Peculiarities

         The double rainbow, as seen from our deck last evening, was the beginning of the rain season on the California central coast. Rain season ends and begins in July, so our August .2 of an inch is an early start and a bit peculiar.

        And so is this. The other evening as I walked back from taking out some trash I spotted and and then was buzzed by the "smallest hummingbird I've seen" as I said to Lana.

        "Really?" she said, going back to what she was reading.

        Well, she saw it the next day, with our granddaughter and she was a bit more excited about it.

        It is not a hummingbird, but it has a wing flap rate as high as the hummers. It is a White-lined Sphinx Moth and grows to 2-3 inches. Speedy little creature.

        These we found on a lupine bush. They were interrupted long enough to be inspected by granddaughter and Nana, and photographed before being returned to their bliss on the lupine.

        

        This was a sunset cocktail companion the other evening at a Camp Ocean Pines fundraising event. 

        I frequently hear some of his cousins as they observe their nightly vespers here on the ridge.

        Time to cue the frog. Actually as I opened the spa cover yesterday a little dude had taken to napping next to the control buttons. Granddaughter and Nana got a chance to spot it, before his spoiled nap led him to leap to the step and then to dash under the spa.

        Sorry Kermit...so I'll vamp and quote your song, that Jim Henson helped you 

pen....

        "What's on the other side?

        Rainbows are visions, but only illusions.

        And rainbows have nothing to hide.

        So we've been told and some choose to believe it

        I know they're wrong, wait and see.

        Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,

        the lovers, the dreamers and me."

        See you down the trail.

        

Around here...and as always....

Cambria court wash

        April rain is rare on the California central coast, not being an"April showers brings May flowers" kind of place. 

    Blooms begin in February, during the fall and winter rain season. The .7 from this storm put our rain for the year at a little over 16 inches. That's a decent total during a drought year. 

    During our time on Pineridge we've swung from 42 inches to as little as 8. The coastal weather is vulnerable to ocean influence, mountains, and a high atmosphere intrigue called a Pacific Decadal Oscillation. 

          A spring moon on Pineridge may have helped turn on a cactus. Its bloom was dazzling. 

        An Oyster mushroom is back for a third harvest. A kit, given as a Christmas gift produced a batch of mushrooms and a surprising second batch. Even more suprisingly number three volunteered itself.

        Lana's magic in the saute' pan was a fitting, even if a less beautiful disposition of the artful fungus. Delicious! 

         

        As we've begun to return to the more robust style of pre pandemic life, a lot of folks have begun to say they feel aged, or unsettled by the last 2 years. A piece of life was held hostage, and now we attempt to come again to what was before, but we and life itself have been changed by it. 

        The simple rhythm of life has the assurance of normal, while absurdities of the human fall menace from our screens.

     World leaders must task themselves to find a better way to prevent barbarism and aggression and to punish those who perpetrate it.

        American voters certainly are wise to the soulless and ripping attack to the constitutional heart of the American system by the gang of cowards, liars, low-life, hustlers and haters who have stolen or who remain as condonation in the republican party.

        Savoring the quiet life has distracted from the brutality of  war crimes and the attack on our democratic republic.

    

        In volunteer work this week I was fortunate to see lights of human decency. Our capacity to care, to serve and to be about common good is hopeful.

        I'm coming to understand a constant. 

        As we probe more deeply into our majority years, we come upon truths of life in personal and cosmic ways. It is ever so. 

        We see now our good old days were myopic. As old girls and boys we tread in times of war, regressive ideas, uncertainty and threat. They were never far away in our middle years, nor have they ever been in the rise of humanity.

        We are where those before us have been, wondering what is to become of humanity. 

       Life is always on a razor's edge. 

                   

             Always spring comes and hope is alive.

            And there is always dinner....

        Peace

        See you down the trail.

        

         

 

A Parting Shot and The Rising Storm

     Poster children for the unvaccinated enjoying the fog and drizzle between rain storms that have left us with 12 inches of rain in two weeks while our brethren and sisters up in Sierras are buried under record snow.

    We take the good where we can find it and we'll be tightly gripping our "cup of kindness" as we limp more deeply into the '20's. 

    We've wandered many a weary foot children, so drink up the cup and remember the good old times, stingily parsed these last couple of years. The trusty hand of a friend is a companion wise on the rough road ahead.

    Maybe it just me, but there's something regal here.

    Sunny and Hemingway making the best of it, on a rare moment to be in fresh air, as crises of nature and the human kind beat the old year to a pulp. 

    Another variant, bad behavior and now our precious care givers are beset again. Putin is up to little dictator games, and it's suddenly election year in America. Pass me another cup of kindness there and then I'm headed for safety.

        Whoops! Well, any box in a storm! 

    I've been paying attention the animals around here because people are either disgusting, or they are my friends, who I rarely see except on Zoom or masked, or at social distances and they too are worried about the rise of the disgusting. My tennis pals are an exception as we can put all human foibles out of mind as we rock and roll on the court-except two weeks of rain have stopped that. 

        So Auld Lang Syne 2021. You were supposed to be the year of healing and normalcy. Do you think humanitie's karma is catching up with us?

    

        So I've been looking up, as the storm clouds clear, and I can't stop from trying to make my phone work like a telescope.

        These are meager offerings especially when we have some genuine astrophotographers living in these parts, but they point you in a good direction. We can celebrate the launch of the Webb telescope this month. That will do more for human knowledge than all of the weasel heads in congress, all of the unmasked, and unvaccinated combined.

        Grasp this, Voyager 1 and 2, launched in 1977 are still moving through the heavens. In about 14 thousand Years V 1 will be leaving the Oort cloud. Give it another 280 thousand years and it will be approaching our next nearest star, still in our galaxy of course and we just don't know how many billion galaxies there may be. So there's a perspective to apply to 

the life and times of planet earth in these days of uncertainty. 

        A friend who worked on the Hubble telescope, one of the brightest scientific minds around said often as he aged, "you've got to have a sense of humor in this life." Frank was frequently bemused when it came to how the inhabitants of this planet conducted themselves. 

        So let's take a right good draught for auld lang syne and for the good old days to come.

        Slainte'

    See you down the trail. 

Finding Focus

     Something is going on, changing deep in the inner universe that is consciousness, mine and perhaps yours too.

      Maybe it is age, or the jarring reality of recent social change. I'm at a bridge where personal interests are being over taken by a concern for those who will live when I no longer do. 

      No, this not that sort of post or motivation. Certainly am not rushing wanting to depart. I'm fortunate to enjoy life and living but some measurements are beginning to change, lengthening and even broadening.

      Climate, resource protection and reclamation, changes in nature, pressure points in the human food chain, ethical treatment of human suffering and misery, political order, anticipating the impact of artificial intelligence, burgeoning medical technology, the wonders of regenerative medicine, evolution of our specie, preserving life in an interdependent eco system, genetic manipulation and more that present us with profound issues and questions. First, are we even mature enough to deal with the consequence. 

       There is a positive charge in engaging in something that will go beyond our own shadows. Strategizing, trying to establish and enable dynamics, systems and adaptations for a future. I am no scientist as my chemistry lab partner Janice Anderson discovered many years ago and as I have been reminded many times when I struggle to read science tracts and research. I am awed by those who advance knowledge and understanding. I appreciate their touching the arc of history and from time to time I have interpreted their efforts for a reading or viewing audience. I am not a man of science, but a man of words.

        Words matter too. They are the glue that gives our purposes structure. Getting older, reflecting on a life in journalism, study of philosophy, spirituality, religion, creeds, social compacts and decades of politics I think I have emerged as a kind of postulant ethicist. No one appointed me. There are few professional ethicists, but it is the "ethics of living" that have begun to calibrate and reboot in my inner mind, making me an unwitting accomplice in this concern about the future. As the latest iteration of human bipeds perhaps we all should consider the ethics of human existence on this verge of something.

         Living in the orbit of Silicon Valley, I am perpetually fascinated at advancements in artificial intelligence, mixed reality, virtual reality, bio medicine, big data and the like. But I have begun to also note that we make jumps and leaps without giving prior thought to what it will mean; i.e. how will this likely change things, or how could this go wrong, could it be weaponized, that sort of thought.

       We make giant leaps at a time when more people think only as deeply as 140 characters, or their Facebook news, when we see increasing evidence of a decline in critical reasoning skills, when history is barely known, when classics are replaced by Marvel, as we seek happiness in what we buy or own.

      Have you given any thought to what it means to be a human being? What makes us human? A brain, a heart, emotion, love, what?  Now consider how many implants or  replacements, or memory chips in the brain, or bio mechanical organs, prosthetics or synthetic blood do we need before human life, as we know it, ceases and something new emerges? 
       These wonderful but profoundly changing circumstances will have more impact on our children and grand children than us.

      Probably few people have given it much thought and that in itself is an ethical issue. We cannot nor should we impede science and research or healing systems and technologies. In just one simple query-how well equipped are societies for extended life spans?
       Isn't now the appropriate time that humanity deliberates, before epochal changes? Sci-fi writers and directors have long toyed with these themes but would we be content to see life imitate art?

     For the record we've had 8.7 inches of rain on the California central coast since January 1. That is more than we had for the full year 2013-2014. Total for the season is 20.93 making it the most since 2010-2011. Yes, there have been mud and rock slides. Historic Santa Rosa Creek road caved and it will be some time before repairs are made. Scenic Highway 1, the Pacific Coast Highway, has also taken some abuse, but after 4-5 years of drought, we are happy we've been blessed with the rain.

The bluff trail north of Cambria

standing together

    A lot of people are pushing the White House Correspondents Association and other Washington based media groups to push back against early signs the new administration intends to play rough and dirty with some media outlets.

    Tough questions are simply part of the process. An adversarial relationship is the nature of the game and everyone, the White House, the media and the electorate are served when the media plays a watch dog role.  

     Divide and conquer is a technique of this administration. Combine that with the too common "careerist" motivation of some of the press corp and we could be on a slippery slope. Reminding the outlets that if one is targeted or banned, all could be has been the effort of many around the country. This is no time to forget the important role of the 4th estate.

     One thing they need to do a better job of is pressing this administration for details. We still haven't seen the health care plan that is supposed to replace the Affordable Care Act. Nor does the president elect ever give much detail. At some point we hope he realizes he's got to be presidential. He seems stuck in the mode of being the hustler on the campaign trail.  He's done nothing to convince me he's not an narcissistic idiot incapable of a complex sentence, let along thought. But maybe I'm wrong.

     See you down the trail.

The Effect

after 

      Mid Rain

     gauging it

       The net-.7 of an inch. The first rain of the new season.

    After these moments, clean air and lots of smiles on the central coast. Hopes for a good rainy season.

on killing Black men

    FBI Director James Comey hit the nail on the head. He said videos of police killing black men is driving a narrative; "biased police are killing black men at epidemic rates." Comey added "It's a narrative given force by the awesome power of human empathy."

     But Comey notes there is no way to know if the number of black, brown or white people being shot by police is "up, down or sideways over the last three, five or 10 years." There is no national data base or tracking of people killed by cops.

     This writer finds that inexcusable in this age of data and algorithmic analysis. The Associated Press reports the FBI is moving forward with plans to establish a national data base on police use of force. In the meantime I wonder why, as a gesture of public service, police departments don't post their own internal data on use of weapons, lethal and otherwise?

    See you down the trail

The First

the front

    The western sky performed a dramatic rain dance.

It delivered. The California central coast is getting its first measurable rain of the season. Looks like the soaking will extend into Sunday evening. It is welcome.

      See you down the trail.

Living After Your Own Fashion-A Henry Miller Primer and Beware of the Yellow Dirt

ASPIRING TO BE NONE OTHER THAN HIMSELF

      Wind from the Pacific drives the rain and blows it across the grazing slopes, hard onto decks, pounding it into the rocky bluffs and the sand at the shore. It blows a Henry Miller February Rain and loosens pensive jottings like a current of thought reaching from nights long ago along Big Sur, Ragged Point, San Simeon and Cambria gathered now in a timeless eddy.

      Miller, the experimental, category busting and banned  author arrived in Big Sur in a February wind-pushed rain like the event that soaks the world beyond the window behind my computer screen, down the jagged coast highway from his point of arrival. Miller observed that poet Robinson Jeffers sang of this region and before him Jack London drew inspiration. 
      Comparable to regions of the Mediterranean or the Scottish coast, with a climate and vibe of its own, it captivates thinkers and form breakers. First citizens saw their ancients, moderns sense spirits, artists and writers are inspired and naturalists are awed where mountains, sea and forest commune. Miller wrote of these things in telling of the  people he met and the influence of this place on them.

       I've been slow reading and absorbing his 1957 work

Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch. Since the late 60's I have taken emotional, spiritual and creative sustenance from Big Sur and the central coast. Big Sur was the power that brought us here to live. It is the place that renews and nurses life's fraying. And so Miller's tome is a bit of an inner echo. I see evidence in our village of this special natural-psycho-bio clime.

       In his neighbors he found "Ideal material for the making of community." He wrote they may have "arrived from different paths, each with their own purpose and one as different from the other as marbles from dice." In Cambria,  rich in history and independence, we too see our "characters." Living here induces an authenticity. The people Miller saw were "all somewhat peculiar" or "naturals." 

      "Each and everyone of them fed up with the scheme of things and determined to free themselves of the treadmill, lead their own lives...None of them demanding anything more fantastic of life than the right to live after their own fashion."
      To append Miller, I wonder if life itself cannot cast you on waves that wash you onto your own shore of desiring to live after your own fashion. But I'm stuck on knowing why some take a trail where others stick to the highway. I was struck by this as I read Bruce Taylor's blog wherein he pondered how he transformed from the kid in his high school graduation photo to "the old pirate" in the more recent photo.
        These characters are around us whether in our urban climes or on a rocky coast or forest. Perhaps that pirate, artist, bohemian, rascal or whatever lurks within and needs only the slightest invitation to come alive, a place, a group or a friend. 

WASH AWAY THAT YELLOW DIRT

    The Jimmy Seals and Dash Crofts tune from the 1970's came to mind when we returned to find our home coated in yellow dirt.

    Simply a brush against an object and clothing was painted.

  Pine trees had candled and then a wind did its bidding. A neighbor said it was such that a "yellow out" blinded the ridge line. She said it was impossible to see the mountains or  anything beyond a couple of feet.

   And so now our long desired rain can wash us, too.

   See you down the trail.

  

TALES AND TAILS

Flowing

  Creeks and waterways are beginning to resemble their old selves again. The vaunted El Nino has been producing rain in California, including on the drought stricken Central Coast.

 Driving in the rain in California is akin to driving in snow or on ice elsewhere. Since rain is about the only diversion from sunshine and blue skies in most of California, rain is a big story.

    But after four years of drought, every drop is a cause celeb.

   Here on the Central Coast, half way between LA and San Francisco, it looks as though we are in for a week of rain, with a few hours between cells that allow the ground to soak it up.

   Back in Indiana we never gave much thought to rain, unless it was ruining a picnic, ball game, wedding or etc. due in large part to the fact there is so much rain. Here it is a seasonal oddity and some people and most animals are frightened by it. Really!

THE CATS TALE

   So we begin with the end, before the tail, or tale.

 Joy, on the left and Hemingway are young enough to have missed what a California Central Coast winter is like. All they know is the abnormally warm and dry winters of the past couple of years. So this year, cooler temperatures and rain have them in a dither.
  Because of allergies, they spend their time on the deck and porch and in the garden on the hill. They sleep in the garage.

     To help them through their first real winter and recognizing their love for boxes, Lana made a Cat Condo. They've taken to it. The connecting "door" allows cuddling.

   Hemingway was perturbed I disturbed his nap for a photo op.

   Nighty night!

   See you down the trail.

MOUNTAIN LIGHTNING-THE UNEXPECTED-PEACEFUL BLUE

    This is no mere pedestrian shot of a rain barrel almost full, no indeed! What we see is evidence of great cosmic oddness and even history.

     A woman who has lived most of her 91 years on the Central California coast says she's never seen anything like it.

     "We've had rain in July but nothing like this. And I never in my life have seen lighting and thunder like that."

     A mid 70 man, a Californian, says he's never seen an electrical storm like it. He stayed up to watch it. In fact, that's been the talk up and down the coast. For many it was a first time ever event.

      We're referring to the storm that moved up from the south and dazzled the Central Coast and scared most of animals in the county. I grew up in Indiana and have witnessed many lighting storms, thunder that shakes a house and sometimes the tornados that are spawned by violent storms. What we saw and heard was in that league.

      Arcs filling the sky over the Santa Lucia range and then rumbling over the slopes and through the valleys. Our cats, Hemingway and Joy were traumatized and could not find a secure enough hiding spot. Poor Hemingway would have burrowed into the wall if he could have. Friends said their border collie actually "picked up" the approaching storm minutes before the first flashes or thunderclaps.

      Fortunately the thunderstorm was accompanied by rain-an odd commodity that is hugely deficit in this fourth year of a drought. We keep getting optimistic predictions for the rain the El Nino may bring this winter, but over an inch of rain in July, in Cambria California?!  Oddness. But we love it and the locals were on the verge of breaking into flip flop splash dash dances up and down the canyons and through the East and then West village and along the ocean bluff board walk. Rain! In July!

       

PACIFIC BLUE

   A dry July is more tolerable when the Pacific blue is nearby providing entertainment.  Our friend Diane Norton caught great moments in San Simeon cove as a couple of visitors came calling.

Photo by Diane Norton

San Simeon Cove

Photo by Diane Norton

Photo by Diane Norton

   Meanwhile just down the coast in Cambria a fellow is looking for a smaller specie.

  What a difference a sunny day can make. It was last September, gray and misty when some of the behemoths were in the same San Simeon Cove. It is a great joy to live on the "commuter route" of these sea going mammals.

    See you down the trail.