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It’s been a banner spring for a lot of other flowering trees and bushes, but the jacarandas are just getting started.

It’s been a banner spring for a lot of other flowering trees and bushes, but the jacarandas are just getting started.

It’s been a banner spring for a lot of other flowering trees and bushes, but the jacarandas are just getting started.

The last few years have been really dry – since I moved to the area, actually – that this year’s half-normal rainfall seems to have kicked all the perennials into high gear. Most of the flowers are winding down (or being trimmed off) now that the rain is done, and I’d started wondering if I’d missed the jacarandas or if the change this year had meant they hadn’t flowered. And there was my answer: A tree with leaves, flowers, and buds forming. I hadn’t missed them after all, they just run on another schedule than everything else around.

Yeah, the trees vary a lot depending on which microclimate…

eighteenbelow:

kelsonv:

eighteenbelow:

kelsonv:

6 new photo(s) on Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/kelsonv/

Great photos!  I think I should visit California in winter at some point, because I thought it would look really different.  

Thanks!

The ponds are unusual, actually – the whole area’s been built up so much that only a few fragments of the marsh habitat are left, and remaining open space near LA is mostly in the hills and mountains. Those tend toward sparse forest, chaparral, and seasonal grasslands. The taller mountains usually get snow each winter, but the lowlands don’t.

The overall climate is hot and dry in the summer and mild and wet in winter, so January and February are when the hills start turning green. In wet years there’s usually a lot of wildflowers in spring, and then the grass turns golden brown in summer as the weather heats up and the rains stop.

Every year there are a few wildfires somewhere around the state too, usually in the mountains and canyons. That used to be mainly in fall, but the last few years it’s stretched out to year-round.

Further inland the deserts are are another totally different experience, with wider temperature extremes on both ends, fascinating geology, and their own ecosystems.

I’d definitely recommend visiting when you get a chance. Out of curiosity, what were you expecting?

I didn’t expect there to be so many deciduous trees that would lose their leaves.  This looks just like Ontario in late fall or early spring, and I guess I was thinking it’d look a little more sub-tropical or desert-like.  I know northern California is more temperate, but since you live in the southern part I assumed this would be different.  So now I’ve learned something new, and thanks for the explanation!

And yeah, I really would like to visit someday.  Probably not in the heat of summer because my spouse hates those kinds of temperatures, but I’d like to see it at any time of year.

Ah, I see what you mean. Yeah, the trees vary a lot depending on which microclimate and whether they’re landscaped or wild. Most of the trees used for landscaping either don’t drop their leaves in winter or only thin out. Palm trees, eucalyptus and pine are popular. And it doesn’t get cold enough for a lot of trees that would drop their leaves in other climates, at least if they’re getting enough water. Driving around the neighborhood I’d say only about 10% of the trees have gone totally dormant.

I suspect one of the reasons so many of the trees in the marsh drop their leaves is the seasonal water access. I went up into the mountains a few weeks ago and mostly there were either small bushes and trees that were green or taller evergreen trees.

Seasonal Wetlands: Summer vs Spring

Seasonal Wetlands: Summer vs Spring by Kelson Vibber

It finally occurred to me to put together a side-by-side image of the one spot I managed to take photos of on both hikes!

On the right: May in Madrona Marsh, after winter and spring rains filled up the low-lying areas of the preserve.

On the left: Late August in the same spot, after summer had dried up the pools. Despite the drought, and helped along by a couple of freak summer storms, the ground is still holding onto enough moisture that the floor of the vernal pool is covered with low greenery instead of dry grass.

I know, it’s always better to put “before” on the left, and I tried it with that layout, but it ended up looking better this way.

I’m reminded of the story about a student when I was in college with …

I’m reminded of the story about a student when I was in college with a name something like Sarah Tan, who was assigned an email address using the first two letters of her first name and her full last name. At the time they were really reluctant to change anyone’s address once it was assigned, with only a short list of reasons allowed to get a new email (like a legal name change).

They made an exception.

(Also, back then, finger was the name of a network command you could use to find out if your friends were online at the time, so…)

A reminder to those still reblogging and complaining about Teen Titans Go:

sometimesboffosometimesnot:

I think one of the markers of maturity is to look at a piece of art or pop culture and say, “Well, this isn’t my thing, but that’s OK.”

But of course that’s a lot quieter than complaining about kids these days and their awful TV shows/music/whatever, and how it’s nowhere near as good as the equivalent when *I* was that age (that I’m remembering through rose colored glasses, and of course that *shaped* my tastes), now that stuff was the pinnacle of TV/movies/sci-fi novels/etc. and everything out now is trash.

So guess which viewpoint gets noticed.

hoo boy, here comes some serious talk about fandom mentality

buckyballbearing:

amuseoffyre:

voltisubito:

hoo boy, here comes some serious talk about fandom mentality.

I feel like there’s a huge failing on readers’ parts to communicate to fic authors how much they appreciate their works or how much it affects them, unless the fic is “fandom famous” for some reason. sometimes it gets translated into demands (which are awful literally do not demand updates from an author ever).

more often than not, it gets translated into silence, and coming from a writer, the silence is probably the worst. you never know if they like it, you never know what the reader actually thinks about it. or even if they read it at all. and it’s… heartwrenching, and nervewracking and you start constantly questioning yourself and wondering if you’re actually good enough or if you belong. and you start comparing yourself. to the people who are popular, to the people with huge followings, to the people who get questions and art and compliments up the wazoo. and you start wondering if you should have bothered writing at all. in some cases you start begging. and in some cases, you do worse.

and it’s terrible. a writer shouldn’t have to beg. a writer shouldn’t have to only get attention when they’re frustrated or upset. a writer shouldn’t have to doubt themselves every time they pick up a pen or open their laptop. a writer should never feel so unimportant that they consider deleting their work–and do. and then be subjected to questions of why they deleted it.

(which, by the way, is kind of a rude thing to do. it’s their content, and they can do with it whatever makes them comfortable. and more than that–why wait until it’s gone to just suddenly unleash your appreciation for it?)

if, at this point, you are thinking, “well, writers shouldn’t write for attention anyway! writers should be writing for themselves!” then you are missing a Very Huge Point about the intricacies of and emotions behind creating art. of course art comes from the self, but art is meant to be shared. with people. like you. art is created for people to talk back to, to engage with, to live alongside–and yes, that in turn bolsters the creator’s own securities and motivation. it’s also a sad testament to the fact that we as a people have come to condemn the notion that anyone, especially content creators, should want attention at all.

and that’s toxic, and an awful mentality to have. (it’s also atrocious marketing. but, that’s another discussion for another time.)

what I’m trying to say here is this: a lot of this could be prevented by one simple thing. if you read a fic you like, *speak up about it.* make some kind of sign. about whether you like somebody’s work, or whether it excites you. reblog it to share with other people, gush in the tags, leave a comment/review if it’s on ao3 or ffn. (authors read tags as much as artists do, trust me.) kudos and likes are fine too, but like with any other kind of art, they’re very invisible. be vocal, y’all. spread the love.

and above all, *tell the author directly.* send them an ask, write a comment, tag them in an appreciation post. I can’t stress that enough. you’d be making someone’s day, relieving some securities, visible or not, instead of being complacent in this system, this mass way of thinking, that only popular writers deserve attention, that it has to be earned through working yourself raw instead of asked for. it causes these cliques and hierarchies and ultimately people start or keep maintaining this idea that people who are at the top deserve to be at the top, and people who get ignored deserve to be ignored. (which I have, in fact, heard people say, and that’s… I don’t even have a word for that.)

I just. something has to give, you guys. we have to stop doing this. we have to stop letting this happen. we have to be kind to our writers before they disappear.

and yes, you can reblog this post. in fact, I’d highly encourage it.

As someone who has been ficcing online since 1999, I can confirm that feedback is incredible for us. We like to know if there’s something you especially like or dislike. Kudos are nice and all, but is our characterisation okay? What about the dialogue? Did you find the plot slow/fast-paced?

I’ve been lucky lately, in that I have a solid core of people who tend to review a lot, but for nearly 7 years, I was in tiny, tiny, tiny fandoms where you were lucky if you got even one or two comments.

It’s encouraging when people do say something. Even if it’s just to say “i like when character X said Y, because it felt in character”. How do we know if we’re doing something right if no one tells us?

Fun fact: I realized that if I have time to send a text to my bff, I have time to leave a one line comment on fanfics

And yeah okay most of these wind up being something like “this was adorable, I love the way you showed [X] character’s conflict with [Y] by use of [Z]”

But hey if it’s the choice between that or nothing at all…

I’m not much of a fic reader these days, but I have to remember to give feedback on what I do read. I’ve settled into a pattern of saving blog posts and articles to read offline, which adds the extra step of remembering to come back later to comment. It might be efficient, but it keeps me quieter than I should be.

Jacaranda debris

Jacaranda debris. #flowers #jacaranda #purple

They are one of my favorite trees, though apparently there are people who absolutely hate them. From what I can tell it comes down to whether you have to deal with cleanup, because the flowers can get really sticky and messy after they fall, and there’s always a lot of them.

There’s a residential street near where I used to live that’s completely lined with jacarandas for most of a block. I loved driving or walking along there in April. I wouldn’t want to park there, though!