Month: June 2021

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Cool Again

It is cool again. The heat has passed. Cool air from the Pacific has pushed the heat to the east. We were lucky. The hottest it got here was 90ºF (32ºC) on Monday, the first time it was gotten that hot in the 16 years we have lived here.

Initially the forecast was for much hotter temperatures, but we are close enough to the bay that afternoon sea breezes tempered our heat. Short distances to the east, temperatures soared.

But what will it be like ten years from now, twenty? Will we look back to 2021 and long for summers when it only got to 90º?

Snow and the other hens are sitting on eggs. The last time I looked, Snow had five eggs. Five ducklings I can handle. However, Duchess, is sitting on 12 eggs. Grey Queen must also be on a nest, but where? And how many eggs?

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Cool to Hot


A cool, foggy morning belies what is about to come. In the 16 years we have lived here, it has never been 90ºF, 32ºC. But Sunday and Monday, the forecast is for temperatures high above that. It is just for two days, but a harbinger of hotter summers that will transform the cool, gentle climate we love.



The ducks are blissfully unaware of the upcoming heat wave. They do have plenty of water to paddle about on a hot day.



I discovered Snow’s nest this morning. It’s positioned precariously at the drop off into the pond. It wouldn’t take much for an egg or two to roll out of the nest and into the pond. I stole a few eggs for breakfast. Until she decides it is time to roost, I’ll sneak a few off from time to time. I don’t mind her hatching a few ducklings, but not twenty or so.


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Do It Differently


We don’t have just a handful of flower types. We have an endless variety of flower types. The grass flower above is other worldly. Researches estimate the origin of grasses to roughly 77 million years ago. So how many million years ago did this marvelous flower take shape? No doubt this splendid flower has been blooming long before we humans appeared.


It is the height of garlic scape season. Maybe the best time of the year. Though, really, what time of the year isn’t great?


A surprise in the garden was finding a glob of regurgitated salmon berry. The nearest salmon berry is so far away, the only way this little blob of salmon berry could have landed in this spot in the garden is if a micro meteorite hit a salmon berry at just the right angle to send a bit of berry flying over the fence and into the garden. Could happen. 37,000-78,000 tons of meteorite mass fall onto the earth every year. It’s not impossible for a tiny grain of this 78,000 tons of matter to strike a salmon berry nearby and send it airborne.

Though most likely a bird regurgitated it. Perhaps a robin hopped into the garden after nibbling a salmon berry and spit out the blob to make room for a fat worm it saw.



This season of endless flowers is a gentle reminder that there are a million ways to bloom.




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Twilight


Twilight’s soft light embues a peony with grace. The pond is quiet save for the last songs the birds sing. It is the season of birdsong and bee buzz. Early mornings there are so many birds singing I wonder how they find each other. The warm afternoons buzz with so many bees, I’m surprised I don’t see them colliding midair.




Fading light highlights the truth that the distinctions we make between this and that are just illusions, tricks our minds play on us. There is no this and that, us and them. Matter flows continuously. There are no boundaries. Everything is one.



The soft hues of thimbleberry flowers are even softer at twilight. And the fragrance of wisteria blossoms effuses the soft evening air. How many millions of light years would a soul need to travel through the universe to find another planet where the evening air is as fragrant as the evening air I get to enjoy just a few steps from my front door?

“The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.” G. K. Chesterton