Plant: Callery pear foliage, blossoms, inedible fruits and the honey............

Tender, unblemished leaves of flowering pear tree...the fresh green rejuvenates my eyes...

And in autumn..........they excite me......

The old Callery pear in the premises of the apartment is accumulating all shades of rainbow and more...

Winter is almost here...the Callery pear flowers will soon grace the cityscape...never mind the foul smell, the visual delight is uncomparable...the brief but very appealing time of the year, when these trees are covered in zillion white blossoms..

In less than a week, the flowers will wither away and the tender green leaves will dominate...

 Bees will work overtime to cash in on the annual bonanza............

The thought crosses my mind, this carrion-smelling flower will be the major source of the palatable honey. What a contrast!

The lovely white clusters of blossoms and buds, seem to communicate that winter is about to retire...or vernal season is ready to reign..

The pear fruits...dangling in copious quantities...if only they were edible...

Barely a month back, the old pear tree looked  like this.....vibrant, the glory of the property.....

After braving many storms and rain showers, now it looks like this...

Observation: Sand castles....

Building sand castles on the beach is the classic play, since ages.....

A nicely crafted sand castle on  Newport Beach...The castle is decorated with feathers, shells and ample strands of seaweeds..

Observation: Plant resins.....the gummy exudates...

The pine tree oozing copious resins...I scarped to sniff at the aromatic fragrance..

Dried resin exuded from the Norfolk Island pine trunk...

These amber colored, crystalline, sticky blobs are the solidified exudates can be distilled into turpentine, a versatile compound with myriad chemical uses. These odoriferous lumps can also be used as incense or therapeutics.

Some conifer resin......

From another conifer...

Copious resin secreted from the bark of a gum tree ....

From an unidentified tree........

Sweetgum.............

Acacia........

Mastic...the resin of California pepper......

Mastic of sycamore...

Not sure if all of them have got economical uses.....

Plant: Fig adventitious roots.......

I am yet to see Spanish moss hanging from huge oaks..but these adventitious roots dangling from the fig trees somehow make me derive an analogy...

Sometimes they thicken to form trunks, which survive, even after the original trunk is gone..

Bird: Pekin goose.........

Pekin goose...the snow-white ducks..with pretty orange bills and feet...seen in most water bodies across South California...

A pair take a nap while another stands guard...

Hanging out with mallard buddy...........

Rest by the stream........

Foraging in the lawn.......

Nap time.........

Dabbling...

Pretty face...........

Swimming with a buddy.........