Sunset

Good Heavens, Slow Down!

Son of a Gun, Slow Down!

In between the general hubbub of getting ready in the morning with 6 pets who are doing their best theatrical representations of starving to death, coupled with a broken water heater, trying to straighten out plans for an upcoming trip back home, and writing 7 emails, I had in fact sat down originally to edit photos from the previous evening and I saw this quote scroll by on Facebook:

“You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day–unless you are too busy; then you should sit for an hour.”

So with that, I am going to write a blog post. About nothing. I feel like every time I sit to expound some grand idea into a post, it never gets finished, mostly because it leads to other tangents. My latest attempt, for example, is to pictorially represent the California Coast from peak to ocean, but it cascaded into my fight with Lightroom catalogs [turns out, my backup drives weren’t copying the lightroom edits!].

So, instead of doing all that for the time being, I present to you two sunset shots for your meditative pleasure. I feel better now.

Moonstone Sunset

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Just wait 5 minutes…

You often here people proclaim that the weather in their hometown takes the cake for being the most extreme. “If yaw dawn’t liiike ther weathur, jus wait fu’minnits—ittel change!” [the hybrid southern accent some people in my hometown like to emulate]. Oddly, I’ve personally heard this proclaimed in at least 5 states. Here in California is one of the few places where the weather is the most consistent. Temperatures right along the coast aren’t extreme; it will rain for days, be sunny for days, and be foggy for months! Those border days are pretty interesting though, and serve to remind that change is the only constant.

Yesterday was a chilly 40 degrees with a dark grey fog smothering out the Sun on the coast. Briefly in the afternoon, a slight hint of yellow appeared and vanished, marking all of what would be seen of the Sun that day. The day before, sunny and relatively warm [upper 40s, and yes from 40 to upper 40s is a big difference around here!]. Today there is a pink glow in the East, what appears to be a milky blue above, veiled in the little fog that lingers [And…by 9:30 the fog buried the Sun once again! Come on now, this isn’t Summer!!]. Cloudy days are perfect for editing photos; sunny days make it hard to see the computer screen. Since today is a sunny day, I try to rush and get computer things done before heading out to walk the dog.

This photo was taken three days ago. Had you checked the forecast on that day, you’d find no mention of the arrival of the summer-like fog to the coast. Lurking offshore, fog rarely gets to visit the coast in the winter, so its surprise appearance probably helps with additional coffee sales for the day.

While the weather isn’t the most dramatic in the world, it does make for some really interesting phenomenon. For example, I recently googled how to prune back geraniums. None of the examples looked like the monster I wanted to tackle. This geranium has obviously lived at this rental for years and years, becoming a gnarly small tree with the occasional flower and leaf thanks to the lack of hard frosts.

In fact, finding frost is often like finding treasure. Most often, I can find a little on the colder mornings in the fields, but it often quickly gives way to dewdrops before 8:00 am rolls around.

A leaf bud of a currant taken a couple days ago.

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Frost in the meadow before the sun hit it, taken the same day as the leaf bud.

Even though I do miss inches of snow, crazy lightning shows, rolling thunder, and the occasional tornado chase, this area definitely offers some interesting weather quirks in its own absurd, North Coast way.