Outdoor Wednesday

Wow! It has been a long time since I posted! I thought I would jump back in with an Outdoor Wednesday post. Sometimes when it is just too hot we take a drive out towards the coast to cool off. The date was June 29th and it was HOT in our area at that time. A good day to take a drive. We decided to head over to Point Reyes area. And it was definitely cooler there and worth the drive!

When you get there, people park in a lot that is about a 1/2 mile from the lighthouse area. We were lucky to find a parking spot as many other people had the same idea as us to escape the heat. I could not find my camera so these pictures are from my cell phone camera. Not bad actually.

My knees give me troubles and I needed to rest. There was bench to sit on to rest and admire the view. This is the view and.....

This is us looking at the view. It was very, very windy. I felt like my hair was blowing away and hubby had to hold on to his hat! After a rest we continued on the rest of the way to the lighthouse.

In California you can see a lot of this where the layers of the earth are visible. A result from long, long ago and the mountains were being pushed up and the valleys were being formed.

The lighthouse is way down there. 300 steps down and 300 steps back up! We have been down this before several years ago with our daughter and I barely made it then. With my knees acting up, we decided I better not try taking the stairs down there. A lot of adventurous and in better shape than me people did take the steps down. And back. You have to come back up.

Instead we did this, watched people and the whale. Hubby, in the hat, was watching a whale that surfaced frequently to blow through her blow hole. We are not sure if it was a she, but people where yelling "thar she blows" each it happened. It was fun. And I had a chance to chat with a lady who was  hosting 2 students from France. She did not take the stairs down, but the students did. She told me they are young and full of energy, they can take the stairs. 

I cropped this picture several times to get it to this. That is the whale. Made me wish I had my camera. Darn me for leaving it at home.

Here is the view of the lighthouse. And if you look carefully you can see a bench, resting area just to the right of the stairs. There are two of them. I had to use those last time we went. 

See, they warn you about the stairs to make sure you are capable of doing it. Don't want to get stuck down there and not be able to climb back up again.

Found this growing out of the rock walls on the walk back to the car which was another 1/2 mile. I would say we still got our exercise in even without the descent and climb to and from the lighthouse.  Perhaps next time I will be in better shape. I have been swimming a lot for exercise. I am hoping it helps me knees feel better.

We continued on with our drive until we figured it had cooled off some. It was still hot by the time we got home, but not as bad and eventually we were able to cool the house down by opening the windows and turning on the fans.

Stay cool,

Linnea

Linking up with A Southern Daydreamer for Outdoor Wednesday. 

P.S. I looked everywhere for my camera and never did find it. I had last used it the night before at a concert. I'm afraid I lost it there and it was never found. Fortunately, I had already uploaded the pictures except for the ones taken that night.

 In the meantime I got a new camera! Still getting used to it. And the next post I do will probably be pictures from the new one.

An Outdoor Blue Monday

This week I am going to make this a double thingy.

The BLUE skies and BLUE water for a BLUE Monday.

And because it is outdoors I will also

link up with Outdoor Wednesday

which I have not done in awhile.

Thank you to our hosts,

Sally at Smiling Sally

and Susan at A Southern Daydreamer.

A couple of weeks ago it was such a beautiful day

that on my way home from my parents

I decided to climb the hill (in my car)

to this winery I have never been to.

I heard they have wonderful views up there.

I was not disappointed.

I could not believe how much I could see from up there.

Pretty vineyard on the way with

clear BLUE skies.
Another view.
Wanted to get some fall colors while I still could.

Look at the vineyards on the rolling hills.
BLUE water in the distance too.
That is part of the San Francisco Bay.
But the north end of the bay is actually
called the San Pablo Bay.
The patterns of the vineyards on the hills are fun to look at.

Look at this fountain!

A little more to the left.

I passed that red barn on my way up to this place.

I climbed more stairs and I was greeted with more fountains.

See? BLUE water.

I will need to come back to this place and explore more.

Another pool of water looking very BLUE.

When I first walked up those steps I was startled to find

water on both sides of me.

Felt a little strange. Like I was floating or something.

That unusual scuplture has some bluish

things on it. Maybe they reflect the light.

Next time I will have to get a close up of that one.

Looking back down the stairs.

The sculpture down there has BLUE.

I did not realize I got that coffee cup in my picture until later.

I noticed it there and wondered why people need to do that.

Another view.

I will have to bring B-Daddy with me next time.

We can then check out more of the winery

and do some wine tasting.

The water trickling down beside the stairs.

The same scuplture looking back up.

Not as BLUE that way.

Depends on the lighting.

But in the bottom thingy

you can see me taking the picture.

I just noticed that.

The steps are fairly easy to climb.

They are short steps.

But there is also an elevator to get up there too.

I have been driving by the signs to this place for

a long time now.

I am glad I finally checked out.

And on a gorgeous day too!!

Have a wonderful week.

~Linnea~

Outdoor Wednesday-A Sunflower Question

Welcome to Outdoor Wednesday!

I have not posted an Outdoor Wednesday post

in a long time now.

Well, a few weeks anyway.

Thank you to Susan at A Southern Daydreamer for hosting!

~~~~~~~

I have a question about sunflowers.

This is my first time ever to grow sunflowers.

Here is my first sunflower in bloom!

It is not one of those big ones.

I did not know it was going to be a smaller one.

~~~~~~~

Before I go on.....

here are a few scenery pictures.

The fog rolling in from the Pacific Ocean.

We live about an hour away from the ocean.

But we still get the fog coming over those hills to the west.

I captured this scene from behind our house.

This is a different day.

We were on the way home from Joann's Fabrics.

B-Daddy slowed down so I could get this shot.

We are looking west were and the fog is coming over the hills

in the distance.

This is the road we were on.

An area of expensive homes.

I love driving on this road.

Great views.

Don't mind the dirty windshield!

Now we are back on the road I usually drive on

to and from work.

This tree lined section is really neat.

Sorry about the spots on the windshield.

This is what we see after we come out from the

tree tunnel.

Boy, I really need to clean my windshield!

~~~~~~~

After that interlude,

back to the sunflower.

Once it appeared the sunflower was done,

I decided to clip it and explore my

first sunflower.

Here is it after I cleaned away some of the fuzz

and surrounding green cover.

I realized those are seeds there!

Well, I kinda knew there should be seeds there.

But being my first sunflower........

you know......

I wasn't sorta kinda sure.

You know what I mean?

I took some of the seeds out.

I always thought the seeds were darker with shells.

But I guess those are from the really

BIG

Sunflowers.

So I guess my question is:

Are these seeds edible?

Should I do something with them first?

Did I take them out of the sunflower too soon?

I am out of the loop when it comes to sunflowers.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Pretty please??

Here is another close up of the seeds.

I have three more blooms out in the yard.

I want to know more of what to do

before I pick those.

Thanks!!

And now have a

Happy Outdoor Wednesday!

~Linnea~

Outdoor Wednesday-Flowers and Problems

Thank you Susan for hosting Outdoor Wednesday.

You can visit her over at A Southern Day Dreamer

and see who else is participating in Outdoor Wednesday.
~~~~~~

Blogger is giving me grief again.

My first three pictures are in the wrong direction.

You probably can't tell, but I can tell.

I even tried uploading them a second time.

Same thing....turned vertical instead of horizontal.

Blogger does not have the right to decide

which way my pictures go.

~~~~~

Tilt your head to the right and you will see how I actually took this picture.

This is more of my bachelor button I planted.

I shared a blue one on Blue Monday.

I have them planted surrounding my petunia tower.

Perhaps I will take a picture of the whole thing for next week.

I guess it doesn't really matter which way this picture goes.

It is a picture of a mum that came back from last year.

It is small.

Taking the picture in the macro setting

makes it appear larger.

This picture got turned too.

Also does not really matter which way it goes either.

This is Dianthus.

~~~~~

While hubby and I were out in the yard

taking pictures and deadheading and so on,

hubby heard water running.

Uh-oh!

This is the problem portion of the story.

~~~~

There is an irrigation system that goes under the house.

There are no faucets on the yard side of the house.

One is on the carport side towards the back

and the other is on the front corner

also on the carport side.

~~~~

So some previous owner rigged

up an irrigation thingy and

ran the pipes under the house and deck

so that there was a sprinkler system

on the yard side.

Makes sense.

Except it did not work right

so we are not using it.

Never did.

Instead we ran a hose around the back of the house

and attached another hose.

We have that hanging on a hose holder.

Works for us.

~~~~~~

Well, the water hubby heard running

was coming from the sprinkler system.

We were not able to turn it off.

So what did we do?

Turn off the house water.

That worked.

But........

No running water in the house that way.

AAACCCKKKK!!!!

Why do these things keep happening to us?

~~~~~

So we got situated for the night...

freshly flushed toilets

and water prepared to drink.

And left the house water turned off for the night.

~~~~

I did manage to get these sunset pictures.

But I was almost too late getting the camera.

It was more pinky earlier.

The second picture is kind of blurry.

But you get the idea of the pretty sunset.

~~~~~

Sunday morning we get up.

With plans to go to church and

to a church picnic at another church

in another town.

Well, we had to cancel those plans.

~~~

When we turned on the water to flush toilets,

fill the coffee maker, fill water pitchers and

a dishpan of warm soapy water,

we discovered the outside problem was even worse.

Starting to flood that area if we keep it on too long!

See how much it was pouring out there!
I laid out plastic garbage bags to try and direct the water to

the rose bushes.

Here is my emergency trench making thingy.

It worked to direct water to the roses.

But it also went beyond as you can sort of see to the left

of the middle rose bush.

So when ever we didn't need the water

we turned it off.

That is why we filled all those things.

We also called my mother to let her know

we would not be at church and would be missing the picnic.

Here is the other pipe that was leaking!

Then to top it off, we discovered one of our toilets was leaking!!

We were ready to scream!!!!!

~~~~~~~
So we leave to go to our local

Home Improvement store.

We are a small town,

no big chain improvement stores here.

As we leave, we notice our park managers

by the park pool.

So he pulls over to tell them about it.

The guy wants to see it.

Ok, so we go back to the house

and show him the problem.

Oh by the way, the toilet is leaking too we tell him.

~~~~~

He says don't call a plumber on a Sunday.

We have a guy here in the park who will do repairs.

Yay!!

He comes over and checks everything out.

This is where the sprinkler system is turned on and off.

Hard to see, but it was also leaking here too.

If you click on the picture to enlarge,

you can see the drips.

~~~~~

The solution?
He caps off the pipe at the main faucet.
The one that went to the sprinkler system.
No more leaking!!
AND he fixed our toilet!
~~~~
The cost........
$60!
Don't know what a plumber on a Sunday would have cost.
But we were happy with the $60.
~~~~~
What a relief to be able to turn the house water back on.
Now we can take our showers.
Happy Wednesday!!
~Linnea~

Outdoor Wednesday and REDnesday!!

It is Wednesday and I am doing a double post again.

But first I need to thank Susan over at A Southern Day Dreamer

for hosting Outdoor Wednesday.

And to thank Sue over at My Secret Garden for

hosting REDnesday!
Most of the pictures are Outdoor Wednesday pictures.
Well, actually all of them all today.
But at the end are the RED ones.
Enjoy!

This is a continuation of our Saturday at the
home of church friends. I posted about them on Blue Monday.
The picture above was my view from where I was sitting to eat dinner.
The sun is getting lower in the sky creating
this interesting lighting of the sun across the vineyards.
See that shelf thingy on the left?
That is their potting bench.
Now isn't that a neat place to work on your potting and transplanting?
Now we are on the front side of the house.
This is looking NE across the valley in the wine country.

And now looking directly east.
This is taken from the front porch.
I would love to be able to sit out there and watch the sunrise.

And now to the SE.
My kids hopefully would recognize that peak in the distance as
Mt George.

This is looking north from their front porch.
This is the direction the fireworks show was in.

While waiting for it to get dark,

I took more pictures of flowers. Of course.

I shared blue ones on Monday.

Here are some yellow.

These are daylilies. See the bee there?

Practicing flower photography.

Using the macro setting.

Hey, a bug has landed on this one!

More macro shots.

I like the way this one turned out.

~~~~~~

Now it is time for the REDnesday!

RED in the fireworks.
My camera has a fireworks setting.

This gave me a chance to practice getting pictures of the fireworks.

Look at the RED!

Here is some yellow and green.

More RED!

Got this shot during the Finale!
Hope you enjoyed your Wednesday.

Happy Wednesday everyone!!

~Linnea~