“Listen! The wind is rising and the air is wild with leaves, We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves!” ~ Humbert Wolfe, Italian-born English poet (1885-1940) Despite warm days, there is no doubting it is October. The evenings come early, quickly cooling into the 50s overnight. The skies are a blue like […]
“And at last it comes. You hear a patter … you see a leaf here and there bob and blink about you; you feel a spot on your face, on your hand. And then the gracious rain comes, gathering its forces-steady, close, abundant.” ~ John Richard Vernon, “The Beauty of Rain,” 1863 As the sun […]
“When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water.” ~ Benjamin Franklin’s “Poor Richard’s Almanac,” 1746 One look at our once green lawn and “the worth of water” is known. As the three-year drought continues into autumn, will a wet El Nino halt its advance? The answer, at the present time, seems to be […]
“Change is a measure of time and, in the autumn, time seems speeded up. What was is not and never will be again will be; what is is change.” ~ Edwin Teale, American naturalist, writer and photographer Summer 2014 is almost history. After two power outages and temperatures reaching close to 110, most of us […]
“August has passed, and yet summer continues by force to grow days. They sprout secretly between chapters of the year, covertly included between its pages. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer The final weeks of summer … the first day of school has come and gone. Warm, clear and inviting waters of backyard pools are mostly without […]
“The three elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood and the sound of outer ocean on the beach.” ~ Henry Beston, American writer & naturalist Rain, wind and waves … nature’s sounds at its finest, to be sure. But currently not a drop of rain […]
“Sharks have everything a scientist dreams of. They’re beautiful – God how beautiful they are! They’re like an impossibly perfect piece of machinery. They’re as graceful as any bird. They’re as mysterious as any animal on earth…” ~ Peter Benchley, “Jaws” “Robin, stop the presses!” Temperatures sailed way beyond my predicted daytime highs of around […]
“Life is fleeting …cast your eyes to the summer sky when the stars are strung across the velvety night. When a shooting star streaks through the blackness, turning night into day… make a wish and think of me. Make your life spectacular.” ~ Robin Williams in “Jack” (1996) Tuesday, the Perseid meteor shower peaked. A […]
“Slowly at last the heavy clouds, charged with the welcome water, roll up from seaward. And down, as if really from heaven … comes the fresh rain. Then there rises from the ground a cool and penetrating aroma, the scent of the dry soil saturated…” ~ Daily Telegraph, quoted in “A Cyclopaedia of Nature […]
“There is no way that we can predict the weather six months ahead, beyond giving the seasonal average.” ~ Stephen Hawking, “Black Holes and Baby Universes” As we sail into mid-summer, weather is pretty much business as usual. Monday a surge of monsoonal moisture brought cloud cover and a chance of showers to the foothills […]