gardens are open now, too, but I am content to stay within cycling distance of home.

Quick trip to Oregon - the great outdoors

It took me a long time to complete my morning run because I decided to carry my phone and kept stopping to take pictures.

There was a whole block of chestnut trees!

I was surprised to find so many of the American Chestnuts.

And was grateful to find so many of the kind I call buckeyes.
Thanks, TSA, for letting me bring so many home!

So green!

So mossy!

We took a beautiful walk around the canyon

And saw a wooly bear caterpillar! 

What a beautiful fall day!

And one picture for the City of Roses

Love

I had quite a bit of time at the Phoenix airport last week so I caught up on my language practice. As I was working a person came up to me, pointed near my feet, and said, "Excuse me, I dropped my buckeye." I was confused and asked if he meant I dropped my buckeye. How could it be that someone else in Arizona carried around a buckeye.

No, no, he meant his buckeye. He picked it up and showed it me.

Just in case he was wrong I looked in my bag and, sure enough, my buckeye was still there.

We tapped buckeyes and he said, "O-H." Of course I responded, "I-O." He insisted that I take his buckeye, which I was hesitant to do until I remembered that I had a California buckeye, which he accepted. Interactions like that make me love humanity.

One more bonus buckeye picture, one from my purse (yes, I had been traveling with three buckeyes). His was dark with a small belly button (not sure of the right word). The one I showed him was light with a large belly button, and the one in my purse was dark with a large belly button. Time to learn what that means. And do buckeye trees that have white blossoms produce different buckeyes than buckeye trees with red blossoms? I think I need to travel to Ohio in fall to do some research.