A Winter Stroll Around Jeanz Place... (a photo-essay)

Well, my wonderful Gather friends, it's definitely winter here in "the wild hinterlands" of Cloverdale, Northern California...

The sky is overcast -- again -- and it's been raining off and on for the past two weeks or so...

What looks like snow on the hills to the northeast is actually some low clouds...

But it seems cold enough for it to be snow, that's for sure!

The leaves from the oak tree in the front yard make a earthen-colored carpet on the ground in the front yard:

(I actually think this would make a cool pattern for flooring of some kind, don't you?) :o)

To the south, some of the hardwood trees in the "mixed oak woodlands" are showing their warm-toned winter colors:

As is the valley oak in the front yard:

The cold nighttime temperatures have turned the normally "peachy-pink" buds and blossoms of my miniature "Jeanne Keanelly" rose to dark pink:

And the normally creamy-white part of the two tones of another one of my miniature roses to yellow:

Of the native plants, only the lowly "coyote bush" (baccharus) and the mazanita (pictured below) are blooming:

A harbinger of spring in other places, here in Northern California the robin is a winter resident:

He is accompanied by the "spotted towhee" who, like the robin, likes to scratch in the underbrush for yummy bugs:

In the moister areas of Sonoma County the "lesser goldfinch" is a permanent resident; however, here in "the chapparral" of the extreme north part of the county, he seems to come around only after the frost in the lower regions has made food scarce:

And we can find evidence of other visitors, too, even though we can't see them right now... Like these deer tracks in the wet, soft ground:

One thing that I like about the winter rains is they make the moss and lichens on the oak trees grow longer and much, much greener:

And it does the same to the lacey, wispy tendrils of Spanish moss (misnamed because, in reality, it is a "lichen" and not a "moss"):

The dampness also promotes the fungi -- like these toadstools:

And this white fungus that grows mostly on the broken or dead limbs of the nearby "leather oaks":

 Well, my friends, if you know me at all (or can just read my "status" ;o) ), you know that I don't like winter very much... But I see "light at the end of the tunnel" because, already, the shortest day of the year is behind us which means that all the days from now on ('til June, anyway) are going to be a tiny bit longer and longer each day -- and that thought makes me happy...

Yes, indeed... :o)

'Til next time!

From Sonoma County in Northern California:

luv,

jean f.