On the ranch, verbena blooms attract butterflies and bees.
Stephen's dogs express perfect joy exploring the territory.
The nine great oaks which embower the ranch house form the heart of a grove of thirteen, two of which are just across the road and two at Shady Rock Ranch next door. They are a world unto themselves supporting an array of life including cynipid wasps and more than two hundred other types of insects, which cause the tree to form galls in reaction to the insects' egg-laying in the tissues of the tree. The great trees are patrolled by swarms of guardian ants. Acorn woodpeckers, scrub jays, oak tit mice, white breasted nuthatches, California quail, Bullock's orioles, black headed grosbeaks, California towhees, spotted towhees, ravens, crows, red shouldered hawks, barn owls, wood ducks, European starlings and Western gray squirrels are among the nesters in the grove.
The oaks.
"Thrones have crumbled and new empires arisen; great ideas have been born and great pictures painted, and the world revolutionized by science and invention; and still no man can say how many centuries this oak will endure or what nations and creeds it may outlive..."
Peattie's Natural Histories
Pear ladder and Mount Konocti.
Fence lizard, like a griffon from a medieval bestiary.
White peaches on July 21.
Stock tank with decoys.
Wild grape.
