Happy Third Birthday, Wellington!

It's hard to believe we have lived in Wellington for three years now.  But it's true.  April 24, 2010 was the day we closed escrow on my beautiful house.  

Today we celebrated by relaxing.  Which left me plenty of time to take these pics.  Just little snippets of Wellington, inside and out.  And little blips of Benicia in general, because this is where Wellington lives.

 Above are Wellington photos.  Below are photos I took while we were walking today.

I have always wondered what this is, at the entrance of the alley on East 2nd street between East H and East G.

 One of the quaint old houses, in need of repair.  But well loved.

Down at the harbor we saw this little orphan patch of ducklings, peeping around.  They saw us and turned back, shooting through that opening in the dock.  They kept peeping and peeping, no mama or papa duck in sight.  So we stopped and watched as they paddled in and out of the boat slips.  Eventually a male and female duck swooped in, quacking frantically, and rescued the poor little flock.

This poor mangy cat was snoozing on the steps of this poor mangy (but intriguing) house on East 5th Street.

 Another East 5th Street with plenty of character.

This East 5th Street house has gotten plenty of love.  Luckily.

We had a celebratory dinner of broccoli soup with microwave potato chips.  Life is good at Wellington.  Three years running.

Springtime at Wellington, the Isotoma's in Bloom

It's spring.  Again.  Here at Wellington.  It happens every year about this time.  This year it seems to be a bit warmer than usual.  I know it has been a lot nicer in San Francisco, where The Dot lives.  And here at Wellington we seem to be having more than our share of beeUtiful days.  I'm not complaining.

I recently got one of them newfangled iPhones.  It's a long story, but now I have it and I'm enjoying it.  I downloaded an app that enhances the camera.  Here are a couple of shots I took in the Arbor Walk while experimenting.

This first and second shot (which couldn't be separated, thanks to modern technology) are taken from the same perspective, only the focal point has changed.  But see how cute it looks?  All those little star flowers?  It's so peaceful back there right now.  And those teeny flowers have a very delicate fragrance, hardly noticeable.  

 One of the bird baths.

 The cystus (rock flower) in bloom.  We put these in last year in place of some anemic azaleas (not their latin name) that were here when we moved in.

An aerial view of the blooming isotoma.  I didn't really use an airplane for this one.  It's only about four and a half feet off the ground.

The white Lady Banks is just finishing up.  The yellow ones have spent themselves.  But they sure were pretty.

We have a lot of trees here at Wellington, but this one is my favorite.  When we planned the Arbor Walk, we planned on having one specimen tree at the front end.  It was one of the last things we chose.  When we saw this cute little persimmon tree, we both knew it was the right one.  It branches beautifully, and it had one little baby persimmon on it when we planted it.  That persimmon, which could hardly be called a persimmon since it had just finished being a persimmon blossom, fell off.  Last year we got zero.  This year when I first saw some little green ruffly leaves I wondered if these could be persimmon blossoms.  I now feel 99.5% certain that they are.  You can't really see them in this picture, but trust me.  They're there.  I can't wait until I have a tree full of plump, pulpy orange persimmons.  They're a beautiful fruit.  I think I'll use them for baking.

There are four and a half Japanese Maples at Wellington.  Two are the weeping red variety and are in the Arbor Walk (this one).  One is a standard red Japanese Maple.  It was here when we moved in, right in the front of the house.  It needed tending, like everything else here at Wellington, but is now gorgeous.  Pics to follow.






On one of our many, many walks to the water, I took this picture.  If you look closely you can see this man is fishing.  There are four fishing poles planted there, with their strings leading out to the water.  I wonder what he's trying to catch and if he'll eat it if he catches it.  I know there are sturgeon and salmon out there somewhere.  I once saw an otter.

There was a cargo ship tooling down the straits when I snapped this picture.  Right now it's almost 80 degrees.  I have a very hot guinea pig lolling in her cage, two contented desert tortoises basking in the sun and somewhere, a very old kitty waiting to be snuggled.  Hooray for life at Wellington!