A Little Knowledge

Many years ago, I called the Engineer to proudly tell him that I had decided to personally fix an electrical problem in my house. I had been to the library, found a book with clear and direct instructions for me to follow and I was ready to tackle the job. His reply, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." It made me pause. I don't remember the problem now, only the caution.

"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing", is one of those records in my head. It's a good one for me. I'm a jumper. I'm usually in a hurry to start a project, then something interrupts my flow and I am off hurrying in another direction. The finish line is a novel place for me to find myself. When I decided to tackle my whole yard and introduce CA Natives, I knew I needed some education and perseverance. I needed all the help I could get.

The question I wrestle with now is: Am I stalling or learning? In rapid succession I will enter my learning journey of gardening with native plant, discovering local floral and fauna, meeting a community of like minded gardeners. I will give each class and field trip a blog page, the better to sort it all out later. This is the journal I've always wanted to keep.

Prickly Sour Thistle

Asteraceae, sonchus asper

sharp-fringed sow thistle, spiny show thistle

A member of the sunflower family.

NOT a CA native. The leaves are edible. Hmmm.

The leaves are bluish-green, simple, lanceolate, with wavy and sometimes lobed margins, covered in spines on both the margins and beneath. The base of the leaf surrounds the stem. The plant can reach 180 cm (6 ft) in height. The leaves and stems emit a milky sap when cut. The flowers grow in clusters and the end of the stems. (wikipedia)

Wild Cucumber

Echinocystis Lobata

Wild Cucumber

See the spiny fruit in the upper lefthand corner?

This invasive vine grows all over a tree in a neighbors yard. She's not fond of it since when the fruit dries and falls, it is rather unpleasant to step on. I searched the web to identify this vine and finally I found this wonderful article all about wild cucumber - pictures galore. Enjoy.

Capeweed

Arctotheca calendula

Capeweed, Cape Dandelion, Cape Marigold

This weed comes from Cape Prince in South Africa. Some plant it on purpose as a ground cover. It grows in rosettes and sends out stolons. Stolons are stems growing along or under the ground and taking root at the nodes or apex to form new plants. In other words, trouble.

Red Sand Spurry

Spergularia Rubra

red sand spurry

This is another non-native plant that has done well in CA.

Camarillo Bird Museum

Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology

The Bird Museum (Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology) is located at

439 Calle San Pablo in Camarillo, CA.

On the last Friday of the month from 3-4pm they conduct a public tour of the Museum. They limit the group to 20 people, so if you plan to visit them it is a good idea to make a reservation by calling 805-388-9944.

I took this tour on Friday, Jan 29th. This is what you can expect:

The tour will be full.

The museum is cold. Bring a jacket.

You will be entertained. Rene Corado, the Collections Manager gave us a very informative tour and told us exciting stories about his travels to collect specimens.

The museum houses 190,000 bird eggs, representing 4,000 bird species; 18,000 nests; 55,000 bird study skins and 8,000 books on birds and natural history. You will see a tiny fraction of these.

I hope you visit their website. Check back again in July to find information about bird identification classes they will offer in September and October.