Today was family day for us in Southern California. We visited my sister and family before going over to my Mom’s house. We went back to the house afterwards and dropped the dogs off so we could go do some food shopping. When we got back from the supermarket, Beethoven greeted us from his lookout post as we pulled into the driveway. Click on the image to enlarge.
Having a photo of an iris flower on a post about the recycle center might seem a little weird, but in the case of the county recycle center at the landfill in Palos Verdes, CA, there are pretty flowers all around. In fact, the South Coast Botanic Gardens is located just across the boulevard at the site of another landfill. Since the county maintains the garden, I assume they also provide the landscaping for the Recycle Center, although there are more exotic plant species over there.
Image: Iris flower at the Recycle Center. Click image to enlarge.
As for recycling, we brought 2½ 33 gallon-sized bags of crushed aluminum cans for which they paid us around sixty-five bucks. They also take glass, numbered plastics, newspaper and used motor oil. Even though we aren’t greenbats, we do believe recycling is a good thing, especially if we get some cash for doing it.
Yesterday, as we headed home from the California house, we passed the wind turbines of San Gorgonio Pass. (a.k.a Banning Pass). The turbines extend from Beaumont all the way to Palm Springs, a distance of about 20 miles along I-10. The sight of all of these is overwhelming, considering that there are over 4000 turbines in this area.
On our trip to California last week, we passed two semis going eastbound, each with a generator hub on a flatbed trailer. Seeing the hubs up close like that makes you realize that they are actually quite huge. They don’t look that large when they are on the tower.
Yep – they are an eyesore, a danger to flying wildlife and dollar for dollar they produce far less energy than a good nuclear plant. Go figure. Image courtesy of the Damsel. Click to enlarge.
We have seen cell phone transmission that have been disguised as conifers, palm trees and who knows what else, but this is the first time we have seen a church steeple (or whatever) with cell elements strewn on it. Seen on I-57 near Fullerton, CA. Click on the image to enlarge.
When we return to California, we’re always greeted with surprises – some unpleasant ones, like elbow high weeds in the back yard and some nice surprises like flowers in bloom. We mow the weeds down, spray Round Up grass and weed killer and I take pictures of the flowers.
This is (I think) a lithops in bloom. “Lith” from the Greek for stone and ops meaning “like.” This species uses it’s stony, unappetizing appearance to keep from being eaten by small mammals, but occasionally produces flowers for propagation purposes. Click on the image to enlarge.
When we come to California to the old house, we bring our recyclable aluminum cans so we can turn them in to the County recycle center and get $$ back. We had quite a load this trip and actually got over a hundred bucks for the aluminum cans. We had been collecting them over several months.
The funny thing about the recycle trip is that we get most of our aluminum beverage cans in Arizona. In our state, we do not have the nutty greenbat notion of California Recycle Value (CRV), so we can take advantage of recycling our scrap aluminum and get the CRV back that we didn’t pay in the first place. 😀
Damsel took this picture of an unusual succulent just outside of the gate to the center. The large drooping flowers attracted a bunch of bees we could see buzzing around. Click on the image to enlarge.
After our all-day drive from Wickenburg to Torrance, I paused in the patio garden to photograph this nice daffodil that seems to be doing OK in spite of not having any attention for nearly three months. Click on the image to enlarge.