Happy 3rd Birthday, 45journal!

What started as a one year project back in 2010 is now beginning year number four!  I had some pretty strict rules for myself when I started the blog:  each photo had to be taken the day I posted it, and I could only post one photo a day.  It took me six months to completely burn out, and another six months to recover.  Around that time I started connecting with other daily photo bloggers, and realized that no one was taking each photo the day it was posted.  It was so hard!  Some days I would get many good shots and could only post one.  Other days the light was awful and I was embarrassed with everything I took.  Some days I just wasn't in the mood or feeling creative.  Thankfully those rules are long gone, but I do still try to only post one photo a day.  At this point though, I would have to say that the best thing about the blog has been all the different daily photo bloggers I've gotten to know.  I never realized I would make such great connections with people all over the US and the world.  So many different personalities and interests, but all drawn together by this quirky desire to post a photo a day!  I'm not sure how much longer I'll keep up the blog, but I'm not intending to stop this year.  For today's photo, a close-up of what I think is a miniature Lupine variation.  This was the most common flower I saw on my trip to Table Mountain on Thursday. 

Table Mountain and Our Encounter With Cows

Clover and I went back to Table Mountain near Oroville again this spring.  There's a little trail, visible in the lower left corner and slightly visible just above the purple flowers, that leads across the butte and to a waterfall at the edge.  Even though we came here within two days of our visit last year, we saw completely different flowers this time.  I would say the purple flowers must be lupine, but in miniature.  All the wildflowers on table mountain are tiny, and usually only just a few inches off the ground.  One difference this year was the number of cows grazing right along the trail's edge.  Clover was curious about them on the way out to the waterfall, but she left them alone.  On the way back though, two little cows were running, and so of course she started chasing.  Pretty soon she had about 50 cows on the move.  I was yelling like crazy.  She came back happy as could be and not even realizing she had done something wrong.  It was the leash after that.  At one point there were two cows right on the trail.  By this time Clover had an entirely different definition of a cow as something fun to chase.  So she was pulling at the leash, and these two bold cows were looking at us with very mean eyes for cows.  There was a little bit of a stand-off.  I was worried they were going to charge us.  They would sort of start forward and then pull back.  I didn't know cows could be so aggressive!  So by the end of the hike, we had both reassessed our feelings about cows. 

Edge of the Table

So here is the edge of Table Mountain.  There was a mushy ledge trail leading down the hill, and I wish I'd taken it now so I could post a photo of the front of the waterfall.  You can see the stream in the upper right of the photo, and almost see the falls.  It was interesting, because you could still ford the stream almost right up to the edge of the falls, and then it just drops off the side of the hill.  This family was dangerously close to the edge if you want my opinion.  Just before I took this photo the little boy at the top was stumbling around.  I would not make a very good photojournalist, because I was just frozen in my tracks, willing him to catch his balance, and I'm sure that was the "decisive moment."  Thankfully they all moved safely away from edge.

Artsy Wildflower

I read that Table Mountain is home to over 300 species of wildflowers each spring.  This is amazing to me.  I think I probably saw 7, although my eye isn't trained to notice the different varieties.  I don't think I'll post anymore closeups after today's, but I liked this one because it came out like a painting.  It was breezy, and so that definitely impacts closeup photos, and maybe this effect came about because of the breeeze?  I wish this shot was composed a little different, but I'm not very patient with this kind of thing, and between the soggy knees and the breeze blowing things around, this is just how it came out.  Still, I really like the light in this one.

Tiny Wildflower

Table Mountain really represents this interesting dichotomy.   When you're there it feels so large and open, and yet everything that was happening there was happening on this tiny scale.  To photograph the flowers I had to use my closeup filter, and get on my hands and knees.  And because of the vernal pools and general mushiness of the ground, I did the whole walk with wet spots at the knees of my jeans.  When I photographed this flower I didn't even see the little spider until I looked in my camera display!  Such an amazing microscopic world! 

Table Mountain

So this is my best "big picture" shot from Table Mountain yestserday.  The colors look a little surreal, but this is really how it looked!  I was expecting wildflowers like you see along the side of the road, about knee-high.  But all these wildflowers were so tiny they didn't even come above your shoe!  So all that yellowish-orange color is actually little flowers.  The whole "table" is a big volcanic outcrop, and if you weren't walking on hard rock, then you were walking on mushy ground. Or if you weren't careful, walking in a vernal pool!  Everyone in our family ended up with at least one very wet shoe, because these pools just appear out of nowhere.  They all eventually form little streams like you can see in the green band in this photo.  And there aren't any trails to follow, you just follow the streams until you eventually end up at a waterfall (foreshadowing!)  =D