Field Trip

Field trip up north to see the annual convergence of the elephant seals.  Fascinating animals.  This docent led walk takes you right by them.  The masses on the beach don't much notice viewers but you have to walk silently and stealthily past the ones farther up on the beach who are lolling in the pools.  They move quickly and will do so if they feel threatened.   Because it was a gray day it made for a lively day with fighting and scraping.  We saw one baby get rolled right over by a big male defending his terrritory and we saw two females scraping over whose baby was it?  Meanwhile there was an abandoned one a few yards off.  They finally sorted it out and one of them lumbered off to take care of the neglected offspring. 

Rock House

Carmel Point

      The extraordinary patience of things!

      This beautiful place defaced with a crop of surburban houses-

      How beautiful when we first beheld it,

      Unbroken field of poppy and lupin walled with clean cliffs;
      No intrusion but two or three horses pasturing,
      Or a few milch cows rubbing their flanks on the outcrop rockheads-
      Now the spoiler has come: does it care?
      Not faintly. It has all time. It knows the people are a tide
      That swells and in time will ebb, and all
      Their works dissolve. Meanwhile the image of the pristine beauty
      Lives in the very grain of the granite,
      Safe as the endless ocean that climbs our cliff.-As for us:
      We must uncenter our minds from ourselves;
      We must unhumanize our views a little, and become confident
      As the rock and ocean that we were made from. 

      Robinson Jeffers

West Coast

Where land meets the sea.  On this day in January the weather was unseasonably warm as you can see by our clothing.  On this day this place was teeming with life.  We saw whales, dolphins, otters, seals, egrets and pelicans among other things.  A quintessential California day.  A good day to watch the diamonds of light cut across the water.  A good day to soak in before heading back to the east coast. To the snow drifts and winds.  To the papers and books.

   

Vegan Bites

 

Veganism.  I'm getting this vegan thing down.  Kind of.  Realizing it's actually pretty easy to make adjustments and tasty too.  Especially around here where lots of dairy alternatives are at our fingertips.  Well, if not literary, at our fingertips then at least nearby.  We made these delicious biscuits to go with our cream of kale soup.  Cream coming from soy milk.  Using kale from the garden.  Vegan pizza was served alongside cheesy goodness and for this one I'd have to say cheese was tastier.  But this pie........vegan deliciousness.  Made out of dates, hazelnuts, almonds, chocolate, coconut oil, Irish moss  and topped with a cashew icing.  Yummy yum.......

Morning River

Usually this is a trail head we bypass on our way to the cool, refreshing,deep, rocky river.  Barely glance at it.  But on this warm winter morning it was exactly the trail head we were aiming for.  To explore a tributary along one of my favorite rivers.  To see it in a different season.  To smell the dampness and cool air instead of the dry dustiness we are used to in this area.  To feel the cool vapor rising up from the river instead of plunging into the cold water.  A refreshing walk before we headed back down, out of the mountains, to the valley and city and shore.   

Winter's View

   The Uses of Light 

It warms my bones

    say the stones

                                                 I take it into me and grow

                                                 Say the trees

                                                 Leaves above

                                                 Roots below

                                                 A vast vague white

                                                 Draws me out of the night

                                                 Says the moth in his flight-

                                                 Some things I smell

                                                 Some things I hear

                                                 And I see things move

                                                 Says the deer-

                                                 A high tower

                                                 on a wide plain.

                                                 If you climb up 

                                                 One floor

                                                 You'll see a thousand miles more.

                                                  Gary Snyder