Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Weather

Zazzle online shop If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.

I’m participating in the LetsBeWild.com Wild Weekly Photo Challenge! This week’s Challenge is: Weather.

I live in San Diego, in Southern California. I enjoy beautiful weather probably two thirds of the year. The baking heat of the summer is the bad part, but the skies can still be beautiful. On many days, the weather looks like this. Not a single cloud in the bright blue sky.

Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Weather in Southern California
Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Weather in Southern California

On a cloudy day, which is a rare occasion, the skies will look like this. You can still find plenty of blue sky even when the weather isn’t so great.

Let's be wild weekly photo challenge - weather - cloudy day in San Diego, California
Let’s be wild weekly photo challenge – weather – cloudy day in San Diego, California

On a rainy day, which is even rarer than a cloudy day, things get wet, but they still look pretty. Here’s a wet California lemon enjoying the precious rain. Yep, it’s the one I’m featuring in my 2013 photo calendar, which is now set up for sale by the way (I haven’t launched it officially yet, but it’s coming…).

Let's be wild weekly photo challenge - weather - a wet lemon in San Diego
Let’s be wild weekly photo challenge – weather – a wet lemon in San Diego

And of course, after the rain comes more sun. Things may still be a little wet, but the blue sky we enjoy on most days doesn’t like to miss a beat. This is Southern California weather for you in a nutshell!

Let's be wild weekly photo challenge - weather - wet branch after the rain
Let’s be wild weekly photo challenge – weather – wet branch after the rain

My 2013 calendar pick for September: a sumac’s colorful fall foliage

Zazzle online shop If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.

View all of the pictures I selected for my 2013 photo calendar.

My 2013 12-month photo calendar is now available for sale on my Zazzle online store. Thank you for your support!

If you like to see beautiful fall foliage, San Diego probably is not the right destination for you. Most of the tree leaves either never change colors (think palm trees, eucalyptus, and sage brush) or the few that do just turn yellow, then brown before falling to the ground.

But there’s one tree you can spot here and there that will stand out in Southern California in the fall: the sumac (Rhus Typhina, the non toxic kind). The sumac leaves display various shades of yellow, orange and red and the tree also features grapes of crimson red seeds in between the leaves. I found a great local spot last fall to take pictures of sumac foliage and I’m planning to go back this year for more.

I’m submitting this photo for the Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Fall theme so wish me luck!

What do you think of this sumac in the fall? Do you enjoy colorful fall foliage where you live?

My 2013 calendar pick for September: a sumac's colorful fall foliage
My 2013 calendar pick for September: a sumac’s colorful fall foliage

The color purple

Zazzle online shop If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.

San Diego County is home to many types of plants and flowers and Spring is the best season to spot colorful blooms. By the time June comes, everything turns to yellow and brown so you need to enjoy the blooms while they last. Lilac blooms are my favorite for sure (more lilac blooms here).

This past Spring, as I was hiking in a regional park called San Diego Mission Trails park, I noticed a beautiful purple flower on the side of the path. I kneeled down to take the photo below of this lupine plant. I call it the color purple.

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.”
― Alice Walker, The Color Purple

The color purple - California lupine at San Diego Mission Trails Regional Park
The color purple – California lupine at San Diego Mission Trails Regional Park

WordPress weekly photo challenge: Wrong

Zazzle online shop If you enjoy my photos and would like to purchase some, I want to thank you! Simply visit my Zazzle online shop and browse the product offerings. If there’s a photo you would like to purchase but don’t see it in my shop, please contact me by using the Contact form at the bottom of my home page and let me know which photos you are interested in purchasing, and in what format / medium.

I usually post photos for the WordPress weekly photo challenge on my Perfecting Motherhood blog, but I thought I’d reblog this week’s theme, since the photos I featured are quite interesting and unusual, even wrong.

I recently took some cool photos at a San Diego county park a few weeks ago, so I thought maybe something in there would fit the theme. And that’s when I found not one but two photos to share. I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoyed taking them.

The first one is the photo of a two-third dead tree. I say two thirds because its trunk split in three early on in its growth and two of them had to be cut off, probably because they weren’t doing so well. The three-trunk tree looks wrong, especially with limbs cut off, but I love how nature can make a wrong right by providing shelter in the hollow trunks for animals in need.

WordPress weekly photo challenge: Wrong – photo of a hollow tree
WordPress weekly photo challenge: Wrong – photo of a hollow tree

The second photo is of another tree where something else wrong happened with its trunk. But if you look closely, you may find something right came out of this wrong. I describe it as the hooded lady with a scarf. I love finding shapes like that!Do you see it? If you don’t, maybe there’s something “wrong” with you. 😉

WordPress weekly photo challenge: Wrong – the hidden face in the tree
WordPress weekly photo challenge: Wrong – the hidden face in the tree