Vista Business here
Hmm. I just tried it on my Mac – Safari and Firefox both show the picture oriented correctly. My Vista box seems to have flown south, and I’m too tired to figure out why right. But Firefox on my XP box is flipping the bird. 
OK, one more pic – this was the view from my office window, taken about 6 years or so ago, before we did some grading. We had some major drainage issues, so the pond is now gone (it was not really a pond; someone had unwisely dug a hole and wished for a pond, and things were going south. Drainage is not and and usually should not be done whimsically). Its amazing how goddamn green this area gets, but only in the wintertime. Summer its all “golden” (what we’d call “brown” back in Illinois).
The picture was taken on a stormy-ish day, when the sun broke through right around sunset and just lit up the landscape. Its not very common to get an interesting sky and also good light around here, so it caught my fancy and I took a handful of pictures and made the panorama by merging several images.
<drool> Wow that is just so incredibly gorgeous. You are so lucky! How far are you from the closest town/city? Do you work from home or do you have to commute?
squeegee, so I looked up Gilroy, CA on Google Maps and I see you are south of San Jose, and I was playing around with the “street view” feature to see what the area looked like. Two years ago, I spent a year living in Vacaville, CA, which is kind of between Sacramento and San Francisco, and it also had a similar landscape. I know what you’re talking about where everything is green in the winter, and brown the rest of the year.
You see, I have spent my whole life in Virginia, where everything is covered with trees and is always green, but it was quite a difference going to California, where the landscape is mostly treeless grassy rolling hills, which are usually brown. I couldn’t believe that it didn’t rain one single time the whole summer I was there, and the dry grassy fields kept catching on fire and then they would be black hills! But then in January it rained for a few days and everything turned emerald green for about a month, and it was beautiful. I do miss it sometimes!
We live maybe 2-3 miles from town by road. Really not very far; I can be on the freeway to San Jose in about 5 minutes of driving. We’re just set back in some hills, so the amount of buildable land is limited, and the hills isolate you from town. If I walk to the top of that hill that you see in the center of the photo, which is perhaps 3 city blocks of walking, I can look down on endless rows of houses on the far side, perhaps 1/2 mile away as the killer robotic deer fly.
I do work from home, and amazingly I get really decent cable internet here, 10/1Mbps, so I can do most any part of my job here. My commute consists of walking to my office, which is a separate set of rooms from the main house (but under the same roof) with a breezeway separating them. I go into the office maybe 4-5 times a year.
Sadly, that view is now compromised, because someone is building a Monster Haus right on that back hill. They’re actually very nice people; we had them over for dinner last night. But its not the same with a huge house up there. I miss being able to walk around my back yard nekkid. 
If you’re curious, here’s my approximate neighborhood, off of Day road between Geri Lane and Jean Ellen. You can see what I mean about dense urbanity being pretty close by. At the west end of that road, and on some of the properties in between, its all vineyards, so it gets a little mini-Napa feel to it, something you’d have seen relatively nearby Vacaville.
Yeah, it was very different for me coming from Chicago as well. When I first moved here, it felt really timeless, almost limbo – the weather in the summer is pretty much the same every day – overcast in the morning from the ocean fog, which burns off before lunch, then sunny and 80s - 100 in the afternoon, not a cloud in the sky. Every day, for 8-9 months a year. The only variance is if you woke up and it wasn’t overcast, it would probably be hot that day. I missed, and still do miss, seasons. And Midwest thunder storms; it rains here in the winter when its 50-60F, so there’s really no energy to make interesting storms. I emphatically do not miss below-zero days, or Chicago’s idea of spring: 40’s and raining or overcast every day for 2 months.
We haven’t had much fire out here <knocks on wood>, but it is a constant concern, and you really want to till down all the grasses on your property every year. But hillside fires do have a benefit – the blackened land looks like heck for a while, but in spring it blooms especially green because you can see all the new growth without interference from the previous years growth, and it is emerald Ireland green then.
I should also hasten to add, re local weather – the dry summer conditions here have one huge ginormous benefit: no mosquitos. Its awesome not having to put on insect repellent all the time or have small things biting you outdoors.
Very good point.
All this thinking about California, and being jealous of your wildlife, makes me miss it!
Although, in the end, I really need my seasons. I would miss winter too much (yes I like the cold and snow).
Given the username, that’s a given…
Preach it sister!
(Winter is my favorite season; snow is my favorite weather.)
Hey, we gots white owls around here. Yes, really! I haven’t secured a picture yet, but I have seen them on occasion, and I hear one in the early evenings whoo-whooing lately. Come join us, nyctea, you’ll fit right in!
This is me, green with envy! ----->
Dunno if anyone still cares, but I caught a pretty good shot of that bird this morning, sitting up on top of my back fence. This was taken out of my home office window. I thought it showed the size of that bird pretty well-- for reference, that fence he’s sitting on is 5’ tall.
And if there’s any doubt that peacocks can fly, see here. OK, they fly about as well as wild turkeys, or maybe worse. But they do fly.
WOW thanks for the photos! That guy is just gorgeous! I wonder if there are any peahens around for him? Also I wonder what they like to eat - maybe you could put out a peacock feeder for him? 
p.s. let me just say again that you are so lucky to live in such a beautiful place!
Actually, I think there is a peahen. I’ve heard two peafowl calling sometimes, so I knew my peacock had a friend. Yesterday (or day before) I saw what I took to be a lady turkey or maybe teenage boy turkey poking around by my garage. I didn’t look that closely, turkeys are a dime a dozen around here; what was odd that it was a solo turkey, which I never see, they only gaggle in groups. In retrospect, perhaps it was the lady peahen. I’m sure I’ll see them together at some point.
Well, if its the same bird, he’s been hanging around the neighborhood since 2005, so he seems to be foraging well on his own. Feeding the wildlife sometimes draws unintended consequences, so I’ll let him be.
ETA: peahens are pretty plain, so I don’t think its a stretch I’d mistake one for a dumpy looking wild turkey at first glance. My eyes aren’t what they used to be.
Ha! There are two peacocks! Both boys – they’re out there right in the open behind my back fence, visible right out our back windows, and have been for about an hour, circling each other warily, and occasionally fighting!
No peahen sighted yet.
Awesome! I wonder where the new one came from. It looks like it must be some sort of territorial dispute. Very cool indeed. Thanks for the follow up! Keep us posted!
Since this thread has made a reappearance, I just want to ask if I’m the only child of the 70s who constantly reads the thread title to the tune of the Sesame Street song, “Who Are the People In Your Neighborhood”?
Who are the peacocks in your neighborhood,
In your neighborhood,
in your neighborhood?
Oh, who are the peacocks in your neighborhood?
The peacocks that you meet each day?
They’re the peacocks that you meet,
when you’re walking down the street,
they’re the peacocks that you meet each day!
Yeah, that had occurred to me after I’d started the thread. And now I can’t get that damned song out of my head, thank-you-soooo-much.