Yawn

That's all I'm doing...yawning. I'd really like to go to sleep, but for some reason, sleep is avoiding me tonight. It's 1:00 a.m. here in California, and I've been up since 6 a.m., I had a busy day, so where's the sandman? I'd like to go for a walk but the moon isn't anywhere near full. I can't even see a tiny little sliver of her. And while the stars are huge and bright, they're not bright enough to light my way through the forest.

The last time I felt like this I took a flashlight, roused my dogs and went ahead and went for a walk, staying on the path...and I stepped right into a big pile of bear poop. At first, I was just extremely annoyed because I thought it was dog poop. Then I noticed the way my dogs were acting and I took a closer look and saw the seeds and other things that identified it as bear scat. We don't have Grizzlies here (THANK GOD!!) but our little black bears can be testy sometimes. Especially, I suppose, if some idiot woman were to run into them in the dark.

I started talking to my dogs, telling them to stay calm, stay close to Mommy, don't be scared, yada yada yada. Then I looked around and saw that my dang dogs had already taken off! Right about now I was really wishing I had taken their advice and stayed home; they hadn't wanted to come out for a walk in the first place.

So I start shining my flashlight around and talking in a loud voice (because someone once told me you should let the bear know you're there) saying, "Hello bear, if you can see me, and I really hope you can't...no, no I hope you CAN so you can avoid me because I really don't want to meet you...well, I mean I'm sure you're very nice, I didn't mean to be rude, OH ANYWAY, I mean you no harm" when a voice right behind me says succinctly, "Why don't you just tell him you're from the planet Looney and you come in peace?"

Well, at least that showed me that I have a strong, healthy heart because, by rights, I should have had a heart attack right then and there. It also showed me that another part of my body is strong because I didn't leave a "pile" of my own on the path. But my husband? Well...I bet he'll never follow me around in the dark and make smart-ass remarks EVER AGAIN. Even if it did take me a while to catch him.

Insane Heat

The high yesterday was 75 and I thought that was crazy. Today it was 80 degrees!! And it's still April!!! The cherry tree in the above picture had buds on it two days ago, tight, little, nowhere-near-open buds. At least, I think it's a cherry tree because the blossoms look similar to a tree a friend of mine has. This was a volunteer and this is the first year it has bloomed. It's very tall for a cherry tree, but then so is her Ranier cherry tree.

Anyway, back to these insane temperatures. This time of year we're usually still getting spring snow, either heavy and wet or the consistency of popcorn. And our normal highs range from 33 to 45.

I hate this. I hate the feeling that all of nature is out of balance. We've lost over a million Ponderosa Pines in these mountains to the Pine Bark Beetle since 2001 because the warmer temperatures weakened their natural resistance to the little monsters. When we cut down the dead trees on our land (it's a fire hazard to leave them standing) we found that many were over 400 years old. It broke my heart.

I have a friend who lives along the coast of British Columbia. She said the Pine and Spruce Beetle arrived there this past summer and did quite a lot of damage, but that the trees in the interior of BC were affected even more: Millions of acres of dead trees. Millions of acres.

What kind of planet will the children of today have by the time they are adults? Will they have to show their grandchildren pictures of trees? Pictures of vast green forests, bears, mountain lions, polar bears,clear mountain streams, snow?

I hope not.