We are living in stressful times and getting out of the house, if only to your back yard, is always a good idea. Native flora and fauna can cure the blues. I, of course, wanted to ramble on about a few other plants we saw during the excursion described, but luckily for you I ran out of time. The Berberis wilcoxii under the lichen covered rock outcropping used to be 4 to 5 feet tall in thickets, so it was fun to find the small thicket starting up under some Emory oaks (Quercus emoryi). And we are certainly going to go back and visit those Salix irrorata in that old filled lake…. those and a dozen other plants….next time. 
The photos are mine and taken on the day described. Those are male (staminate) flowers on the willow stem. And I love the little barberry thicket up against the oak trunk.
We love our annual tree hunt and it’s been going on for a long time. I have 35 mm slides of hunts from 30...
The scientific name of the ringtail is Bassariscus astutus. It’s in the Procyonidae, the same family as our local borderlands’ critters the raccoons and...
Peter jabbers about cool winged grasshoppers and a plant called Stinging Serpent. Cevallia sinuata or Stinging Serpent is found around the wild borderlands of...