Water Tower

The weather prediction was hot so we had several choices of things to do before it got too hot to do them. After much time wasting discussion we decided in favor of taking Spike for a walk. I took this picture when we walked up Los Alamos Road to look at the water tower we saw from below the other day. This section of Los Alamos. is above our field. The top bit of the one next door can be seen on the left hand side of the shot. It would make a better picture without all those road signs, but they aren't lying about any of those warnings. It is a hairy drive to the top.

Because we don't have fire hydrants out here in the country, a lot of people have installed water tanks. The modern ones are just big ugly black containers so I liked this tower which sort of fits in with the landscape, though not the blackened trees which have never come back since the fire in 2020. This is a large property, classified 'agricultural' for tax purposes. There used to be a lot of cattle on the hill and horses in the paddock but I haven't seen either since the fire. This water tower looks like a work in progress so we're hoping it's a sign that maybe some agricultural activity will be back.

One other palm tree note.: the palm tree at the bottom of the driveway is a Canary Island Date Palm. The Franciscan missionaries were the first to plant palms ornamentally, but it wasn't until the turn of the century that  palms came to represent the conviction that California was a Mediterranean style paradise. Perhaps this was because they are purely ornamental. providing neither shade nor marketable fruitThere is only one kind of palm tree that is actually native to California, Washingtonia filifera , the California fan palm. The rest have all been imported.  We see them all over the place now. They have come to represent leisure and the abundance of the oasis.

As promised, the temperatures got up to 95F here. No need to turn on the air conditioning in the house, but too hot to go outside.