wildflowers at Pinnacles National Park

my annual trip to the pinnacles somehow got pushed to the wayside the last two years, but i'm back on track! pete and i had a fabulous hike today into the high peaks, down through the oak meadows, and into the caves. some of the wildflowers were past their peak, but there were still SO many! here are a few of the gems...

the ever-lovely california poppy

wildflower-loving ground squirrel

tiny waterfall

balcony caves

obligatory shot to prove i was on the trip

tritileia

crinkled onion

wildflower-clad hillsides

bitter root

indian paintbrush

wind poppy

venus thistle

lovely hiking path lined with poppies

pete waiting for me to catch up

fiddleneck

weekend with Mama Foley

would you rather visit minnesota or arizona in february? me too. my mom was going to be in arizona visiting her aunt, so i decided to join them for a weekend. we had a great time exploring the area and catching up. 

hiking at white tanks - i loved all the cacti!

 

a collared lizard

petroglyphs

our (noisy) lunch companions

great aunt nola, mama foley, and me

Arboretum love

i LOVE the university's arboretum. it makes me so happy. especially this time of year when the australian and south african gardens are blooming with flowers that feel like they should be straight out of a dr. seuss book - eucalyptus, banksia, grevillea, and protea in all shapes and colors. and the hummingbirds are back in force, especially allen's hummingbird. and a beautiful, warm february day to stroll in the gardens...who could ask for more?!

century plant

mason bee hive

three types of eucalyptus blooms - from australia

(my favorite eucalyptus bloom - a bit fraggle rock-ish)

bottlebrush

four banksia species

two types of grevillea

and finally the south african contingent - starting with the proteas

and last but not least from the floral side, the seussical featherheads

and the faunal showstopper of them all...

allen's hummingbird. isn't he a handsome fellow?

the early spring bloom is here!

it is the first week of february and the early spring bloom is already here in central california! it is amazing what a little rain, some warmth, and a good dose of sunshine will do. i know it will get cold again and the rain will return (i hope!), but the last few days in the san lorenzo valley have been divine. and our bees know it too. 

i'm a naturalist nerd so i notice when things are blooming throughout the year, but i am paying much more attention now that we have a hive of ladies whose survival depends on the timing and duration of the pollen and nectar flows. mid-february is the time of year when hives starve in our area because they run out of honey stores and there isn't enough nectar out in the world to support the hive (note: an observant bee keeper should know when food supplies are getting limited and can feed the bees to get them through the winter). we have been so excited to see our ladies bringing in pollen by the pannier loads over the last two weeks, shoring up their supply of food. we were not sure where the bees were finding pollen at first, but the blooming trees have finally revealed themselves to us with increasing abundance. we are so lucky to live next to the river...while it means a flood risk to us in the winter, it means lots of flowering trees for the bees, especially early in the spring. 

bay laurel - the first time i've seen this tree bloom

acacia - i love those yellow puff balls

willow catkins

a couple more trees on the dry, sunny slopes of the sandhills (old marine terraces - complete with shark teeth fossils!) are also in bloom. these trees are about three miles as the bee flies from our house so they could definitely be using them, but are more likely to be foraging closer to home.

toyon (california holly)

manzanita (this bush was buzzing with bees)

all of these blooming trees mean a wealth of supply for our bees right now. they are filling their pollen bags to the brim and coming home with yellow socks too! 

lots of activity at the hive entrance as the foragers come back with their gold

pollen socks!

we checked on the ladies yesterday and they are indeed putting up lots of pollen and nectar in the frames and they still have lots of honey to keep them going when this early spring bloom fizzles out in a few weeks. go bees!

the motherland (one of them)

in august i went to sweden with my mom, sister stephanie, and niece madeline. this was a family heritage trip that had been on my mom's bucket list for a while. my great grandfather (morfars far) immigrated to minnesota with his family when he was sixteen. my mom knew that they had lived near vilhelmina in northern sweden, but we did not know if there were other relatives that stayed. my mom did some research before our trip and was fortuitously connected to two women who turned out to be distant relatives on the other side of my mom's family. we met one of them - berit - in stockholm when we arrived and she toured us around old town stockholm - gamla stan - and showed us what she had discovered about our relatives. 

Berit and my mom learning about their shared relatives

Stockholm storkyrka (cathedral)

                            one of the narrow streets in Gamla Stan

we had a few days in stockholm to hit the highlights, including a trip across lake malaren to the viking settlement of birka. birka was one of the biggest viking trading posts in the area from the late 700s to about the 900s. from there we started heading north to vilhelmina, stopping along the way in sundsvall and ostersund.

on the boat to birka

burial site 

replica viking sail boat

replica viking house

The Vasa - way cool museum showcasing a boat that sank
20 minutes into her maiden voyage. Oops.    

Skogskyrkogarden - woodland cemetery on the outskirts of Stockholm

 

Stockholm stadhuset (city hall)

our first outdoor museum, above Sundsvall

one of the many dragons of Sundsvall

   

beautiful, quiet street in Sundsvall

picturesque village of Spikarna

  

  Cliffs along Alno island        

fronso kyrka & bell tower - Ostersund

on our drive to vilhelmina, we began to understand why so many swedes settled in northern minnesota...the landscape was eerily similar. mostly flat, lots of conifers, and random rocky outcroppings. and four-legged wildlife. with necklaces. :) 

we met with the other woman my mom had been corresponding with in vilhelmina. she was also a distant relative and had done a lot of research for us. she knew where homesteads where, where to find headstones in the cemetery, and the fates of other family members. she also had a serendipitous conversation with a coworker that put the wheels in motion for us to meet relatives of my great grandfather.

the area around vilhelmina was beautiful - i'm glad we had a couple of days to explore it. the sami culture is prevalent in northern sweden - thus the collared reindeer and the round huts called kotos. 

     

koto at fatmomakke (church village)

food storage at fatmomakke

trappstegforsen

 

cemetery looking over the lake near vilhelmina

main street in vilhelmina

many more adventures on our way south back to stockholm, including a bit of time along the coast and the sites of uppsala. we met four of our cousins at the airport in stockholm and were blown away by how strong the mellstrom genes are after so many generations. 

moose paintings from 4000-1000 BC (touched up) at namforsen, nasaker

mosaic at jakobs kyrka in hudiksvall

hoga kusten (high coast)  

lands museet in harnosand

gamla stan in gavle

  

the cathedral in new uppsala 

 

me with a statue of my man, Carl Linnaeus!
(he was a botanist and created the scientific naming system we still use
today. yes, i am quite aware that i am a total nerd. we also stumbled upon a
play in front of the cathedral the night before that was portraying the history of Uppsala. the bit about linnaeus was awesome...people dressed as plants, little kids buzzing around in bee costumes. my mom was totally confused how i knew what was going on in spite of knowing zero swedish. good times.)

cousin meeting!

figuring out how we are related

  

Per, my mom, Leif, and Ove

Now for some scary comparison photos showing the family resemblance:

my mom and her siblings

 

my brother and grandpa (morfar)

a good trip and such a treat to connect with relatives at the spur of the moment. now we have another excuse to visit again!