Seasonal observations

[ritaxis]

When people gather at this time of year, somebody will surely mention that they saw a whale recently. It spouted and everything. The really lucky ones were out on a boat and saw a whole bunch of them

Comments

[ritaxis]

We've also had drastic reductions. But one year they seemed not to really ever show at all, and the next year they were back, so there is hope.

There's a campaign out here to plantg lots and lots of milkweed everywhere within a broad swath of the flyway. There's a far amount of research into what might mitigate the pressures on the beasts. One thing they've done is increase the distance between the monarch resting trees and the visitor viewing spaces. I remember standing right under the trees in the past but now you can't get closer than ten yards or so, because there's indication that breeathing our scent and our exhalations is enough to be disruptive to them.

[heleninwales]

I like pumpkin, but we can only get them for a few short weeks in the run up to Halloween -- and then they disappear! It's as though they're only regarded as a seasonal decoration and not an actual foodstuff. :(

[ritaxis]

Until relatively recently it was pretty much like that here too. I think a fair part of the local culinary renaissance of the pumpkin here is because a town up the coast (Half Moon Bay) made itself a big name as a pumpkin center and part of the publicity was promoting the other thngs you can do with pumpkins besdes carve them.

There's actually a town called Pumpkn Center, but I think they are more of a grain-growing town.