Snapshot

Wisteria is associated with romance and spring, and it turns out spring love is more than a romantic idea. Longer days and increased warmth boosts phytochemicals in plants and hormones in animals. Plants transition from vegetative to reproductive growth (blooms and flowers) when Flowering Locus T (FT) is released.

San Francisco, the “City by the Bay,” was named after St. Francis, a wealthy, gregarious Italian. The son of a wealthy silk merchant, he was known for his love of earthly pleasures and spendthrift ways. Kind of appropriate for a big-city lifestyle...

Fire season is over at last. This week, we’re bracing for wind, waves, rain and snow at elevation. Meteorologists predict a “bomb cyclone” as this goes to press, with four days of continuous rain. Not 40 days, notes Pierre Ratte with causal ease - after all, he filed his latest Snapshot from a Baja beach!

Amazingly, lavender is in the mint family. Mint is known as a pick-me-up while lavender is a relaxant despite coming from the same botanical family: Lamiaceae.

Warmth and water are most always welcome in California. These happy spring flowers, coppery mesemb, Malephora crocea, cheer up spring gardens with wild pops of color, like so many little suns. They are succulents in the ice plant family. Native to Africa, this plant is considered a noxious weed in some areas and a perfect garden addition in others.

Rust is primarily oxidation-producing iron oxides, most commonly Fe3O4 and Fe2O3. Other metals undergo oxidation, but the term rust is exclusively used for iron. Copper’s oxidation (or corrosion) creates a blue-green color, copper carbonate (Cu2 CO3), commonly described as patina. The Statue of Liberty, clad with hand-hammered sheets of copper, has copper’s distinctive blue-green patina.

This bad baby rolled in from Colorado. It’s the Acela Monterra XL 6x6. The Bozeman, Montana-based company says it is “born from a desire to exceed current industry standards for reliability and durability.” Can’t even imagine an RV class for this thing...

"Lawn Tennis describes the game we know.," writes columnist Pierre Ratte. "It’s played on a tennis court, as opposed to Court Tennis, which is played in a courtyard. Confused? Let me explain..."

Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November in the U.S., and on the second Monday of October in Canada. In the U.S., the date of Thanksgiving varied by state until it was proclaimed a federal holiday on the last Thursday of November by Abraham Lincoln in 1863.

Fun facts: The oldest redwood in Armstrong Woods is the Colonel Armstrong Tree, estimated to be 1,400 years old. The tallest is called Parson Jones, at 310 feet. Sonoma County purchased 240 acres of Armstrong Woods in 1917 for $80,000. It opened to the public as a state park in 1936.