Identifying the whatchamacallits
Ah, nature. It’s so full of whatchamacallits.
For many, no labels are necessary when a flower catches the eye or a bird flits overhead. It could be cuckoo or it could be a sparrow. It’s background.
For others, the problem isn’t lack of interest, but memory. By the time most of us are back home flipping through a bird book, our minds will have played tricks with the plumage. He is sure it was an oriole; she is just as sure it was a woodpecker.
Click here to keep reading the LA Times article on new iPhone apps for bird and wildflower lovers.…
Rain likely
The National Weather Service’s prediction for a chance of rain over the weekend in Los Angeles County elevates to “rain likely” for Martin Luther King Day and into the following week. If you haven’t got your wildflower seeds in the ground, the next few days are your window. Over at AccuWeather.com, Ken Clark’s blog sees enough rain coming that he warns people living near recent burn areas to “be ready to evacuate.”
Meanwhile, as the struggle between town planners and developers continues over implementing a Low Impact Development ordinance that would decrease storm water run-off, a community meeting is scheduled for tomorrow at City Hall. Click here for details.…
Haiti
To read the Los Angeles Times report "Haiti is in the grip of unimaginable destruction" click on the image.
At 4:53 p.m. local time on January 12, 2010, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Hispaniola Island, just 15 kilometers (10 miles) southwest of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. Besides its strong magnitude, the earthquake’s shallow depth of roughly 8.3 kilometers (5.2 miles) ensured that the densely populated capital suffered violent shaking, reports NASA. To keep reading the Earth Observatory report, click here. To learn about American humanitarian relief, click here for the US AID page. For President Obama’s call to the nation to help, click here. To make a Red Cross donation, click here. The minimum donation is $10. If you have an Amazon account, you don’t even need to get out your credit card. The National Groundwater Assn. has a page of organizations dedicated to providing clean water …
“A city that can take care of itself”
Desert mallow in Los Angeles. Photo: Annie Wells / Chance of Rain. Click on the image to be taken to a listing of dry garden resources for Southern California.
“Every Angeleno knows we’re living on water siphoned from other parts of the state. And it feels wrong somehow to drench your lawn in the middle of Southern California winter — even on one of the two allowed watering days…”
Where art meets science
For a tantalizing version of how and if this lovely graphic from NOAA’s Global Forecast System might reflect appreciable rain for the Southwestern US, go to Ken Clark’s AccuWeather.com news and blogs.
Via Aquafornia.
Or to find your local forecast, click here and enter your zip code.…
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