Carolyn Jewel

@cjewel

Author, SQL Server Dev, Blue to the bone. Atheist. Hates Nazis. Working to remove invasive and non-native plants in favor of natives. AOC 2028 Mastodon Bridge: @cjewel.sfba.social.ap.brid.gy

1.590 Folgt829 Follower2.527 Posts

Bluesky

Ist das dein Profil?Übernimm es — dann gehört dir cjewel.dirty.social.Profil übernehmen

Carolyn Jewel@cjewel· 3d

Best picture I could get of a great blue heron scoping out the pond this morning

Close-up photo of a great blue heron standing at the edge of our small pond. in this photo you cannot see the pond. I was insidelooking out the window at it, trying not to scare it. Toward the right of the photo is one of the metal upright poles for the handrail for my dad. To the left of the pole a very long legged bird id giving me a side eye cause now it knows I’m sneaking up on it. The bird is mostly gray with flecks of white and a bluish tinge to its long sharp beak and skinny legs. From this angle, you don’t see how long its neck is and it looks like a football of sleek feathers on legs. The background is mostly dry grass.

Carolyn Jewel@cjewel· 10d

Here is a picture of the fox I saw this morning. It's not the best, but that's what happens with a phone and a surprise wildlife sighting.

A fox seem from the side fluffy tail nearly parallel to the ground, head down and heading to a post and wire fence to the right. The background is a field of brown grass, unmowed so there are some tall stalks still. The top third of the photo is the leaves and branches of a California Coast Live Oak. In the top forth foreground an out of focus arching branch of a very very old and leafless pear tree. The fox took its time walking across the field. It's heading for a pathway under the fence.

Carolyn Jewel@cjewel· Jun 19

Blooming in the pond today

A vibrant pink water lily with an orange and yellow center blooms amidst dark green and purple
lily pads floating on calm water. You can see a couple of the fish to the upper left and to the lower right is a bud.

Carolyn Jewel@cjewel· May 10

Y (Yesterday) I’m sitting on the bench in the field. The sky is blue. There is a breeze. 22C/72F. Lots of birds singing. I was heading out with the dogs and there were two vultures sitting on the pump house roof. About scared the life out of me

A brown vulture facing right. It’s head is bright red. It is standing on very old and missy roof shingles. In the medium distance is the leafy part of a black walnut tree. The vulture has a don’t fuck with me look.

Carolyn Jewel@cjewel· May 9

This is how Lord Byron plays fetch. I throw a ball. He runs and gets it and takes it to his spot and then stares at me until I throw another one for him to add to his collection. At least the balls are all in one place when I need to go back to the house.

Slightly right of center a small brown dog is lying down, looking directly and intently at the camera and wondering, are you going to throw another ball? Close around the dog are at least a dozen green tennis balls of varying shades depending on how old they are. The green grass is very short and freshly weed whacked.

Carolyn Jewel@cjewel· May 8

I’m sitting on the bench in the field. The sky is blue. There is a breeze. 22C/72F. Lots of birds singing. I was heading out with the dogs and there were two vultures sitting on the pump house roof. About scared the life out of me.

Carolyn Jewel@cjewel· Feb 1

Freddy’s cage used to be here.

An etched glass globe vase sitting on a brown wood table. The base is filled with long and slender blue green, yellow, and red macaw tail feathers collected from Freddie’s past molts. On the table next to the vase is a small rectangular clicker and a chopstick because Freddy was target and clicker trained. He always got excited when he saw me get the clicker because it meant together time and pine nuts

Carolyn Jewel@cjewel· Jan 31

Yesterday we said goodbye to Freddy the macaw. The vet said it was a combo of old age (he was 40-45 years old) and his arthritis. For a bit, it looked like he was rallying and might come home and I prepped for that, but then he got worse. We had him for most of his life and all of us are gutted.

A Military macaw seen from the front. He is perched on the upper portion of a narrow upward stump root that stretches from the lower right to the upper left. He is at a slight diagonal from left to right. The inside feathers of his long tail are yellow-green with a downward pointing triangle of blue feathers at the inside top of his tail. His body, head, and wings are green with blue tips on the edges of his wings. A red band arches around the top of his black beak. Around and behind is green grass and above that oak trees. His head and neck feathers are slightly fluffed because he is excited to be perched here with a pretty good view. I took this picture in Dec of 2025. We were buddies and we took walks every single day.

Carolyn Jewel@cjewel· Jan 5

Original post: mastodon.social/@weatherwest...

Carolyn Jewel@cjewel· Dec 7

California Coast, Live Oak in the mid distance. The sun is directly behind the tree and the shadow of the trunk is in a direct line with the trunk. The grass is green, foggy behind.

Carolyn Jewel@cjewel· Sep 21

Original post: mas.to/@VeryBadLlam...

Carolyn Jewel@cjewel· Aug 23

Cooper’s Hawk seen on my walk today with the dogs. I believe it’s a juvenile bird.

A Cooper’s Hawk facing the camera with its head turned to the left of the photo on a 3in diameter branch slanted mid-left toward the upper right branch surrounded by the branches of a huge oak tree. Its feet and legs are yellow. Its chest is speckled brown, head slightly darker. I believe this is a juvenile bird. I wasn’t very far away, and I was afraid if I moved closer, it would leave before I got a picture.

Carolyn Jewel@cjewel· Jun 29

Badger cam. PS I worked hard on the alt text

A shot of the back of the "badger cam" which is a slender metal pole about 1.5 ft tall with prongs stuck in the ground with a trail cam attached to it. The cam is in a field of brown grass. Directly in front of the cam about 2 feet away are two badger holes roughly the size of a person's head. They are side by side about 6-8 inches apart. Between the holes and the cam is all the dirt thrown up when the holes were dug. Past the holes (top of half of photo) is brown grass which is trampled down, fallen over, or upright but not super tall because I cleared the bits of grass that were tall enough to wave around in a breeze and take boring pictures with no badgers. To the upper left of the photo is another badger hole. FYI, the cam is attached to the pole with some string from the band of my hat because I had luckily put a pair of scissors in the bag with dog treats and balls and was able to Macgyver a field repair when it was previously moved and the connector broke.

Carolyn Jewel@cjewel· Jun 11

Here is a picture of the upper slope where I contemplate morning.

An old wooden bench with a back surrounded by California poppies in bloom amid mostly brown grasses. There are some purple mission bell poppies near the bench. Part of a flagstone path leading to the bench is visible to the left but mostly out of sight because the poppies are tall and bushy. To the right are more poppies and monkeyflowers (mimulus) in full bloom. The maroonmonkey flowers ones are taller and more visible some some are yellow or white. Behind the bench is a young golden sequoia, about 4 feet tall. The sapling is golden yellow with faint undertones of green. Behind that is the rest of the field that is not a garden. There are oak trees and redwoods and really tall field grass. It's a "garden" of Californias natives and it's shaggy and not manicured.

Carolyn Jewel@cjewel· May 14

There’s lupine blooming in the field across the creek. A small one so far, not the bigger ones. I hope there will be more.

A so so picture of 7 to 8 stalks of Lupin with a bonus yellow plant could be mustard. The cone shaped Lupin is at most 3 inches tall and shades of blue, white and purple. It is blooming in a field of grasses.

Carolyn Jewel@cjewel· May 11

In the lower field, there is some Clarkia blooming. The picture is not great because it’s windy and everything’s moving

In a background of plant stems and leaves a magenta Clarkia elegans flower: five petals that start narrow get wide then narrow to a point again.

Carolyn Jewel@cjewel· Apr 2

My sidewalk sign came. The pens it comes with are crap so it was tedious and physically painful to write on this. But I will get better markers. Will loads of people see this? No. But some will.

2-sided sidewalk sign on the side of a narrow driveway. It's sitting in the grass. Hand-lettered in blue on this side is "Elon Musk is a Nazi"

2-sided sidewalk sign on the side of a narrow driveway. It's sitting in the grass. Hand-lettered in pink on this side is "POTUS is a felon and hires Nazis"

Carolyn Jewel@cjewel· Mar 6

Looks like more material to me, but then she’s a small cat.

A close-up shot of a cardboard box with a side lid up that says “this box now made with less material.” There is a tortoise shell tabby cat sitting in the box looking pensive.

Carolyn Jewel@cjewel· Mar 2

Spring is coming. Baby Blue Eyes starting to bloom in one of my wildflower planting areas.

Amid intensely green wildflower seedlings and grass are two Baby blue eyes. They are tiny pinky fingernail sized flowers with 3 to 4 oblong light blue petals with a white circle at the base of the petals.

Carolyn Jewel@cjewel· Mar 1

Top corner of what I call the sink pond. That is a single native Californian strawberry. I think it’s happy here. This is a small pond. I built using an old sink.

At the bottom of the picture is a triangle representing the right corner of a square pond. There are some big rocks at the corner and above and spreading out behind that is a dark green native California strawberry plant taking up a couple of square feet by now.

Carolyn Jewel@cjewel· Feb 28

Took this picture just now. A gray fox right outside the house.

A California gray fox. It is on a paved driveway right next to a grassy border. It is facing left. Its tail is down. Its head is partially up and is looking me in the back doorway. The gray fox has short legs and a long body. The tip of its tail is very dark. It was eating leftover squirrel food. Mostly shelled
nuts. It’s just light enough to see that the grass is green, but the picture mostly looks black-and-white because it’s dusk

Carolyn Jewel@cjewel· Feb 8

Sunrise

Carolyn Jewel@cjewel· Jan 31

Here is a trail cam photo of the actual badger

A black-and-white photo the bottom third is white ground above that is black sky to the left of the photo. There is a badger on its back one paw in the air with its claws spread its nose is facing away. It was obviously rolling around on the ground. It’s a cute photo of an animal you don’t wanna mess with

Carolyn Jewel@cjewel· Jan 8

I believe this is Omphalotus olivascens (western jack o’lantern) which supposedly glows in the dark. I think if I’m correct about this mushroom they’re a bit too young to be glowing. Not sure! I’ll have to go down to look in the dark again. #mushtodon