Close Encounters

I was out in the back garden this afternoon when I noticed this beautiful butterfly, a California Sister (thanks, Miss Vicki), perched on a Dogwood leaf right next to some Dogwood berries.

Of course, I didn't have either one of my cameras with me. I rushed back into the house and grabbed one, all the while thinking that I was rushing for nothing because the butterfly would surely be gone when I got back.

Amazingly, she was still there! I usually have a really hard time photographing insects because they just don't stay still long enough. But it was almost like this one was posing for me.

I had never realized how scary-looking butterfly faces are until this one turned to look right at me. I gasped (stupidly) and she flew away. And maybe she was thinking:

"Eeeeek! Those humans are really scary-looking! And why do they only have one, giant, round eye?!"

Anyway, I still think their wings are beautiful...

Windows Wednesday

I've always had a fascination with windows and doors, so I thought I'd post one every Wednesday. For obvious reasons, I won't post what town or village they're in, but I've a file full of pictures of doors and windows that I've taken in my rambles all over these mountains.

I don't know why they fascinate me; maybe, like eyes are said to be the windows to the soul of living beings, windows and doors let one see a bit of the soul of a house?

Wordless Wednesday

Shadow Bumpnbiter

We named him that because, if he likes you, he likes to bump you with the top of his head. And if he really likes you, he'll give you gentle kitty bites. We also call him Shadow Padric, Chieftain of the Padding Paws Clan.

I think Vicki Lane's cat, Eddie, looks a lot like Shadow...or maybe it's vice versa. Although I'm quite sure if Shadow were ever face to beak with a wild turkey he'd faint. He gets nervous when the Jays land on top of the kitty play yard and yell at him. (Quite a few years ago we built a 16 ft. wide by 39 ft. long play yard for them because we have such a large coyote population, and it just isn't safe for them to roam on their own).

But his favorite thing to do is to "mother" his baby brother, Timothy. We saved Timothy from a Raccoon when he was about 5 weeks old. Shadow wanted to take care of Timothy from the first moment we brought him into the house. I'd never heard Shadow meow, chirp and trill like that until he saw Timothy. We always keep our new adoptions separate from our other cats until they're tested and cleared for various contagious diseases, and sometimes they have to endure a few days of our other cats being rude (I monitor them closely so they're not too rude) when they're first out with the rest of the gang. But not little Timothy! Shadow, who weighs 19 lbs., made it clear that Timothy was under his protection and they've been best buddies ever since.

Early Autumn

Jewels left by frost

Autumn's fleeting glory is

Just awakening

La Luna

La Luna a little over a week ago

And tonight...La Luna in her full glory. There wasn't any haze

in the air when I took the first photo, but tonight is pretty hazy due to the smoke from the big fire near Los Angeles.
But whether she is seen through clear or hazy air, I think La Luna is always beautiful.
When I was a very little girl, I used to think that the moon sparkles on the lake would hold me up if I could just manage to step on them in exactly the right way. I had a rule, though, that if the first step onto a sparkle didn't hold me up there was no use in going further; the magic just wasn't going to work that night. Thank goodness there was one part of my mind that had a tiny shred of practicality!

Kin

I'm always amazed

by the variety of colors

Hydrangeas can produce

on one bloom, and even each petal,

and how the color mutates on every bloom and petal until the blooming season is over.

One of my great grand-nieces, who is six, asked me how the blossoms could change color so much, even on one petal. I told her that at night the artists of the Faerie People come with their brushes and wave them over the petals to change the color to suit their fancy. She wanted to know why they didn't need to bring along their paints and palettes. I told her that they didn't need to because their imaginations were so powerful that they could make the colors flow from their minds right onto the brush and, with the flick of a wrist and as quick as the beat of a wing, the petal would look just the way they imagined it.

She looked at me and asked, "Why can't we paint like that?" I replied, "Oh, darlin', we're just mere humans. The Faery People have magic, you know that. But I do believe that every painter, every writer, every person who makes something good, something that wouldn't harm anyone, something that they've only seen in their imagination into reality...well, I believe the Faery People count us as kin."

She replied, "So, because I made a painting today and mama likes to write stories...that means we're related to Faeries?  Oh, I like that!  Wait until I tell Mama!"

Smiling, I said, "Sugar, I'm pretty sure your mama already knows."

The Last Rose of Summer

Even though it's horribly hot today (84 F up here, 107 down in the valley where my sister lives) this will be the last rose for this growing season. In a couple of weeks the temperatures will drop drastically...I hope. They've always done so in the past, but the weather is so abnormal this year, who knows? I always take extra time to inhale the delicious scent of the last rose, fixing it firmly in memory. Then, in the depths of winter, all I have to do is close my eyes, inhale deeply and I'm back in the warmth of my summer garden.

My Double-Ruffled Impatiens won't last much longer either. They can't take temperatures much below 45 F.

They've always reminded me of little miniature rose blossoms. Unfortunately, they have no fragrance. They do well in pots and hanging baskets, so I have them all over. I've been after my husband for years to build a greenhouse for me so I can over-winter my Impatiens and Fuchsias, but alas...

I'm always amazed when I go down to visit my sister. She has Fuchsias growing in the ground that are four to five feet high!!! It's like visiting another country when I drive from these mountains down into the flat lands.

Beautiful Sunset?

Not really. It's caused by all the smoke in the air from all the fires here in Southern California. Everyone has sore throats, noses and eyes from breathing the smoke, although it had cleared quite a bit when I took this. Everyone is on edge. County Fire Units have been patrolling the mountains and foothills, and will continue to do so until fire season is over. Local people are also patrolling, very much in "vigilante" mode. I think if they (the locals) caught an arsonist, the state would not have to worry about the cost of a trial...

And speaking of trials, the arsonists who set the 2003 and 2006 fires have been caught, tried and sentenced to death. People died in both of those fires.

Usually we don't get this sort of thing until late October. I hope the rains come early, and I hope that the Santa Ana winds, or Devil Winds as some call them, never come at all.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday - Emphemeral

Hawks above, 5,700 feet of blue air below

Attitude

Some of the squirrels I feed aren't as appreciative as they might be...

Sam: "YO, lady! Yeah, I'm tawkin to YOU! Get that camera outta my face! Doan make me say it again!"

Stan: "Yeah...that goes for me, too! Freakin' paparoo...uh...paparara...uh...slimy voyager!"

Stella: "Sigh...lighten up, you guys. The peanuts she puts out for us are our modeling fees! Haven't you figured that out yet? And Stan...you mean 'voyeur' which she is most definitely not! Sheesh. Some boys..."

Wordless Wednesday - Distance

Gossiping 'Round the Water Cooler

I wonder what these Raccoons were talking about?

Oh, no way! That can't be true!Really, it is...and there's more! Here, I'll whisper it to you...

Oh, EWWWWW!

Wordless Wednesday

The Autumn Age

Some of these Dogwood berries are turning red, a sure sign that Autumn is on the way. I'm praying that it's a cool, wet one.

My "autumn" is well underway. I don't have many wrinkles (yet), but things are definitely heading south.

Today an acquaintance of mine, who had a face lift a few months ago, looked at me and said, "Well, you don't need a face lift yet, but you do need to have your eyes done." I said, "Why do I need them "done"? Yeah, the upper lids are sagging a bit, but I can still see perfectly well." She replied in a matter-of-fact tone, "Well, you know. You don't want to look OLD." She was shocked when I said, "I'm not looking forward to it, but I'm not going to do anything to stop it. I've had my time being young and beautiful, now I'm ready to be old and beautiful." She said, "You can't be OLD and beautiful!!" I said, "Yes, you can. It's just a different kind of beauty, and it's too bad that most people today can't recognize it." She looked at me as if I had just said "Watch out! I'm crazy and it's contagious!" and hurriedly walked away.

I don't know if it's as pronounced in other parts of the country, but here in Southern California aging is looked upon as a disease that must be eradicated at all costs, a social "no-no" that puts you in a class slightly lower than a convicted criminal.

Anything sagging? Hurry, get it lifted! Got fat? Get liposuction! Got any horrible, socially unacceptable wrinkles? Quick, get Botox! Lips thinning? Well, what are you waiting for? Get them injected with something! Do anything, any painful, potentially life threatening SOMETHING to avoid aging!

I REFUSE.

I do have my hair dyed a flaming red (it's naturally black with quite a bit of grey around the front) but I started doing that when I turned 50 as a way of saying, "Yes, I'm aging but I refuse to disappear." When my hair turns completely white, I'll quit dying it. Maybe. Or maybe I'll do what my Mom did sometimes when she was feeling feisty; tint it a temporary outrageous color (pale green, lavender, purple, whatever matched her outfit. She was a strong, brave woman and a quite a character. I miss her more than words can convey).

I have no respect for a society that says I'm worthless because I'm old. (I can't say middle-aged anymore because, really, who lives to be 120?) I have no respect for a society that says I have to have painful, dangerous things done to me just to "fit in." I've never been a person who has striven to "fit in" and I'm not about to start now.

It doesn't bother me when a woman, or man, has cosmetic procedures because they want to have them. It bothers me when they have them only because they feel they're worthless if they don't.

Shades of Pink

Favorite Places

This is one of my favorite places. It combines a book store, a tea, coffee and pastry shop, a small antique store and a small plant nursery.


Marie is always ready to help find a book or, if she knows your reading preferences, alert you to the latest book published by your favorite author.


For a tiny village bookstore, McCabe's has a wonderful selection of books and if they don't have it they will order it for you.

There are comfortable chairs by a fireplace. These two women graciously consented to let me take their picture, even though I didn't know them. But by the time I left, I'd made two new friends. Look closely at the lap of the woman in the foreground and you'll see the most important person at McCabe's: Miss Bobbi the Bookstore Cat! (Sorry she's so hard to see. She was in one of her pertinacious moods the day I took these photos).

Blue

Flowing blue distance

Tells tales of eternity

To those who listen

So Near

Yet so far. This cloud was actually dropping rain but the rain was evaporating before it could hit the ground because the humidity is so low up here. This phenomenon is called "Virga," and it's immensely frustrating.

I could smell the rain in the air and I bet the animals in the forest could, too. I wonder if the trees could somehow sense that the rain which they need so desperately was near? Sometimes it seems that Nature has a really twisted sense of humor.

They're interesting and pretty to look at, but I wish the water that they're laden with could have made it down to the ground. There hasn't been a day since the beginning of June that has been completely cloudless, but we've only had one day that it really rained. Unfortunately, it didn't last very long; a little over a minute and it was done.

If science figured out a way to put men on the moon, why can't they figure out a way to make it rain? Now that would be truly useful!

Wordless Wednesday

Memory...What's That?

This is one of my favorite little nooks in my back garden to sit and dream. (Note to self: Trim the greenery, it's swallowing the Reading Fairy). I had just finished watering; sadly, I have to water the in-ground plants twice weekly and the potted ones every day. The green plastic hanging pot in the upper right did have some wonderful deep pink double-ruffled Impatiens in it, but the baby Steller Jays kept using it as a resting place and finally squished it out of existence. Ah well, all in a good cause. I have some beautiful hanging planters that I kept meaning to transplant the Impatiens into, but I would usually think about that in the middle of doing a million other things and then I would forget. I'm getting just a little too good at this forgetting thing, but I'm not having much success in combating it.

There are not many blooms on the Hydrangeas, but I was surprised that they bloomed at all this year. Normally I mulch them heavily, then put black plastic over the whole thing. It's really too cold in the winter to grow them easily up here, but I have a couple of protected spots where they do okay along as long as I remember to coddle them. I mulched them last winter but forgot the black plastic. I've now made up a list of things that need to be done in the autumn so here's hoping I won't forget where I put the list!

My Mama told me that with age comes wisdom but she didn't tell me that wisdom pushes memory right out. She probably forgot...

Just Drifting

Waiting for the food he knows I'll give him...

Evening Songs

For the past four days I've had a really nasty gastrointestinal bug. I think the 4th of July doesn't like me, because this is the third one in a row that I've missed.

Anyway, this evening I felt well enough to sit outside and watch the sun set behind the ridge as I listened to a symphony provided by nature.

Our creek has stopped using its noisy, rushing, roaring voice of spring which sometimes grates on my ears. It is now speaking in soothing liquid gurgles, punctuated by the occasional loud, joyful "PLASH!" as it leaps off a rock to continue its downward flow to the lake.

A gentle breeze wends its way though the pines, cedars, dogwoods and oaks, coaxing a comment from each branch it touches. Every tree has its own distinctive voice; the pines and cedars speak in a soft susurrant rush, while the oaks and dogwoods speak in a quiet swish and rustle.

The birds are making their last visit of the day to our feeders. I can hear their various trills, warbles, chirps, and whortlings as they reach their homes. The last rays of the sun are gilding the tops of the tallest pines on the ridge behind me when I hear the high, lonely call of a hawk far above me. I look up to see it riding the thermals, its feathers blazing red and gold against the deep purple blue sky.

I feel so blessed to live here. Later, hopefully, I will feel well enough to go down to the lake and watch La Luna pour her silver light on the water.