The Flower Fields, Carlsbad

Debbie is taking her Mom to the Flower Fields in Carlsbad for Mother's Day and we have been invited to go with them.  Looks really nice, but I hope its not too crowded for Mother's Day.  I will post my own pictures after we go there.  Here is the link for the Flower Fields.

Look at the Size of Those Lemons!

Went shopping at the local fruit stand today.  Picked up a bunch of fresh fruits and vegetables.  Also bought some lemons (4 for $1).  Look at how big they are!

Lime - Navel Orange - Lemon

Organic mini-watermelons are also in season.  I haven't cracked one open yet.  Will post a picture after I open one.

Organic Mini-Watermelon with other Citrus Fruit

Update: I cut open the watermelon, its not as red or sweet as the larger ones I have been eating since we got here. But its good anyway, and I love watermelon!

Organic seedless mini-watermelon cut open

Weather Forecast

I guess we must be over the "May Greys" weather pattern.  Here is the forecast for next week.  Looking good!

Ice Cream & Our Walk

I don't miss much of the things back in New England.  Although in our town of Sterling there are at least 3 roadside ice cream stands including Rota Springs Farm, Sterling Ice Cream Bar and Meolas.

Rota Springs Farm

Sterling Ice Cream Bar

Even in the neighboring towns there seems to be many roadside Ice Cream stands such as Pinecroft Dairy in Holden and Kimball Farms in Lancaster.  Back home they seem to be everywhere!

I tried to find one out here in California, nada!  Yeah, you have the Baskin Robbins, the Yogurt chains, etc.  All brand new and in strip malls or shopping plazas.  No roadside ice cream!  I miss the ice cream!


After thinking about all the ice cream, Elly said we needed to go for a walk. Our "daily" walk is a 2 mile loop around the Bear Creek Community.  It is interesting to see the large houses and all the pretty flowers and landscaping.  Roses seem to be everywhere and are in bloom from now until November.  Here are a few picture that I took on today's walk

Bottle Brush Shrub

Pink Roses

White Roses

Wild Statice - Elly used to use this flower in her floral arrangements

Nice bunch of Roses

One of the huge houses on our walk

Another with a fancy entrance

May Grey, June Gloom

Both Elly and I have been wondering what happened to the sunny California weather lately.  It seemed to us that the January, February, and Mach weather was much warmer than it is now!  During one of our many yard sale jaunts, one of the sellers mentioned  "June Gloom" as a SoCal weather pattern.  Since then another person mentioned June Gloom, so we decided to do more research. We found this on one web site:


"The sun-seeking know to avoid southern California beaches in the late spring. A period known to the locals as May Gray and/or June Gloom often darkens the coastal skies of sunny southern California with a layer of marine stratus. During this time, the coastal clouds may remain all day but often give way to some hazy afternoon sunshine. The number of days during this two month period that are gloomy vary from year to year. Cooler ocean temperatures (La Nina conditions) usually foretell a gloomier period."
 
You can also read more about it on wikipedia here .  We don't like this weather pattern and can't wait until its over. But it's still better than New England in April & May.

Rattlesnake

Today we decided to hike the San Juan Loop Trial up on the Ortega Highway in Lake Elsinore with Mike & San.

Ortega Highway from Lake Elsinore to Capistrano

 We saw our first California rattlesnake. It was a Southwestern Speckled Rattlesnake.  Here is a picture that Mike took and posted on his blog. He counted nine rings on the tail.

Southwestern Speckled Rattle Snake from our Hike

 While Mike was taking this photo, I was shooting a movie of this snake crawling away from us.

 It was a nice 2.2 mile hike But my pedometer said it was 3 miles.  The easy parts were down hill and flat, the hardest part was at the end as we had to ascend back up to the parking lot. We had a great day!

View of Santa Rosa Plateau from La Cresta

Elly and I went for a ride up to La Cresta today, this is a typical view you get riding around up there.

 Since we we hungry, we decided to stop for lunch at the Annual La Cresta Garden Tour Party. We didn't go on the tour of the gardens of at least 5 homes in this exclusive are, but the party was free. We took a back road home through La Cresta and came upon this view.  This is a large panorama. Click on the image below to make it bigger, when the picture shows up, click it again to make it real big! Then use the bottom & side scroll bars to move around the picture.