The Hills Are Alive

Have you looked up from your gardening lately to see what is happening on the hillsides that surround us? Raise your head from your garden spade, your car steering wheel, or your fast food fries and you will see that, as you whiz by them on the freeway, our hills have turned a luscious near-fluorescent yellow.

Nature is offering a stunning display for those of us willing to notice.

For a brief time our hills have turned vibrant with blankets of wild field mustard. It covers the Irish-green hillsides in a gentle cascade of color. It is as if someone took a paintbrush to them, covering them with downy splotches of yellow.

The last time I can recall this impressive a display was the year El Nino hit, causing the rabbit population to soar and many of our homes to leak. But the result was a spring like this one with mustard exploding all around us.

Field mustard is not native to our area. But then again, as

NATURE'S CANVAS-Wild field mustard blankets a slope with vibrant color, surrounding what remains of plant life burned in an earlier fire. A "stunning display," says Leslie Haukoos.