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Red Horny Toad
Out for a walk with Larrold. An unremarkable lesser ridge among the rumpled hills. Chapparal, pine, gravel and grit. Then a flash of tiny red life running cumbersome from the fringe of the trail....
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Skinny-Dipper Detained, Cuffed and Cited at Montecito Hot Springs
ADIDAS: All Day I Dream About Soaking. “Absolutely insane. I’m blown away. Complete apathy on so many forest issues, yet this is what they decide to enforce? Bullshit.” –Anonymous, Montecito resident...
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Barefoot Prints In Volcanic Ash, Hawaii (1790)
Western slope of Mauna Loa (13,100′). The old trail of footprints lies somewhere beneath the cloud cover. A few months after arriving in Hawai‘i, Perkins was in the Kona area of the Big Island...
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Hollyleaf Cherries Golden Morph
Tafoni on a slab of exposed bedrock beside the golden cherry bush. It recalls the mind warp rock n’ roll nightmare of Rich Kids on LSD and the bubbles on their Reactivate album cover. “Of all our...
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Santa Barbara County Morels
Morel growing under a coast live oak tree with California poppies. (April 2025) Related Post: March is For Morels
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The Journey of a Root (1907) and Plant Intelligence
Los Angeles Herald, February 24, 1907. The Journey Of A Root From Santa Barbara, California, there comes a story of a most interesting freak of vegetable life, which is strictly vouched for. Through a...
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The Intelligence of Coyote Tobacco (Nicotiana attenuata)
Wild tobacco growing in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Santa Barbara County. (Fall 2024) If we define intelligence as an ability to perceive, understand and respond effectively to environmental stimuli,...
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Hat Tip to the Selfless Samaritans In Service to Others
Pope Francis died this morning, Easter Monday. An incredible date for such a man to pass on. The extraordinary event called to mind the deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, the second and third...
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Mark of Conquest; Benchmark and Mortar
United States Coast & Geodetic Survey benchmark (1872) on a Chumash mortar stone, Santa Barbara County. “The reverence attached to the artifacts of history is a thing men feel. One could even say...
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Naming Santa Barbara’s Modoc Road
Walking tracks, west of town. Keep on keeping on. This offering relates to the preceding, Mark of Conquest; Benchmark and Mortar. The previous post mentioned the Modoc War of 1872-73 in California....
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