I had a blast playing Bocce Ball over the weekend with family & friends.  Most of us were Bocce Ball virgins.  Turns out it's a simple game to learn, very relaxing to play, and is doable for kids and seniors alike.  Even my friends who "never play sports" joined in.

I love the wildlife here in North Park.  It's great to live in such an urban neighborhood and be able to enjoy nature at the same time.  San Diego has more biodiversity than any other county in North America.  We also have a vast number of threatened and endangered species residing here, many of which are native to our area and found nowhere else in the world.  We're in a special place.

Today I admired this pretty Mourning Cloak butterfly in our yard.  It was enjoying the orange nectar.  For a couple years now we've been trying to attract Hooded Orioles.  So far this is the only creature who has actually been interested in the oranges.  But eventually we'll have an Oriole follower; they're all over North Park and they love nectar.

Another common bird in North Park is the Cooper's Hawk.  Anyone who feeds finches and sparrows is also providing a feeding site for Cooper Hawks, as they often prey on smaller birds.  Here are a couple of the Coopers who have visited our finch feeders. 
       

One of our favorite birds to watch in the yard is the Scrub Jay.  They've got big personalities.  They typically forage in pairs.  They'll come grab large peanuts in the shell or as many meal worms as they can hold, and then fly off with their load.  A few days ago we watched as one Jay took a long and enthusiastic bath in our backyard.  He totally soaked himself.  I was surprised he wasn't too heavy to fly away.



Of course there's always the proverbial squirrel doing gymnastics to reach the birdfeeder filled with sunflower seeds.

There are lots of Mourning Doves with their distinctive and comforting coo-woo-woo-woo calls.  In flight, their wings make a fluttery whistling sound, especially when taking off.

We used to see an amazing little coyote every night around 10:00.  He liked to eat the dates underneath the Date Palm at the end of our block.   They're resourceful survivors.

There was a big fat raccoon that emerged from the city drain at the corner of Dwight & 33rd on a regular basis; we'd often see him between 9:00-10:00pm if we happened to be driving by.  Cars and people did not seem to faze him.

I hope you're enjoying the nature in North Park as much as we do.  It's a fun and therapeutic diversion from our otherwise busy and complicated lives.

Dick & Alberta Wagoneer moved to North Park 21 years ago.  Since then, they have been creating and maintaining what I would call the most striking garden on my street.  (My photos are not doing it justice!)  I've been walking by and admiring it for 8 years and I finally had the pleasure of meeting them today.  It was another reminder of why I love living in North Park; it's the people.  Okay...maybe it's the flowers, too.



Dick and Alberta lived for many years in El Cajon where they both worked as Elementary School teachers.  When they retired, they wanted a smaller home and something closer to the kinds of activities they enjoy, like going downtown to the symphony and walking at the beach.  North Park offered just that.  (They nearly purchased a condo in Mission Hills, but Dick plays the organ and the HOA wasn't sure they wanted him sharing walls with others; this led them next to our neck of the woods.) 
When they bought their North Park home back in 1988, it needed a ton of work.  (It had been built in the 40's by the family that also owned the house next door.)  Dick and Alberta worked on it for a year before it was ready to move into.  They have completely transformed it and, I might add, did so before North Park became a "trendy" place to live.   They had vision.



Naturally they've seen things change around here.  They joke that they used to the youngest people in the 'hood.  Many of their neighbors were original owners from the 30's & 40's who were elderly and unable to maintain their properties.  (But they loved their neighors, who were all welcoming and neighborly.)  Gradually those original owners were replaced by new, younger ones who restored and improved the historic  homes.  They find it amusing that they've now become the "old" people on the block.

They call North Park the "10 minutes from everywhere" neighborhood.  I couldn't agree more.

The capability of the brain to permanently flash freeze certain memories into long term storage is pretty interesting.   Come Monday morning, almost everyone we talked to in San Diego had a story about what they were doing at exactly 3:40pm, when the 7.2 earthquake struck a few hundred miles away in Baja California.   One of the more interesting ones we heard was about a person driving on the I-805 / I-8 interchange who thought they were having serious car trouble, only to pull over and see that everyone else was doing the same.

Chloe and George happened to be in the backyard enjoying the late afternoon sun.  George was recounting his dream from the night before (in which strangely figured an earthquake) when both of us had the sensation that the other was pushing on their chair.  Soon enough we came to the realization that it was an earthquake in progress.   The whole thing was as if in slow motion; we had time to tune into voices across the canyon shouting about an earthquake, take stock of our rumbling surroundings, and note with amusement how another neighbor's lawnmower just kept droning right on through the whole event.  The scary thing about an earthquake is you never know how long it is going to last or how bad it is going to get.  In fact it's probably exactly that frightening uncertainty that overloads the brain's circuits and fuses those memories into the mental hard drive.

It seems like every year the beginning of April starts a flurry of activity in the community that really makes for a fun few months.  This year really is no exception.  We just had Indiefest for music lovers, and schools, community groups, and businesses seem to have a lot more in store in the coming months.