I confess to an attraction to melaleuca trees.  I became aware today that most of the pictures I have taken of melaleucas are of dry, papery bark covering the lower area of the trees.  There is much to these trees than the loose flapping sheets of desiccated bark and interesting slits in the bark a few weeks or months before the flapping stage.  Today I got a picture of a melaleuca coming to life.  At a place where a big limb had been cut away, new green shoots had emerged. The tree is very much alive.  I'll try not to forget this stage.  The other two pictures are from other days.  The Japanese garden lantern is from Balboa Park's Japanese Tea Garden.  The vagabond standing in front of graffiti
is the beginning of something, not the end.  I came across the picture when I was downloading a set of pictures from a disc that I had thought was empty.   I took this one of myself last year in Lisbon.