Rupert Clayton

@rupertclayton

IBM Software Architect at CDW · likes: science, satire and the big outdoors

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Rupert Clayton@rupertclayton· Jun 11

Merced County from ~20,000 feet.

A heavily contoured landscape of low ochre-colored hills illuminated by low sunlight from the west.

Rupert Clayton@rupertclayton· Jun 5

Our experience a couple weeks ago was very similar. Very happy to see tons of wildflowers all over the mountain, but the Calochortus tiburonensis seem confined to one rocky serpentine outcrop on the return loop of the trail. Once you find them, they're everywhere.

An otherworldly flower with three broad and bristly café-au-lait colored petals and three narrow caramel colored sepals. The flower is being investigated a small black long-nosed beetle with a red rump.

A pale yellow flower similar to the previous one but lacking all the darker markings. This is likely a genetic variation that lacks anthocyanin.

Rupert Clayton@rupertclayton· Apr 30

Physaria vitulifera, Roundtip Twinpod, with flowers closed in drizzly gloom at Eldorado State Park on Monday. (Plus bonus sedge?)

Spreading over some talus are two low growing plants each with a rosette of jagged-edged spade-shaped grayish green leaves and radiating flowering stems topped with a clump of bright yellow buds and closed flowers. A tall tuft of bright green grass-like sedge leaves emerges from the same gap in the rocks.

Rupert Clayton@rupertclayton· Mar 21

Yes! The big blooms are over but there are still lots of flowers. Most of the cacti have started blooming.

Scarlet butler (Penstemon centranthifolius), bunch of red tubes on a tallish stem

Peninsular fishhook cactus (Cochemiea dioica), small spiny column with long, thin, red hook-shaped spines and a couple small cream flowers

Beavertail cactus (Opuntia basilaris), big magenta flower emerging from gray-green pad.

Notch-leaf scorpionweed (Phacelia crenulata), little plant with three purple flowers with white centers

Rupert Clayton@rupertclayton· Feb 25

Great write-up. As Mark Twain wrote in Roughing It (1872).

We were in such an airy elevation above the creeping populations of the earth, that now and then when the obstructing crags stood out of the way it seemed that we could look around and abroad and contemplate the whole great globe, with its dissolving views of mountains, seas and continents stretching away through the mystery of the summer haze.

Rupert Clayton@rupertclayton· Jan 22

Looks great. Currently over usage limit.

WATERSHED. Map view limit reached. This workspace has reached its monthly
limit of map views. If you are an
administrator...

Rupert Clayton@rupertclayton· Oct 5

That Sam Bush has always been a virtuoso.

A fully clothed Sam Bush, playing mandolin at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Oct 4, 2025.

Rupert Clayton@rupertclayton· Sep 26

Unexpected UI challenges, a continuing series. Err... "Not helpful"?

A notification from the "life is horrible" app Citizen.

Rupert Clayton@rupertclayton· Apr 10

Welcome to BlueSky, Challen! Here's Penstemon cobaea flowering on a prairie remnant near Dallas this morning.