I love early spring when all the bulbs in the garden start to produce flowers. I especially like my hyacinths like this purple one that is currently in bloom in the garden. Click on the image to enlarge.

In between the rain showers today, the sun came out long enough for this bee to pollinate one of the Icelandic poppies out front of the house. Click on the image to enlarge.

The Kaffir Lilies on the patio have thrived for several seasons since being moved from the outside patio into the shaded covered area. These nice bright flowers do better if they are not exposed to direct sunlight. Click on the image to enlarge.

When the winter months roll around, you see a lot of flowers that are tolerant of the winter weather in California. We don’t have harsh weather along the coastline, but the nights are noticeably colder, often getting into the low 40’s.

A popular annual we see planted in flowerbeds is the Icelandic Poppy. I recently purchased some for the planters on our front porch. This bright yellow one bloomed just yesterday. I took this picture this morning, just when it was facing almost directly at the sun.

Click on the image to enlarge.

More from Wikipedia:

The Iceland Poppy is a boreal flowering plant. Native to subpolar regions of northern Europe and North America, Iceland poppies are hardy but short-lived perennials, grown as biennials, that yield large, papery, bowl-shaped, lightly fragrant flowers supported by hairy, 1-foot, curved stems among feathery blue-green foliage 1-6 inches long.

Diaz Lake is located in the Owens Valley, California, It has the distinction of having recently been formed as the result of a large earthquake. Click on the panoramic thumbnail for the full-sized version.

From Wikipedia:

Diaz Lake is located just south of Lone Pine, California, United States in Owens Valley. The lake was formed by the 1872 Lone Pine earthquake when 18 mi (29 km) of the Owens Valley dropped approximately 20 feet (6 m) and a new spring opened, causing water to fill the lowland.

The lake was named for the Diaz family who established a ranch here when brother Rafael and Eleuterio Diaz emigrated from Chile in the 1860’s. They owned and operated a successful cattle ranch until the land was sold to the city of Los Angeles.

Year-round fishing is available, and the “Diaz Lake Fish Derby” is held the first Saturday in March.

Some families in our neighborhood plant ground cover in areas around their homes, like flowerbeds and parkways. One home about a quarter mile from our place uses ice plant, a common ground cover shrub in California, to decorate the parkway next to the curb on one side of their corner lot. Today, it seemed like the whole parkway was alive with colors from orange and yellow flowers.

Click on the image to enlarge.

Via the always relevant Patriot Post.

Although we celebrated Presidents Day a week ago, today is the actual anniversary of the birth of President George Washington, the first president of the United States, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.

From WikiPedia:

George Washington (February 22, 1732 – December 14, 1799) served as the first President of the United States from 1789 to 1797 and as the commander of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War from 1775 to 1783. Because of his significant role in the revolution and in the formation of the United States, he is often referred to as “Father of His Country”.

The Continental Congress appointed Washington commander-in-chief of the American revolutionary forces in 1775. The following year, he forced the British out of Boston, lost New York City, and crossed the Delaware River in New Jersey, defeating the surprised enemy units later that year. Because of his strategy, Revolutionary forces captured the two main British combat armies at Saratoga and Yorktown. Negotiating with Congress, the colonial states, and French allies, he held together a tenuous army and a fragile nation amid the threats of disintegration and failure. Following the end of the war in 1783, King George III asked what Washington would do next and was told of rumors that he’d return to his farm; this prompted the king to state, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.” Washington did return to private life and retired to his plantation at Mount Vernon.

There is a turn-out along Palos Verdes Drive South where there is parking and access to the beach for fishermen and hikers. We pulled in to the lot and waited until a flock of pelicans passed by. I got several pictures including this one after several birds flew past the access.

Click on the image to enlarge.

I took this photo the other day when we were in the garden shop, where tulips of all different colors were offered for sale. I couldn’t believe how bright red the tulips in this bunch were. Click on the image to enlarge.

This image is from the October 1934 issue of Modern Mechanics magazine. The accompanying article contained elaborately illustrated and annotated details about how the aerial airport dirigible could work:

Sun’s Rays to Drive
Aerial Landing Field

Recent experiments in the conversion of the sun’s rays into electric power have led to an unusual idea in aerial equipment. It is a dirigible that not only would get its power from the sun but also provide space for a landing field in the air.

The ordinary cigar-shaped dirigible would in effect have a slice taken from the upper half of the gas bag. This would provide a large deck on which could be mounted solar photo cells, an airplane runway, and a hangar. Planes could land on the dirigible, floating over the sea, to refuel for trans-ocean passenger service.

Another unusual feature of this design, in addition to the landing field, is the use of sun rays to power the motors of the dirigible. Scientists estimate that the sun can develop as much as 86,300 kilowatts or 115,000 horsepower per hour in an area of a square mile. Photo cells convert the sun’s energy into electricity. When this can be done on a practical basis, the roof of an ordinary house can be used to develop electricity for the home.

Fun to think about, but as we know almost eighty years later, it is impractical. This image reminds me of a similar platform in the Art Deco fantasy, “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.”

Click on the image above to view the original Modern Mechanix article.

Just a few minutes ago, the counter on the Never Forget Tribute advanced past sixty million hits. Each time the graphic is served up on web pages that embed the tribute, the hit counter advances by one. Damsel and I thank those of you who have taken the time to embed the tribute on your websites. It’s people like you who know that America, and the World, can Never Forget. We are grateful that so many of you care.

In less than a year, the graphic has received ten million hits. Last March 15th, the counter clicked past fifty million. You can see the progress in the sidebar (if you have JavaScript enabled) which gets updated every several seconds thanks to the AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML) script I developed to place under the graphic. Watch it for a while and you will see the counter advancing as websites all over the world serve up an instance of the tribute.

The animation was originally inspired by an anonymously-produced PowerPoint slideshow making the rounds on the Internet and via emails after 9/11. I gathered some of the graphics and produced the prototype of the graphic to display on my personal website. After refinements and improvements suggested by Damsel and others, it appears as it does today. This is the graphic seen in the right sidebar depicting the attacks on America by terrorists. Last year, I added the tribute to the U.S.S. Cole to the package. Prior to that, I included the graphics for Flight 93 to the original tribute.

In August of 2005, I made the animation available to anyone. The offer was only taken by a few sites at first, but since then, many more have begun displaying the animation. As of December 2005, there were over 200 sites linking to it, and that number has been growing since. Sites in the US, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Norway, the UK, Italy and several other countries, display the tribute on their pages.

To all of you displaying the tribute, thank you for reminding your readers to Never Forget.