Avila California has a few really nice piers.
The Sea Lions have taken to sleeping along some of the lower access walkways.
It’s illegal to try to get them to move.. as this may be construed as harassing them….
They are also wild beasts… so if you try to get past them.. they might get scared and bite….
In fact… these critters are like dogs with flippers and no ears. They are beautiful creatures when in the water…. they transform from the ungainly creatures we see on land.. to swirling and twirling flying dancers in the deep kelp…..
beautiful and astounding.
Sealwoman/Yundah
Mary McLaughlin
Over the waves you call to me
Shadow of dream, ancient mystery
Oh how I long for your sweet caress
Oh how I long for your gentleness
Torn between sea mists and solid land
Nights when I’ve ached for a human hand
I’ll come to you when the moon shines bright
But I must go free with the first streak of light
Over the waves you call to me
Shadow of dream ancient mystery
Oh how I long for your sweet caress
Oh how I long for your gentleness
We leave water out for the local wildlife… even though the deer love many of our cactus plants… I like having them around. Our best cactus is behind a seven foot tall fence….
The local does (a female deer) have their babies here… it is a safer place than further from the house. Local predators do not come to our house that much because it riles the dogs…. the dogs bark like crazy at the deer, but don’t worry them too much. The dogs are preferable to coyotes….
Our dogs are chihuahuas… so mostly all they do is make a ruckus. They get scared by anything larger than them… so they fright up when they see a rabbit. But they do keep predators away…. believe me, foxes, coyotes and lions don’t worry about a chihuahua… but they know there is usually a human nearby… so this is a relatively safe place for deer. Sometimes we get to see the babies nursing…. so sweet.
Here’s a photo of the little fawn near our house. I took this photo from our open front door.
We call them Gopher Snakes here…
Some places call them ‘Bull Snakes’, or ‘Corn Snakes’
Taxonomists call them “Pituophis’
Some of the old folks call them ‘Hoop Snakes’…
and say that when frightened in this hilly country,
they will grasp their tail in their mouth,
form themselves into a hoop, and roll down the hill to evade capture.
I’ve never seen it happen….
But my cousin met a guy once who did.
They imitate rattlesnakes….
very interesting.
I’ve jumped out of my skin a few times when one of these guys turned up in the brush.
They’ll form into a coiled striking pattern…feigning strikes,
wriggling their tail and hissing in a strange way that sounds vaguely like a rattlesnake tail-rattle.
This one was sunning on the asphalt roadway.
I like these snakes… they eat vermin…
maybe having them around might reduce the rattlesnakes
as there’d be less food for the rattlers.
The King snake is good also..
and they are known for killing and eating young rattlesnakes….
although I imagine they’d eat gopher snakes also.
There’s usually no need for killing snakes….
beneficial snakes such as this should be left alone to live their lives.
We live far down a dirt road….
We’re pretty remote….
I understand that other folks with higher population densities would get the highest level of service….
That makes economic and social sense
“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”
~Spock~
Nonetheless…. our road occasinally gets to a really bad condition, such that people get their tires flattened and rims broken, and shocks breaking through the vehicle due to the huge potholes they hit…. at speed (not good to drive fast down a twisty dirt road with occasional washouts).
There are some local folk looking to sue the county for the poor condition of the road….
In principal I disagree with this thinking. The ones who ruin their vehicles year after year are always the same people… everyone else just gets unusually high wear and tear…. and there are going to be occasional accidents due to people trying to evade potholes at the exact second someone comes around a bend…. yet we can’t expect the county to get back into this remote area after every rainstorm… they’ve got an entire county full of dirt roads to maintain, and they have people along each of those roads with the same story.
In return for me not messing with the county… I’d like to have a reciprocal agreement that the county, state, Feds, and all other governmental agencies would leave me alone. But I know that won’t happen. Every one of those agencies seems to want to stick their fingers into the pie… while they stir it up and knock your own hands away such that you can’t even cook.
A joke: What does a libertarian eat for a salad dish?
Answ: Lettuce alone
There are many people who like the security of a ‘Nanny State’, taking care of our every need… ensuring employment and medical services etc.
Such a state would also have the right to decide when, how and where you live your life….
U.S.A. Saying:
“When you’re living under my roof… you’re gonna follow my rules“
If we wish the government to ensure medical coverage… then we should also expect that the same agencies would want to reduce overeating and alcohol/cigarette/drug abuse. This would greatly reduce the amount of health costs for the nation. Salts, fats and sugars should also be reduced in the diet…. In fact.. to ensure the best health/life care… we should have all people living in large apartment complexes, with a communal dining area. We’d not have to buy food either! And all we’d have to do is sign over our lives to the state.
Here’s some photos of the grader maintaining our dirt road.
The fellows on the crew do a good job… they give a proper crown so the water rolls off to the sides… the ditches along the edges are maintained and lead to culverts underneath the road, carrying the excess water to the creek….
I think the county could save some money by permitting some of the locals to help maintain the road between the big grading jobs they do… we could all show up on occasion to scrape the road with our tractors to smooth it out and fill the potholes… but that’d bother the union the county workers belong to…. and there’d probably be someone who’d plow into a car, or have their blade tilted too much and ruin the crown… road-maintenance by committee is probably not too efficient either. And besides… the county road is a mile from our house…. and it takes forever to drive a tractor a mile. So I’m happy enough having the county do the maintenance… thank you very much.
Life can be a bit complex sometimes… even with something as simple as a dirt road.
The complexities come from the people.
I’ve seen some sights in my time… and animals and people both continually amaze me…. I don’t get out much anymore… but reading a story such as this makes me want to go to sea again!
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THIS IS AN AWESOME STORY – NOT TOO LONG
The Whale
A female humpback whale had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines.
She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat.
She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, a line tugging
in her mouth.
A fisherman spotted her just east of the Faralon Islands (outside the Golden Gate ) and radioed for help
Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to
save her was to dive in and untangle her — a very dangerous proposition. One slap of the tail could kill
a rescuer.
They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her.
When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, nudged them, and pushed gently, thanking them.
Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives.
The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eye was following him the whole time, and he will never be the same..
May you, and all those you love, be so fortunate…
To be surrounded by people who will help you get
untangled from the things that are binding you.
And, may you always know the joy of giving and receiving gratitude.
We pass this on to you, our friend, in the same spirit.
Life is short, Break the rules, Forgive quickly, Kiss slowly,
Love truly, Laugh uncontrollably…
Never regret anything that made you smile.
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The posting above was sent to me by a WWII Marine who was in the Guadalcanal invasion along with other island campaigns in WWII. He often sends me truly inspirational e-mails… and I am happy to receive them.
I have been watching the HBO mini-series ‘The Pacific’ chronicling the exploits of the First Marine Division…. it makes me even more thankful for the sacrifices he and other military have given in defense of our lives and freedoms…. thank you to ALL veterans out there… while we wile away the time at home, it is the ones who fight for us that we should be thinking of, and appreciating when they come home….. carrying their shield or on it. God Bless you all… thank you so much for your sacrifices.
This winter’s rainy-season gave us plenty of rain. Luckily it mostly came down in nice easy showers for eight months or so. I don’t think there were too many weeks in which we did not get at least a little rain. Because of the low angle of the winter sun, some areas of north-facing creek bank deep in the canyon don’t get any sun at all for four months or so. These areas got plenty of thick moss growing along the vertical rock cliffs. It was worth taking photos of. I also made a screensaver of these photos, you can download it for free from our screensavers page.
Looks like Appalachia… but it’s a house on the Central Coast…. deep in the hills, near us.
The great thing about living remote is you can be yourself….
you don’t have ‘The World’ telling you how you should act or look.
Being so far from the world… it begins to matter less….
and life means so much more….
because you always see it being lost everywhere around you, daily.
The bad thing about living remote is that you can be yourself….
You don’t have those cues from ‘The World’ to keep you in line.
Being so far from the world… it begins to matter less….
and life becomes an object of life….
because you use the lives of others for your own life.
Always do benefit, not harm.
But sadly, every action will likely have repercussions on the lives of others.
When I roto-till I know I kill untold small creatures…
when I mow, small insects and mammals may lose their food source and homes…
Now I try to keep all such intrusions to a minimum…..
scheduling around animal nesting periods,
and considering their prospects for survival if I can delay action.
Most of our actions are done in little ‘swaths’,
nothing is done wholesale here….
we mow a small area while another nearby is being planted.
One spot is being allowed to grow fallow while the next is waxing in a five year growth.
Always, the animals have a spot to retreat to….
just as I do.
10 For every beast of the forest is mine,
the cattle on a thousand hills.
11 I know all the birds of the hills,
and all that moves in the field is mine.
Green Days in Rivenrock
The neighbor’s cow walks along our driveway… going back home.
Cows at the neighbor’s green field.
Summertime here brings us only dried grasses….
But winter’s rains liven the soil and sprout annual winter grasses.
Spring is the time of plenty for this eco-system.
The green hills lay at the end of our town….
The green hills are our home. We don’t live in the flatlands.
We can’t see too far…. our vision is constrained by high hills and tall trees.
But the green growth extends all through California for this brief period.
Winter and spring are fine times in California.
Here the Santa Maria River has cut through the hills. Continental uplift raises the ground level…
the river level stays about the same…
it just cuts deeper into the ground to maintain its own preferred angle.
This is the best growth of grasses that we have had for years. Grasses is our number one way of improving our soil. We mow and till the spent grasses into the ground…. they add tilth and organic matter making our soil more open to the plant roots and air/water.
This is a semi-desert area….
water is our most precious and scarce resource…
yet it is being sucked up by myriad wells all around,
lowering the local ground water level
and it will likely impact the trees on these thousand hills.
Nobody really owns anything on Earth.
We only stay a little time and pass through on our way.
Anything you have is your duty to maintain.
To possess is to be possessed.
We are all held to account for the skills we are gifted with,
and the way we use them.
Would that we would all use our skills for good and regeneration.
To abuse the earth, its animals or people is to hold God in contempt.
You would not treat a rare and precious gift from a celebrity with contempt….
why then treat the greatest gift from the greatest celebrity
with poisons and ill-use for temporary gain?
Any treasures procured in our lifetime
do us no good after we pass on.
Yet the harm we did will echo in eternity….
and one day our plugged ears will be opened,
and we will hear the thunder.
We took a little trip north to Paso Robles. There are many more Black Oaks growing there than what we have here, in fact the name Paso Robles means ‘Pass of the Oaks’.
