Pond Scum

The pond was emptied of its contents yesterday morning. This included two small Koi fish, bulls' tongue, cattails, yellow irises, penny wort, umbrella plants, water lilies, parrot's feather, lizard's tail, water hyacinths, mosquito fish, pumps, submersible lights and a quarter ton of algae. The pond liner was scrubbed free of algae. It took about 4 hours of labor. Then, the plants were divided and re-potted. There's a "mini" lily variety that has never bloomed, so I'm considering selling or trading it in our neighborhood's block garage sale. I trimmed off all the growth to teach it a lesson.

Here's a sample of what's going on in the pond.

San Diego County Fair 2009

The theme for this year's San Diego County Fair is "Music Mania".

After getting a fill of my first fried Twinkie (didn't they used to come packed in pairs?! No?!), Zucchini Weeni (VERY GOOD!!!), pizza (bleh) and a chocolate-dipped ice-cream cone the night before, I went back the next day and took a few pictures in the garden area. There were plenty of creative plant arrangements to keep your eyes busy for hours.

San Diego Zoo

I snapped a few pics at the San Diego Zoo the other day. It was a fine day to take advantage of the zoo pass and check out the newly opened Elephant Odyssey exhibits.

There was an archeologist's tar pit exhibit where eerie music played in the background. The dark water, mimicking natural tar, levels would fall and reveal a collection of ancient bones lying underneath.

A couple of Columbian mammoth statues and other ancient animal statues were fun for kids' interaction.

This almost looks like an enclosure setup for Jurassic Park, except the creature models in this exhibit only go back 12,000 years ago. And, of course, the live animals in this enclosure will probably include giraffes or more elephants.

This Teratorn statue looks quite sinister with a bit of HDR photography added. This old "thunderbird" was very, very big!

Red Flowered Cactus

This cactus put on a show today with several red flowers.

I wonder why it is so difficult to take pictures of very red things?

Last year, this plant was infested with tiny, white mealy bugs. I noticed the bugs before, but they usually come and go on their own. Several months ago, though, I took the time to manually remove them with a pair of tweezers. I guess my work paid off as this seems to have resulted in more blooms this time.

This other pot of the same cactus was growing, neglected, underneath the shade of some bushes. The plant seems to have grown longer in its search for more sunlight. And, the flower blooms are going to happen much later than the other plant.

Bird House

I picked up a Wren House Kit at The Birdwatcher store in the town of Julian today. It was $1 less for the kit than the pre-assembled house.

It was so easy to put together.

Up in the pine tree the bird house goes.

Air Plant

I finally got my copy of Tillandsia xerographica. After seeing a larger ($90) specimen growing at The Plant Man in San Diego's Old Town district, I kept my eyes peeled for smaller offerings ($15). This "air plant" has a tendency to grow in a large swirling pattern around the base. The flowers are probably not as impressive as other species of Tillandsia, though.

Earth Day 2009

It was a very hot and sunny Earth Day in San Diego's Balboa park. There was a small parade and plenty of booths to investigate.