It's April and that means it's flower season. Back home, we spend Spring doing Hanami (flower viewing), where we sit in a park under the plum or cherry blossoms and have picnics and sake all night long. In Los Angeles I haven't met anyone who goes flower viewing, but it rained a lot this year and there are flowers all over.

This weekend, I went to Hondo Canyon Backbone Trail in the Santa Monica mountains to meet some of them. I met about 30 species of flower and also some friendly bees. It made me think of Judge, who is always thinking about flowers.

This was my favorite flower. He is soft and fuzzy and looks like he is from a Dr. Zeuss book. When I grow up, I'd like to be a flower like this one.

While I was hiking, I almost walked into a giant rattle snake (Jacob) who was sunbathing on the trail. I stopped and waited a while for Jacob to disappear into the grasses. I was afraid he would mistake me for a delicious field mouse, I've been told I look like one. Luckily Jacob didn't bite me, he probably just wasn't hungry.

I also saw a small, friendly ringneck snake (Jacob). Jacob moved so fast that I couldn't really get a look at him. He was tiny and shy.

I'm hoping to go to the poppy reserve soon, where they have hills covered in beautiful poppies and other purple and yellow flowers. I went a while ago and you can see the video here.

Aka Shobin is a bright red kingfisher bird. His beak thick and handsome and red. He flies in the forest of Izumo, and sits on old temple tops at night. Bright red, but not so easy to see because he hides in trees and grasses.

Koyuki was at her window and looking out at the sun. It was rising up and there was dew dropping from the flower petals as ume was starting to blossom. Aka shobin was perched there, and was heavy and made the plum branch droop. Aka shobin's neck moved in jerky, robotic bird movement, and with his eye he saw Koyuki and she saw him.

Koyuki was larger than any bird aka shobin had seen before, and her feathers were long and stringy like a kosagi's mating plummage....and they only sprouted from her head, the rest of her was naked and bare, like a vulture in reverse. Aka-Shobin felt bad for staring and flapped on into the forest.

Koyuki watched the ume tree shake as aka shobin pushed off, and the dew drops rained down all at once like a solitary storm. and the aka shobin became a flash of red that blurred away into the cedar forest.

Now, Every spring morning, when ume is in bloom, Koyuki stands at her window and watches for Aka Shobin.

Koyuki was drawn at a figure drawing class when I got bored. She is charcoal and pastel on fancy french charcoal paper from garage sale.

Aka Shobin looks like this.

Ume blossom looks like this

Kosagi's mating plumage looks like this