California Poppies

This pretty orange wildflower, is native to these hills, and the state flower. 

Our property consists of and is surrounded by some pretty barren hillsides. I recently ordered a pound of Orange California Poppy seeds online and they arrived the same day as our first rain... how serendipitous! 

We immediately headed out to start scattering seeds! 

Livvy thought it would be nice to have some down by the climbing tree. I couldn't agree more! 

With any luck at all our hillside will look something like this in the spring.

Diablo Grande Sage Honey

(as I posted earlier this week on Facebook) 

I had the pleasure of meeting Mr Orin Johnson this afternoon on my way home as he was tending the hives in the canyon that the Diablo Grande Parkway runs through. 

We've been discussing nutrition and various components, including allergies and the benefits of local honey. I promised my friends that I would try to track down the honey produced in the hives that spend the winter months along the road on the drive home. No sooner said than done... on the way home, I spotted someone working with the bees -- so I stopped! 

I learned that Johnson Apiaries are the beekeepers of the bees (and hives, obviously) that spend their off-season (when they are not pollinating Almonds) here and have for over 60 years! 

Mr Johnson is a very nice man, and does mostly pollination and bulk honey - but has some customers who buy smaller (household) jars. He even happened to have a jar of the (mixed) Sage honey that he collected here last year and I happened to have some cash! Lucky me. ((by the way - it's DELICIOUS!!))

This is a photograph of Orin Johnson and his bees in an Almond Orchard that I found on a photographer's site: http://www.annehamersky.com

This is the story of Johnson Apiaries http://www.agalert.com/story/?id=779 , written by Christine Souza in 2007. 

Science Museum

We went to World of Wonders Science Museum in Lodi with our friends from MOMS Club. It was a neat place lots of hands on fun!

Like this tornado. (Though Liv wasn't absolutely sure it was awesome to be that close)

This really interesting spinning table with various objects that could be placed on the disc, near the center or near the edge, heavy or light, and balls that could be rolled across. 

Neat magnetic building blocks

Story time, a "flight simulator", all kinds of hands on play with various forces - the kids all had a great time! 

McD Play Place

Last week the girls were thrilled to have an opportunity to go to McD's Play Place to meet Daddy for lunch and then meet up with carpool buddies. 

Its a special treat even though they barely touch the food, they love the climbing & slides; Liv especially! 

Mimi wasn't quite as confident, but Liv kindly and exuberantly showed her around the maze of structures.

And they both had just too much fun! 

New Wild Cat

Liv first spotted this beauty out the window while we were eating breakfast today.
She wandered off around the side of the house. 

(I don't actually know the gender - but this animal is significantly smaller than the big male we've seen on other occasions. Probably a juvenile.)

...and then we saw her again a couple hours later!

Again these pictures are taken from the kitchen window, she heard us and promptly left!

What a beauty!!

She bedded down in the ornamental grasses behind the house and groomed herself for a good long time before she stalked off again. (Those pictures are pretty bad - taken through the window screen and her own screen of grasses)

New Bike

Santa brought the girls a new bike and Liv has really taken to it!
It is a "balance bike," a 2-wheeler with no pedals or training wheels.

We started calling it a "running bike" to help her visualize how it works ... then watched some YouTube video of other kids on Strider bikes. She tried it out in the grass first "just in case I fall over - it won't hurt." By day two she was moving right along - not necessarily straight, or without wobbling, but that's the point.

I really think Camila could ride it too, but she's just getting tall enough to reach the pedals on the trikes and is pretty excited about that. We'll see what's next for her. 

You can see Liv is getting pretty comfortable on it. And pleased with her progress. 

Fairies and Flutter-Flies

The girls got these beautiful fairy costumes from Auntie Kim for Christmas, and they love to wear the wings and fly around! 

Sometimes they are fairies and sometimes they are beautiful butterflies.

Liv drew a picture of herself with fairy wings.