The mustard is blooming in the Bay Area

For the past couple of weeks I'd noticed the mustard plants in the South Bay had been in bloom. I was tempted to pull over time and again while driving to take a picture but the few times I did there wasn't anywhere to park.

I saw this location last week as I was driving southbound on HWY 85.

Sometimes in life you have to look past the distractions to see the beauty.

I turned left after exiting onto Great Oaks Blvd. only to find the road alongside the fields and orchards was all dug up and packed with road construction workers, big trucks, and heavy equipment. There was nowhere to park and even if there had been there was no safe way to get near the field so I turned around and got back on the highway.

It dawned on me a few days later that the weekend, particularly Sunday, would be a good time to return. I figured the road crew would have the day off. I was right!

Acres and acres of blooming mustard plants.

The four petal flowers look like this.

It made me so happy to see a honey bee feeding on the pollen.

One look at its legs and I realized it was pollinating the flowers at it traveled from blossom to blossom.

And this made me sad. While we were there a tractor was clearing the plants, not harvesting them, just chopping them down.

Hopefully they left some of them standing for the bees.

A large swath had been cleared between what remained of the field on the left and the orchards on the right. I guess we got there in the nick of time.

It would be really cool to capture a colorful sunset from this same location. Perhaps next year. On a Sunday :)