HAVE BEEN ENJOYING THESE WARM SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA DAYS IN THE BOONIES

SOME OF THE DESERT OCOTILLOS IN THIS AREA ARE HUGE

Cool brisk westerly winds a-blowin again this morning so we were dressed warm for our walk.  According to weather reports there could be some inclement weather headed our way over the next couple days.  Rain even.  We are already clouded over. 

DESERT OCOTILLOS WILL SOON BE BLOOMING AND THIS IS THE FIRST ONE WE SPOTTED THIS MORNING

Turned out to be a ‘sitting around the rig’ day.  Not my fav of course but seemed kind of Okay maybe because it was Sunday.  So far so good in our current boon-docking spot.  No Park Rangers telling us we have to move and no other RV’ers anywhere nearby.  None that we can see anyway.  We just kind of marvel at how fortunate we were to have stumbled across this site which is so perfect for us.  I don’t mind staying longer in one spot when it is like this where there is basically nothing to see out our windows except nature’s wonders.  And we’re less than 10 miles out of Borrego Springs. 

FOR SUCH A SMALL DELICATE BLOOMING FLOWER OCOTILLO PLANTS HAVE VERY HEAVY DUTY ROOT SYSTEMS

Seeing a number of powered paragliders flying over Borrego Springs Saturday morning I was reminded of the time on Rockhouse Road in February 2010 when I had to quickly run to the aid of one of those fellows when big winds forced him and his powered paraglider trike to the ground.  Had To Run Fast and I think that was the last time I ever did any running of any kind. 

LAST YEARS SPINDLY FLOWER STEMS WILL SOON BE REPLACED WITH NEW BRIGHT RED FLOWERS

Flowergirl in a comment asks:  What tweaks do you do to get more punch in your photos before they go to Picasa? ……. In my D3400 I press Menu and go into ‘Set Picture Control’ then chose ‘Vivid’ for deeper colors.  Keeping with ‘Vivid’ I then adjusted the picture to be a tad sharper, increased the contrast slightly, and added a bit of saturation.  in ‘Image Quality’ I set it to ‘JPEG Fine’.  All these settings are done in Program mode.  I never use ‘Auto’ mode on any of my cameras.  I also use ‘Center Weighted Metering’ or ‘Spot Metering’ instead of ‘Matrix Metering’.  I generally leave my ISO at 400 and try to remember to bring it down to 100 ISO if I’m standing still taking landscape photos.  Mostly I forget to do that.  Now I’m not saying these tweaks I’ve made are necessarily the best but in my world of techno confusion they seem to work not too bad for me.  But here’s my dilemma……it seems no matter what I do I always seem to find fault in my photos somewhere.  Too light, too dark, too yellow, too blue, not sharp enough, photos look fuzzy, too much contrast or not enough.  I drive myself wonkers most every day with my Picasa photo editing program trying to get colors, contrast, and lighting right but so far it’s still an enjoyable hobby for me and I will continue to happily drive myself slightly wonkers most every day:))

bobm in a comment asked:  ‘When we were in BS in mid-January we saw early signs of wildflowers. Is anything starting to pop up yet’? …… Aside from a few very small clusters of some kind of pink violets or something along the roadside nothing has really popped yet other than 1 red Ocotillo bloom we saw on our walk this morning.  In our area lots of long green slender Desert Lily leaves are above ground now but no white blooms yet.  We have been in Borrego Springs several times when desert flowers were blooming and I was able to find a few of my posts showing some of the desert flower blooms……Early Morning Photo Group, A 2 Canyon Day, All The Way From Oregon, Flowers In Coyote Canyon, Days Are Getting Too Short.  Wished I had got myself on the ball years ago and put albums together of all my photos in various categories (desert flowers) but alas I didn’t and to try to go through tens of thousands of photos now is just too daunting a task.

 

HIDDEN IN THE SMALL GREEN LEAVES ALONG THE OCOTILLO’S LONG STALKS ARE SHARP THORNS WAITING TO SNAG THE UNWARY

Below are 2 pictures from the Yacht Club webcam in Grand Bend Ontario showing what our area back home looked like this morning.  Bayfield is 20 minutes north of Grand Bend on Lake Huron’s shoreline.  Sure glad we are in southern California and not southern Ontario.

It was a week ago Monday morning we left our overnight spot on Rockhouse Road and re-located to where we are now.  That means Monday morning will mark one whole week in the same place.  That’s pretty good for us so far this winter.  Still not missing our Congress House but both agree we will be glad to get ourselves back to our home in Bayfield Ontario sometime next month.  In the meantime we are thoroughly enjoying this warm southern California weather.  Looking ahead at the long range forecast there is not a day under 70F for the next week and a half.  Nice:))

GROANER’S CORNER:(( A boss was complaining in a staff meeting the other day that he wasn't getting any respect. Later that morning he went to a local sign shop and bought a small sign that read, "I'm the Boss". He then taped it to his office door.  Later that day when he returned from lunch, he found that someone had taped a note to the sign that said. "Your wife called, she wants her sign back!"

------------------------

Q: How do you know that owls are cleverer than chickens?  A: Have you ever heard of Kentucky-fried owl!

Q: What do you call a woodpecker with no beak?
A: A head banger!

-----------------------

A man was bragging about his sister who disguised herself as a man and joined the Army.
"But wait a minute," said the listener, "She'll have to dress with the boys and shower with them too, won't she?" "Sure," replied the man.
"Well? Won't they find out?" "And who's gonna tell?"