Posts in: Apple

It’s the backyard Asian Pear harvest! Yellow are New Century variety and the brown skinned are the more familiar looking Hosui variety. They are odd spindly trees right now. I’m not used to pruning central leader trees, but vase shape. #Yarden #HomeOrchard #AsianPears

A colander with a mixture of yellow and brown skinned Asian PearsA very spindly Hosui pear tree with multiple stakes and lots of tree tape. It has pears still. The sky is blue and there’s more vegetation along a fence in the background. Drip line and gravel are in the foreground.A New Century Asian Pear tree with small yellow skinned pears. It’s better branched and dilated compared to the Hosui tree. In the background, there are ugly metal structures behind a wood fence. In the foreground is gravel and drip line.

Our cultivated California native seedy grapes are ready. The two plants mostly feed Northern Mockingbirds, Western Scrub Jays, and in the late fall, Kinglets, but some grapes will be for the humans in the form of a compote. As a bonus, gaze upon our lone avocado! #Yarden #HomeOrchard

Many bunches of ripe purple grapes hang from a grape vine.A hand is holding a metal colander filled with ripe red grapes. It's being held under a grape vine.An avocado is hanging from an avocado tree. It has a long stem and a narrow, green speckled body. A hand is nearby acting as a scale. It's about five fingers long and three fingers wide.

Sorry to those that are squeamish about spiders, but this Western Spotted Orbweaver was just asking for a photoshoot. This spider took the night-shift last night in our front yard #WesternSpottedOrbWeaver #Spider #InsectPhotography #Yarden #Fujifilm #SoOC

Plan-view of a Western Orbweaver spider with a fat, round abdomen and a tiny brown cephalothorax (head). The abdomen has patterns of brown within a matrix of coffee with cream. Its spider web can be descerned from the background, which is all blurred out. Its legs alternate between brown and coffee with cream. It has hairs on its head. It has spikes on its legs.The underside of the Western Spotted Orbweaver, which appears reddish probably because of light conditions. It has four clear white spots on its abdomen and an elongated white spot just below its head. Its chelicerae are visible. The background is completely blurred out.

I think this is the last nectarine harvest. About 6 pounds. The shield bugs were showing up and nectarines were dropping fast from wind and bird pecks :-( They were effortlessly plucked off the tree. Next harvest: Asian pears! #HomeOrchard #Nectarines #Yarden

A nectarine tree with almost a dozen dropped fruit on the gravel and dirt area below. The tree still has a few dozen nectarines on it.A collander of very ripe dark red to orange colored nectarines sitting on a scale. The scale is on a plastic covering upon a tile counter. The scale reads 6 pounds and 5 ounces, so there’s about 6 pounds of necartines.

Here’s our Northern California seismograph for the M8.8 earthquake at Kamchatka. Impressive. Took about 10 minutes to reach our town. Not sure what the signal was 15 minutes before it though.

Edit: Looking at the timing, the 15-minute earlier signal was likely me coming home from work & closing the front security door #Earthquake #RaspberryShake #Seismograph

A screen capture of a RaspiShake seismograph showing the M8.8 spiking clearly at around 23:34 GMT.

Another nectarine harvest. This time, 4 pounds. Smelling more fragrant this time! A few came off with a tug (yellower stems) but most still need shears. Also, our milkweed has busted open their pods and omg the tufts are so soft! #HomeOrchard #Nectarines #Milkweed #Yarden

Four pounds of dark red to red to yellow nectarines piled up in a metal colander.A milkweed pod is releasing its seeds, which are ready to wind carried away by their fluffy, white tufts. The pods are cone shaped and split down the middle to release their seeds.

#WhiteTailedKite #Birds #BirdPhotography #NorCalCoast2025 #Fujifilm #SoOC

A White-tailed kite, soaring above under overcast skies, is gliding away from the camera, showing its belly and an eye. It has a mostly white body with its wings fading to grey. Its neck has a rust-red collar.

Started our Nectarine harvest. Last year they got bug infested but not this year. So far. One branch got majorly overloaded 😬 so I harvested it first. #HomeOrchard #Yarden

A metal colander filled with ripe red to yellow nectarines and a few green leaves.A tree laden with nectarines stands in a rocky garden area. One branch, the closest one, is seriously overloaded.

Outdoor backyard irrigation system fixed & weeds removed. That’s it for outdoors stuff! #Yarden #CaWx #DripIrrigation

A freshly reseated irrigation 20 PSI pressure reducer with drip hose T adapter. The area is freshly dug out for access. Dropped leaves cover most the ground.Bundles of 12V irrigation wires in a compact above ground black valve assembly, surrounded by dry leaves. Pressure reducers abs drip adapters are visible.

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