Tags
Balboa Park, dressage, Griffith Park, Hilda Gurney, horses, Keenridge, Lake Balboa, Los Angeles, Marmalade restaurant, pepper tree, Thousand Oaks, waterfowl
USA 2018 (15), Horses, waterfowl, and people. From Bozeman, I flew via Denver to Burbank, Los Angeles. And true to form, the second of these flights was about an hour late arriving. I’m not sure we were ever given a reason this time, but it meant my niece, Karina, had to hang around for me. There wasn’t much of the day left, and there are no photos of that day.
Karina was having car worries, but she had worked out a plan to minimise disruption the following day, Friday 23rd February, which she had kindly taken off work. In any case, as I told her, I wasn’t there to do stuff, but just to be with her in her normal life – though, as she replied, sitting around in a car dealer’s was hardly typical! However, that was not for long. Having deposited the car, she took me off (thanks to a courtesy shuttle) for brunch at ‘Marmalade’ in Thousand Oaks.
She had warned me late in January that they had been experiencing temperatures in the eighties Fahrenheit (upwards of 26ºC) in her part of Los Angeles county. This had not lasted though, and my t-shirts were unnecessary. While it was sunny, there was a definite chill in the air, and locals found it cold.
Karina practices dressage to what seems to me (a total non-expert) a very high amateur level. We visited the Keenridge stables, where she has a few lessons from a former Olympian, Hilda Gurney (bronze medal US team dressage 1976). The aura of this woman was palpable.
Pepper tree
From here we went to spend time (and Karina effort) with her own horse, Klassie, at the equestrian centre where he is stabled.
I saw quite a lot of the devastation caused by the recent wildfires and mudslides in southern California. I didn’t think it decent to take photos, but I seem inadvertently to have captured here some of the damage caused by wildfires which had happened very near Karina’s stables – causing evacuation – a few months prior to the ones which made the headlines in, mainly, Ventura and Santa Barbara.
Karina is not short – Klassie is tall!
Towards the end of the day, because Karina knows I like walking, we were joined by a friend of hers, Sara, who took us into and up Griffith Park, Los Angeles.
Looking back
Karina and Sara graciously agreed to my taking this photo of them against the background of downtown LA
On the way back down
The following day, Sunday, Karina had another car problem, but this could be sorted at a tire/tyre place within walking distance of her home, after she had paid an early visit to her own stables for a lesson there.
Meanwhile, the lovely Patches looked after me.
Looking at the time available for the rest of the day, before an evening meet-up, we decided to visit a local park, which Karina had never got around to seeing herself. I was pleased to give her a reason to do so.
It looked as if it might take us no time at all to walk around the lake, but Karina did not know just how long I can linger when looking at wildlife! (This time I had no wildlife expert or bird book to identify the birds we were seeing, so I have been hesitant in my labelling. One problem is that there can be American versions of Eurasian birds which look almost identical, c.f. ravens and magpies. Corrections and additions would be gratefully received.)
Like the Eurasian grey heron
These three caused much amusement. Is the second goose (gander) in courtship mode, with his tail feathers up? Is the little white bird a chaperone? In love with the first goose?
The threesome stayed together for all the time we were aware of them
Even when the geese eyed up the ?American bittern,
the little white bird was close by
“Do not feed the ducks”
OK, coots are not ducks but…
Grackle, I think
I couldn’t see what these birds were, about the size of starlings, but they were making a heck of a racket as we walked by the tree
I’d love to know what the ducks on the right with the green streak are
Cormorants/anhingas/shag?
I’m pretty sure these are Egyptian Geese
A further visit to Klassie ended the afternoon, and I was delighted to see this coyote hanging around, on a hillside just outside the premises, as the sun began to set.
The evening was spent very pleasurably at the restaurant of an Irish pub, (I had fish and chips!) with three of Karina’s horsey friends. The talk was very little of horses and much of my Yellowstone trip, which I was delighted to recount.
I thought the photo of the coyote at the stables might be the last picture in this whole USA 2018 series – but I was to be mistaken. The flight home was very visually exciting.
Our all-day outing the following day showed the dry landscape of the Sierra scattered with boulders (Pictures also snatched from moving vehicle).
We were very glad to get back to a good breakfast.
Interested in geology, I had been fascinated in these two days to see many extraordinary granite formations as we drove along, but I was able to get a photo of none of them. This, right by our picnic spot, is a poor representative. 
We ended the day where we had watched the dawn arrive hours earlier. 
The final three posts will be about the wildlife we saw during those five days in the National and Natural Parks…
Given the numbers present, we were invited not all to go in via the front door (of the farmhouse), so Liz and I made straight for the courtyard,
but most importantly the horse, Captain, made entirely of scrap metal. 
Liz’s partner, Ray, had been in charge of the machinery which had lifted him into place, and had apparently come home that day raving about the sculpture. Liz and Ray know a thing or two professionally about horses, and Liz was exclaiming how completely anatomically correct this creation was. Moreover, she had learned that the sculptor, 
From there, we went into the farmyard galleries, which, although still housed in the courtyard buildings, have been utterly transformed. Here is just a small selection of the photos I took, (sadly on my phone – I hadn’t thought to take my camera).
It was time for a coffee, bought from the café which was undoubtedly having its busiest ever day – entry to the museum was free today – in a kitchen which was totally new to the staff!
Then it was time to go, as we had met and stopped to chat with many interesting people that Liz knew, and as we went we reflected on some of the many quotations appearing around the place.
With a backward look at the farmhouse, and its porch, the proper entrance to the Museum, I decided to return today, Sunday, to finish looking around.
Which I did, with camera this time, around lunchtime. The time of day, the threatening showers, (the dark and cloudy morning had not turned out to be sunshiny) and of course the fact that it was not longer the opening day, meant than attendance was much thinner on the ground, though I imagine that the staff and volunteers would be pleased enough to see this many people in due course.
The rooms house many exhibits which have been in storage for so long.
The orchard, with its varieties of apples and its sheep, is once more accessible to the public, and has acquired a coconut shy – which I refrained from playing on.
Unlike many museums, this one does not oblige you to leave via the shop, but I did so. It is good to know that just five minutes away I may buy gifts of Somerset produce and manufacture.
On to Catania’s cathedral. I was pleased to see the tomb of Sicily’s famous composer, Bellini, but not nearly as much as I had been to come across that of Monteverdi in Venice some years back.
After a stop for refreshments in the cathedral square, we walked on, and passed this.
It was communist headquarters, now a popular pub
Lunchtime. At the Trattoria de Fiore, run (that does not adequately describe the force that she is) for the last 40 plus years by Rosanna, who makes wonderful pasta among other things. Ordering our meal was an event in itself, especially since Rosanna just loves talking – and she wasn’t the only Sicilian present who has the same predilection…
The others all ordered pasta , but I just didn’t feel hungry enough so I ordered antipasti and a light fish dish…
We got up from table well after 4 pm! It was nearly time to get back to the B and B place to pick up our luggage and say goodbye. But we just had one more visit to make – to what had once been a monastery and was now a university – where Francesca had done her studies.
We were able to peek inside the large rooms where lecturers worked – the monks clearly didn’t stint themselves for space back in the days.
As we did so he collected the best 
Our ‘lesson’ that morning was to be from Geoff, who has written a 
Some of us bought from him – though we had to ask to be able to do so. Here is what is left of what I bought.
I confess to having been a little half-hearted about this. I am no cook at the best of times – though adore good food – and the threatening cold, no doubt picked up during travel, was beginning to become evident. So I kept my distance and limited my direct involvement to halving some delicious small tomatoes.
I didn’t get a picture of the lamb once cooked, but I was given an enormous portion of it! This was the entire menu.
We assembled our cannoli ourselves, at table.
and then were offered citrons. Francesca had already brought us one of these from her parents’ on Easter Day. While it is a lemon-coloured citrus fruit, it was amazingly sweet, and adding honey takes away any remaining sharpness.
Finally – and it is my recollection that Francesca brought this – there was an extra sweet. But in my haste to take a photo, which required my getting up to move around the table, and anxious to protect my ankle, I leant on the back of my chair – which tumbled off the low patio, followed by me, into flower pots and seedlings! I 
The Paschal lamb was made of a soft icing sugar and marzipan. (That is a marzipan (Sicilian) medlar at the front. We ate several of these fruits during the week.)
The sun came out at the end of the afternoon.
