Still here . . . . .

It's been over a month since my last post, and I've GOT to put something up to get that ugly picture of Dick Cheney (I realize that "ugly" and "Dick Cheney" are redundancies) off the front page.

"What are you lookin' at?"

I just have not been feeling moved to post anything. The news sucks, the weather is weird, people seem crazier all the time, and none of that seems worthy of writing about to me. There are tons of blogs bemoaning the state of the world, and being part of that bunch is not particularly attractive right now.

Personally, things are going well. I have started getting Social Security (like the good Socialist that I am), my wife retired from her job, and I had a damn good holiday season. All of that is cause for gratitude, and I am choosing to focus there for now.

Perhaps now that I've broken the writing block I'll have more to say, but for now, that seems like enough.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood . . . . .

We love the way you kill!

(Via Keystone Progress Daily Funnies)

Change of seasons

After a bout of much needed rain, we are getting an early preview of Spring here in Northern California. There is change and growth all around us, and a sunny day like today yields an opportunity to see what's going on in nature's theater.

There is something so poetic about a rose growing through the deer fence around our garden---is it escape, or merely the symbol of a blossom doomed to become deer food?

The transition between the Winter and Spring is time for a burn pile to dispose of debris from previous years.

The wood stack is showing the diminishment of a Winter's need for wood stove warmth.

A neighbor's offer of free wood in return for removing the results of a felled tree awaits the wood splitter.

Hallelujah! Rain at last!!!

After months of dry winter weather, the last week on the Northern Coast of California has seen a LOT of moisture. So far this month (only nine days old) we have gotten almost five inches of rain. For comparison purposes, the month of January saw only 1.19 inches in 31 days, and we've had more than that just today alone.

The flowers are happy!

Again for comparison purposes, here's a picture I took at the end of last October of the board we use to get to the island in the middle of our pond. At that point most of the pond was just a mud hole.

Today the same board is half submerged.

This has been a year of wells running dry and drought restrictions on watering your lawn or washing your car. We haven't caught up entirely, but we're making headway.

And anyone who doesn't think our climate is changing should pull their head out of their behind!

Wood for the fire . . . .

Our wood stove

He who cuts his own wood, warms himself twice.

That quote, which is more than likely on old proverb, has been attributed to folks as disparate as Henry David Thoreau and Henry Ford, two gentlemen who shared little but a first name. Since our household depends on wood for the heat we get during the winter months (our sole exception being an oil-filled electric space heater in the room where our birds reside), we can attest to the truth of that statement. 

Though we do buy loads of wood from a couple of local sources, we always have tried to  save a bit of money by searching the forest around us for fuel for our fires. I'm not a woodsman by any stretch of the imagination, though I can handle a chain saw fairly well---enough to get the job done. I'm not about to start falling trees (I leave that to the experts), but I look for the odd "leaners"; trees that have another tree or brush holding them up so they are not on the ground and full of rot. They provide dry and mostly seasoned wood for our needs.

There is more than the financial savings involved here, however. By taking this effort, I have a more direct connection to my source of warmth than those who depend on a thermostat to regulate their comfort. I know where my heat comes from because I am part of the process. There is a sense of gratitude and awareness that I never had when I depended on an electric or gas furnace for heat. It also requires a constant vigilance to keep the fire going, adding large chunks of hard wood and shutting down the stove before going to bed so there will be coals to rev it up again in the morning, watching for sparks when the doors are open, and of course maintaining a wood supply to feed the flames.

I think of recent studies I've read where young people who have never seen a farm---except maybe on TV or at the movies (if anyone even goes to movies anymore)---think the source of food is a grocery store or the refrigerator. There is such a tragic disconnect in that perception. Food, heat, clothing, and other essentials become things manufactured in factories, rather than harvested on farms or created by crafts people. This is not just a nostalgic thing which is quickly going the way of the dodo and buffalo; it is a recipe for dysfunction and ignorance as we forget the natural world we are still a part of and dependent on.

I really love our wood stove. It is a center of our home during the darkest months of the year. And I am happy my grand daughter likes to feed and poke at the fire. She at least will have some memories of the place that warmth comes from.

Coincidence?

So, it keeps occurring to me; when disasters hit places like Haiti and New Orleans, Evangelical Christians like Pat Robertson have portrayed them as God striking those people for their sins. If it was true in those cases, what does Hurricane Isaac bearing down on Tampa for the Republican convention mean?

I'm just sayin' . . . . .

(By the way, thinking God is some sort of hairy thunderer raining retribution down on the masses is kinda silly no matter what the circumstances, as far as I'm concerned.)

A break in the rain yields some sunny days!

It has been a while since I've posted, but the sunny weather today here in Northern California was too much to not document. I grabbed my camera and headed into the back yard . . . .

Two tulips . . . 

These roses are tiny but they pack a real punch visually! 

The back yard is a riot of different colors even before a lot of the flowers start their show in earnest.

The passion flowers are doing their thing, though.

This rose seems to be making a break for it through the fence.

I see you . . . .

Our solar powered clothes dryer.

This ant is getting a close look at the rhoadies in bloom by our front door.

The early evening light of March in Northern California

Daylight Savings Time began just a couple of weeks ago, but the change is dramatic. Here's a look at our backyard around 6:30 PM this evening. It would have been dark by 5:00 PM just a little while back. And raining? Oh yes, it has been raining!

This wheelbarrow is full of the yield from the last week alone. The flowers are lovin' it!

While Spring is just  here, life is springing forth all around us. And during times like these, that is just wonderful to see!

A Mendocino Snowfall

It's a rarity, but this morning with the temperature hovering between 30 and 32 degrees, there was snow on the ground!