What are these needle-like plants growing in the ground?
What you have here is a Filaree/heron's bill/stork's bill (Erodium species). These are widespread in California, being plants of disturbed and unmanaged soils - farms, dunes, roadsides, etc.
Note that I'm not Californian, or even from North America, all I did was google &quot;weed species california&quot; (without the quotes) and hit the first link that looked reputable, then used a small bit of knowledge of plant forms (rosette in this case...) to follow the links inside - and found the species at the link I supplied.