Tag: Nature

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It’s a clean new morning!

A certain someone woke me as soon as he figured out the rain had stopped.

I have to admire the way the dog resets every day. He makes me smile more than most other things, so I’ll keep him around for now.

For those of you still below the grey cloud cover, here’s a sample of what you have to look forward to, later today.

The morning smells clean and fresh. The dog is beside himself exploring the yard. He’s already pushing for a walk, which he’ll get after I’ve had at least one cup of coffee…

I’m not sure if the trash folks are coming up today or not. I don’t know how crazy things are beyond what I can see.

I never lost power, or was inconvenienced in the least by the storm. I got to stay inside most of the day enjoying a movie or two, the dog cuddled up beside me with the sound of rain on the roof and the wash behind the house roaring away.

It looks like there’s some kind of inspection crew down at the bridge, I can see the lights but not what they’re doing. I guess I need a decent pair of binoculars at the very least.

I’ve been waiting for a pair that were all “techie” range finder, night vision, predator weapon interface. You know, loaded with SciFi shit like you see in the movies. You’d think by now someone would have put something like that together! 😁

I wanted to see if the smiley face would work. Don’t expect me to start communicating in modern hieroglyphics but I wanted to test it as an option.

It doesn’t look like there’s a lot to clean up immediately around the house. I’ll wander out in a bit to do an inspection just to make sure. I don’t believe there’s any damage either so I don’t have to deal with insurance claims or FEMA.

As you may have noticed I’ve posted some video in the past day or two. Yesterday it was because I was bored, and a video shot on my phone was not to my liking. I set about cleaning it up and learned more about editing video. I’ll never be a pro at it but it’s interesting to dabble with.

The reason I shot the video in the first place was to send to my neighbor who is helping out a sick loved one in Palm Springs and was curious about his house and the neighborhood. I suspect that he’s dealing with a number of messes out there which are more severe than what happened here.

Once I’d exhausted my patience with video stuff, I spent the rest of the day answering inquiries from family on the East Coast who had watched too much CNN. From the way they were talking I imagined CNN was saying that the end of days was here and it was starting in California?

Anyway after quieting their concerns and reminding them all that an 8000 Ft mountain stood between me and the storm, they lapsed back to normal anxiety levels. I’m so confident about my mountain I dare a CAT 5 hurricane to hit it directly!

Bring it! Mother Nature.

Seriously, most storms that come in from the South are gutted on the peaks of the mountains. I live in their shadow, the upside is those storms I don’t usually worry about too much, the down side is that in winter it’s dark at my house by 3pm.

The only storms I really worry about are those swirling storms that come in from the North. Those are usually bitterly cold and batter the town for days on end.

Those of you who were impacted by the storm, I hope you fared at least as well as I did. Remember things are still gooey in some places. So pay attention and don’t take any chances with mud or innocent puddles across the roads.

Have a good day

I just found out that part of my little town is cut off due to some roads and bridges being washed out. This doesn’t affect me per se because I don’t need to go anywhere today or probably tomorrow. When I secured the place due to the unknowns of the storm, I secured to stay in place for days… Even a week or two if necessary.

I find that having laid in supplies, having a plan, and not having to go anywhere tends to make me a whole lot calmer about this sort of thing.

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I don’t know what to make of this…

This is a maple tree in my neighbors yard that is often pretty accurate in predicting the seasons. This one leaf is autumn but the rest of the tree is still summer green.

I suppose it could be a misfire, or perhaps Winter will be early and long this year. Great! NOT what I want to deal with. After last winter I could do without snow for a while.

I’d hoped to be well into securing a new place to live by now. Trouble is Keyboards are a royal pain in the ass to dispose of. The harps are at least at a consignment store, but I haven’t found a consignment store to put the keyboards in. It’s not just the instruments it’s all the music all the paper work etc. I’m only one man and honestly, I’m having a tough time remaining motivated. I hate cleaning up someone else’s mess. I’m shitty at cleaning up my own messes! LOL!

As an aside, a couple of the harps have been sold already which is super nice. From the sound of it, the harps have gone to people who will play them and love them that’s a good thing, not that the other half likely cares.

That’s a funny thing. When I first lost the other half, I was adamant about the instruments going to people who would play them and love them. Now I’m not quite so driven about that.

It’s moved to the “Nice to Have” column and out of the “Necessary” column.

My view is evolving, I think that’s because the wound isn’t so fresh. Now, I’m recognizing that he’s beyond caring and perhaps I shouldn’t or don’t need to care so much either. Is this me being a bad person? Or me breaking faith?

I don’t think so, I think I’ve moving toward my hallmark pragmatism that my other half always liked.

He also knew that underneath my hard outer shell, I’m a sentimental softy. So either way, if he’s interested in Earthly affairs anymore he’ll be tuning in and laughing at me. On the one hand I’m my pragmatic self, on the other hand I’m all sentimental. He knew being caught between the two really pisses me off!

When the house burned, he was astounded at quickly I disconnected from the possessions and wrote everything off. I wasn’t un-caring but I didn’t’ want to spend time fiddling with things that would never be “Right” again. I was in “Toss It & Move On” mode.

I need to move into that Mode again.

I may also have to accept that I’m not going to be out of this place this year.

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Changed the header photo

I thought it was time for a change, I’d been looking for something to represent all four seasons, but hadn’t settled on anything beside Winter Snow and Autumn leaves. Now I have a Spring / Summer photo with some of the local flowers blooming.

The photo was taken on a nice day walking the dog. He ended up on the cutting room floor because he managed to have only his tail in the photo.

Here is another photo of him from that day. I was a good walk and a good day for both of us. We hadn’t been walking around this particular area for a while. Part of it burned a couple of years ago. I’d stopped doing our walks down there, because I didn’t want to think about a mostly white dog running around in a mostly black charred mess. I’d have gone broke in groomer fees. (OMG! I just used a term that’s banned on some platforms!)

This is the problem with redefinition of words and subsequent censorship of those words.

I digress…

I like this photo for its contrast and it also provides commentary on the county’s efforts to rehabilitate what they did to the wash behind the house.

This is the wash after the county spent 10 years working on it. The gash is 20 to 30 feet deep. Straight as an arrow and looks a lot more like a log flume than a flood control project. It was supposed to prevent erosion and manage occasional floods. In the distance you can see a bridge. For Years, the county resisted putting that bridge in. Building the bridge was the county admitting they were wrong.

There had been a bridge built over this wash in the 1930’s or ‘40s. It had washed out in a particularly nasty spring thaw/rain event. The county, instead of putting the bridge back, decided to dig a log flume. Then they decided to simply have the road surface drive through the wash bed.

In an effort to slow the water down they built a series of concrete and rock steps into the wash and subjected the residential area along the wash to 2 years of living in a construction zone.

The subsequent 10 years the neighborhood was a heavy equipment / construction zone for 3 to 5 months out of the year. An added bonus was that the roadway washed out pretty reliably, closing the road to town.

After a decade, the county redid the math and figured out if they put a bridge across the wash it would save them money. DUH!

The residents had been telling the county this from the beginning and because we were a bunch of rubes who knew nothing, the county ignored us entirely!

This is what the wash looked like before the county started messing about. There was water in it much of the year. The dogs and I would hike up the wash about 3/4 of a mile and play in the pools of cold clear water. We’d be dry by the time we’d walked back home but we’d all be happy. In late Summer there were wild blackberries to eat along the wash bank. It was rugged, natural, beautiful and ever changing.

Yes, rocks moved around through the years but usually not very far. This was due to natural erosion. That being said, the erosion was minimal and honestly seemed to be flattening the wash bed out, so the water was slowing down naturally. The wash bed was also meandering more so the water wasn’t rushing quite as much.

There was also a lot of wildlife that used the wash as a highway, water hole, and hunting ground. One of the reasons I liked this neighborhood and specifically this house was the proximity of the forest and the wildlife.

For years before the county’s destruction of the wash and its surrounding habitat there was a coyote that I could set my watch by. We called her the 6 am coyote and If I saw her, I was running late for work.

The lone California Poppy growing on what looks like the surface of the moon is my reminder to never trust a government agency.

San Bernardino County Flood Control promised that they were going to restore the wash to its natural state.

Originally the wash was lined with trees. There were some pine, some mountain oak, there were even a few aspen like trees. There was also a really nice trail that meandered through the trees. All of this was literally 1000 ft from the back of my home. I loved it, the dogs loved it, and hearing the owls hooting at night was comforting. My home was an oasis from the insanity of LA

All of that was destroyed by people who did not live in the area, who KNEW better than everyone actually living here. People who didn’t ask questions, and who didn’t consult history.

People who used the phrase, “We’re from the government and we’re here to help.”

They gave us more heat, more dust, a scar in the ground that looks like the surface of the moon, and a single California poppy.