Sunday Sunsets

It's raining lightly right now - oh, such a beautiful sound - and the weather people predict that we're to get three to four inches of rain on Wednesday!  No snow, which isn't good news for the ski resorts, but this is enough rain (I hope) to put an end to fire weather...at least for a little while, anyway...

Have a...

Wishing everyone who celebrates Thanksgiving a happy one...

A Short Break

The cats were conspiring with the ladder to try and kill me, so I decided to take a short break from decorating and go for a walk outside in the forest...where there are bears, mountain lions, coyotes, slippery patches of ice, and giant pine cones that could, and do, fall at any time.  Even so, the forest is safer for me than my cottage when the cats are conspiring!  Thankfully, it usually doesn't take them long to remember who feeds them and the conspiracies come to an end.

I took the above photo on December 22, 2009.  There had been a snow much like the one we just had a few days ago and, while I was out walking, the late afternoon sunlight on the holly leaf caught my eye first, then I noticed the patch of ice crystals on the leaf slowly turning back into fluid water.  When I talk about magic being all around us, this is the kind of magic I'm referring to...nature's magic, so full of wonder and always there, if we pay attention.

A Quote for Monday

"November comes and November goes,
With the last red berries and the first white snows. 
With night coming early and dawn coming late,
And ice in the bucket and frost by the gate.
The fires burn and the kettles sing,
And earth sinks to rest until next Spring."  Clyde Watson, from "Father Fox's Penny Rhymes"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A few days ago we had our first snow.  It was just a dusting, melting quickly and then turning to rain.  We got one and a quarter inches of rain!  But today?  Today it's back to climate change insanity.  It's cold, but very dry, with high winds and extremely low humidity.  That puts us at high risk for wildfires, so all of Southern California is under a Red Flag Warning. 

During the rain/snow storm I checked the humidity levels: Even though it was pouring down rain in buckets, the humidity was only 82 percent!  Apparently, when it's been so dry for so long, it takes an extended period of wet weather to bring the humidity up to 100 percent.

I'm still putting up Christmas decorations, trying like mad to get it all done before Thanksgiving.  Well, except for the dining room; I leave the autumn things up in there until after Thanksgiving dinner is over.  It just feels strange to me to eat Thanksgiving food from Christmas plates in a room that's decorated for Christmas.  I'll try and post some pictures of how the decorating is coming along tomorrow...if I haven't fallen off the ladder!  It seems like the older I get, the higher and more wobbly the ladder is, even though the ladder hasn't changed...

12:44 Today

The Christmas season began in my cottage.  My husband and I started putting out the first of too many decorations.  Every year we say we'll start getting rid of some things...and every year we never do, unless they're actually worn beyond recognition or broken.  Even then, we have a hard time because Christmas things hold so many memories, especially of loved ones who are no longer with us. 

Most things aren't in the places they'll "live" in for the Christmas season yet, including the things in the photo.  We set stuff out, then sort it out while the cats run around saying hello to everything.  What fun!

A Quote For Monday

"Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."  John Wooden

Sunday Sunsets

Wednesday's Winding Road

Taken in November of 2009.  I drove this road yesterday and, while the trees are a bit taller, the color of gold in their leaves is the same.

A Quote For Monday

"The grand show is eternal.  It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising.  Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls."  John Muir, from "John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir"

Sunday Sunlight

This is the thing I love best about living in a forest: The way the light constantly shifts and changes, highlighting one thing then obscuring it with shadow, only to showcase something else in light.  The light dances, especially when there is a little breeze for a partner, and if you sit in one place for ten minutes you might see twenty or more different views of the same thing.

Wednesday's Winding Road

I think the tag says "early October" but I actually took this in the middle of October.  That yellow tree just jumped out at me, and fortunately there was a place to pull over so I could take the photo.

A Quote for Monday

"There is something in the Autumn that is native to my blood -
Touch of manner, hint of mood;
And my heart is like a rhyme,
With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time." 

From "Vagabond Song" by Bliss Carmen 1861-1929

He doesn't say anything about the orange, burgundy and gold, but they're all there, too...on the same tree!