The Geek Squad: 2.

Illuminated in a rare (this winter) ray of sunlight, this pretty Pacific hound's tongue (Cynoglossum grande) adds a very noticeable and welcome pop of colour to all the greenery that currently is soggy-California.  A member of the borage family, I had first spotted this particular wildflower a year ago, but was too busy, distracted, preoccupied, dog-tired (pick one) to take the time to identify it.  As with the shooting stars, this wildflower was identified for me by the Marketing Queen.  Thank you MQ!  I just love any blue flower.
Seeing as I was out and about with my camera, photographing the aforementioned shooting stars, I thought I'd get a quick snap of the hound's tongue too.  Geek's do stuff like that.

The Geek Squad.

Most lunchtimes will find TWWIAGE's Marketing Queen (MQ) and I huddled together in the winery's kitchen discussing a diverse miscellany of topics; anything from art to zucchini.  (Dear reader, you don't have to state the obvious as we both freely admit to being rather geeky.) Yesterday's lunchtime was no exception, however the subject at hand did happen to be one of my favourites - wildflowers.
Whilst the MQ had been out hiking she had spotted and photographed a wildflower that I had never seen before.  How exciting!  Furthermore, the MQ went on to identify this dainty, but quite dramatic, wildflower as Henderson's shooting star (Dodecatheon hendersonii).  Such a discovery scores high on my geek-o-meter.  So, imagine how thrilled I was when, today, I spotted a couple of shooting stars whilst Vinodog 2 and I were out walking.  (V2 is the black and white bokeh in the photograph.)  What were the chances?  Perhaps simply an example of frequency illusion, I was nonetheless excited to discover the shooting stars growing in close proximity to Vinoland.
It is my hope, after suffering through so much rain this winter, that the array of wildflowers this spring will be full of new discoveries for me and the MQ.