Life in Big Valley is so abundantly beautiful right now, it seems appropriate to show pictures while limiting the commentary.
What does one do with beauty but bask in it? The flowers and birds of the place are at their peak of productivity. Color, fragrance, light and birdsong fill the days. The nights are star-spangled and frogsong-filled.
The sun and heat are not yet so harsh in May as they will shortly be. Roses and poppies, orioles and tree swallows seize the moment. The moisture in the soil has not yet been blasted by summer heat. Some of the meadow grasses are still coming up green.
Thanks to showers early in the month, the creek is still flowing and ringing at night with the chorus of Western toads and Pacific treefrogs. The valley oaks and cottonwoods are in full leaf.
The free ranging guinea fowl and ducks make their continous rounds, eating all the way.
Among the many productions of the ranch are acorns, figs, loquats, pears, tomatoes, grapes, and walnuts. Then there are the many broods of barn owls, swallows, bluebirds, quail, woodpeckers, gophers, lizards, snakes, bats, squirrels and jack rabbits. But the crops of oak galls, bird feathers, and obsidian fragments are also impressively abundant.
