This really has been one of the coldest winters I can recall. We regularly drop into the twenties at night. I hope the olive trees will survive in decent shape--they lost a number of leaves one night when I forgot to cover them with blankets and sheets.
But we did receive about two and a half inches of rain, so the burn-ban was lifted. I've been running the chain saw up on the top of the hill where all the juniper were killed in the drought and heat two summers ago. I've also been clearing out the space around the Second Oak beneath the boulders of Whitman's Rough. The Creek is running nicely out of the Pond, and we can hear its waters falling across cold rocks. Sometimes late at night we sit under the great Oak and try to do nothing but listen to it.
Something appears to have killed several of the hens, so now we keep them continually locked up in their house. This makes them depressed, and they are rebelling by refusing us eggs. One of the red hens was found just off our deck with its abdomen ripped open, revealing shiny gray entrails. Then about a week ago when I was up top, I turned around to see a gorgeous red fox standing sideways to me and staring motionless into my face. We stood there thirty feet in front of one another for a minute until he slowly turned his head and continued on down his trail of barely detectable bent grasses. I don't know that it was a fox that killed the hens. We've also been seeing one or two red-shouldered hawks sitting in the limbs across the creek. Who knows?
I haven't been working enough on the house lately. Too much else to see and think about. But we're only a couple full days away from completing the deck and screened porch. Still don't have a kitchen sink or counter top, but that's doable.
The stones and their unassuming fossil remains do not worry about chickens or kitchen sinks or even the silent wing-strokes of a hawk that leaves only the most ephemeral of shadow-impressions on their flatly indifferent surfaces. I love them.
But we did receive about two and a half inches of rain, so the burn-ban was lifted. I've been running the chain saw up on the top of the hill where all the juniper were killed in the drought and heat two summers ago. I've also been clearing out the space around the Second Oak beneath the boulders of Whitman's Rough. The Creek is running nicely out of the Pond, and we can hear its waters falling across cold rocks. Sometimes late at night we sit under the great Oak and try to do nothing but listen to it.
Something appears to have killed several of the hens, so now we keep them continually locked up in their house. This makes them depressed, and they are rebelling by refusing us eggs. One of the red hens was found just off our deck with its abdomen ripped open, revealing shiny gray entrails. Then about a week ago when I was up top, I turned around to see a gorgeous red fox standing sideways to me and staring motionless into my face. We stood there thirty feet in front of one another for a minute until he slowly turned his head and continued on down his trail of barely detectable bent grasses. I don't know that it was a fox that killed the hens. We've also been seeing one or two red-shouldered hawks sitting in the limbs across the creek. Who knows?
I haven't been working enough on the house lately. Too much else to see and think about. But we're only a couple full days away from completing the deck and screened porch. Still don't have a kitchen sink or counter top, but that's doable.
The stones and their unassuming fossil remains do not worry about chickens or kitchen sinks or even the silent wing-strokes of a hawk that leaves only the most ephemeral of shadow-impressions on their flatly indifferent surfaces. I love them.
