Toro Park

The other day I took Daphne for a short hike at Toro Park.  I found that I am out of shape for uphill climbing.  Both Daph and I obviously need more of this kind of exercise.  As I described Toro Park in the last entry, I will get right to the pictures.

Toro Park has the type of scenery and trees that I love about this part of California.  The Coast Live Oak is an evergreen tree that can be shrubby or quite large with interesting, contorted multiple trunks.

They are great climbing trees for kids or cats.  I do think my cats have missed their oak trees while they have been in Canada.  They never tried to climb the tall cedars or firs.  Here is a close up of the trunk.

One of my "requirements" for the house we eventually buy here is that it have at least one of these great trees.

California has its own native bush/tree with Christmas colours (oops, a Canadian spelling - I love it!).  This tree is a Toyon.  It is really more of a bush than a tree, but what great berries!

On the dead branches in the front of this picture, I saw wonderful orange lichens:

Interesting colour combination, yes?  Next time I need to get a shot of an older tree with what I call Spanish Moss hanging from it.  You would think you were in the deep south.

We are still in the dry part of the year here on the Central Coast.  Soon the rains will come and all of this will turn green again.  It took me a long time to appreciate the hills with this dry look, coming from Vermont.  But now I love it.  Here are a couple of samples:

The lovely, rounded shape of these live oaks is typical.

The tall trees on the right are Eucalyptus, long ago imported from Australia.