A Minus Tide Walk

It had been so long since we took a minus tide walk. The last photos I took were from 2019. Then Covid hit, and we didn't venture out much. So when we checked the tide charts and saw that there was a significant minus tide on Sunday we took our vaccinated selves out there for a nice walk. This beach is about 15 miles north of us. A lovely ride along the coast and then the walk.

The first thing we noticed were these huge mussels on one of the beach rocks.

Here's a closer view. We were impressed.

There were lots of people photographing this rock. It was really quite a sight. 

We walked as far as we could to the kelp beds. We love this view.

On. the way back we came across this rock that was teeming with life. 

I zoomed in a little to get a better look.

We were so happy to see the Sea Stars making such a good recovery here.

Another rock that caught our attention was this simple one. 

You'd hardly know just by looking at it that it's also covered with life. Here's a close-up.

Small sea anemones, lots and lots of sea anemones waiting for the tide to come back and cover them.

It was so good to be out there even on a gray cloudy day. Life felt normal. The sea called to us and we answered. We waved good bye and said thank you.

What We've Been Doing

 It's been a while since we posted anything on our poor neglected blog. So here are a few things we've been up to.

Family time!

The grandkid cousins enjoying their cantaloupe moment of Zen

Youngest grandson with a look that says, Take my picture, grandma!

Roger getting to spend time with his daughter Indigo who we hadn't seen in more than  a year

The sign Indigo painted for us

And then raven, swallowtail, iridescent clouds, yellow rose, dead tree in a parking lot, and halo time too!

That sums up the past few days. Now we're back to cloudy foggy gray skies, but with hopes for a sunnier future!

Only One Photo

 I can't even begin to understand or explain this, but my twin brother and his wife drove up from Santa Cruz (350 miles) spent four days with us, celebrating our 69th birthday together, and I didn't take a single photo. Well, that's not entirely true. I did take one photo. Michael (my twin) asked me to show Kim (his wife) how well my camera does a close up zoom. So I zoomed in on this iris blooming our in our front yard. I was standing more than 20 feet away.

That's it. One photo.

But we had these wonderful four days with family. Michael and Kim stayed in our house with us. We didn't wear masks indoors or out on our walks. It made life feel almost normal again. We laughed, told stories, shared memories, laughed some more. Roger's daughter Elena and the three grandkids came by on May 13th to celebrate our birthday with us. No photos of that either, but some very funny haikus that the kids wrote on the theme of flatulence. There was so much laughter and joyous freedom in our maskless huggy teary celebration. 

On Sunday Michael and Kim left. The house was so quiet again. That's when I remembered I wanted a photo of Michael and me to add to our collection. Ah well, we'll have to wait until next year when we turn 70.  I hope one of us has enough brain cells left to remember.

Two Sky Views

 It had been so long since I saw any atmospheric optics I began to wonder if the sun and ice particles had left us because of the Coronavirus. I thought it was gone forever. Then I saw this.

Oh yes! That made me so happy. It looked like the dark cloud was exhaling a corona/iridescent cloud. I loved it. The sky's beauty was back! 

Then a few days later I saw this.

Roger and I had gone out to roll the garbage can to the curb for the next morning's pick up. I looked up at the sky as I always do and then ran in the house to get the camera. This is a 22 degree halo with sundogs, a parry arc, upper tangent arc, and above it all circumzenithal arc. 

The ephemeral beauty of our skies reminded us of living life in the moment without worry and with hearts lifted as high and far as we can see.