Agave Bud and Orange Rose

  Out on our Monday morning walk we noticed this bud on an Agave plant.

We pass by here very often on our morning walks, but hadn't noticed this bud before even though it's pretty eye-catching. It reminded us of another agave plant we saw blooming several years ago when we were in Capitola. 

What do you think? Is it possible the local agave flower will grow as incredibly tall as this one? Wouldn't that be wild and beautiful? We're going to keep checking, of course, and we'll keep you posted. 

Then we saw this orange rose, and it made us wonder if we'd ever seen a rose this color before. Neither of us remembered such a thing.

It's really quite pretty. I googled "orange rose" to see how common they are. Here's what I learned. 

"Orange roses cannot be found in nature, since they are the product of decades of crossbreeding red roses and yellow roses. Such process has led to the creation of dozens of orange rose varieties. The orange roses meaning changes depending on the intensity of the hues they display."

Have you ever seen an orange rose? I'd love to know. 

So that's what we've seen on our walks on the blue-sky days here. 

Trying To Find The Words

I first started to write this post Thursday morning. It has a few more words with updates.

The most recent shooting in my country has pushed me over the edge. I am so full of despair that I can't find words to adequately express it. 

My sister has Covid. She's very sick and lives too far for me to go check on her. She's not answering her phone. (Update: She spent all day Wednesday in ER. She's home now and feeling sicker than she's ever felt in her life, and that's saying something because she has suffered from debilitating migraines since she's 10 years old. Her daughter (my lovely niece) has Covid as well. The virus is a very serious butt-kicking illness.)

Roger and I have second booster shots scheduled for Friday morning at 10:00. I'm already feeling queasy just thinking about it.  I may have to cancel it. (Update: I cancelled my second booster shot. I plan to reschedule it next week. I spoke with the staff at the clinic and they agreed it was a good idea for us not to get the boosters on the same day. Yay!)

Children are dying in classrooms in America. So many loved ones are suffering. We are living during a global pandemic. (These things have not changed.)

I'm still trying to find the words.

Family Love, Family Art

Elena brought the grandkids over for a visit to say hello to their great-uncle Gary. It was such a sweet gathering. 

Of course it was goofy and fun in every way. Gary is heading north today (Wednesday) to Portland.  He'a going to spend a few days camping up the coast, then in the city, and then flying back home to Kauai. It's been a delight having this time with him. 

When Elena and grandkids showed up, Delilah who is ten-years old handed this to me, a painting that she had painted for me.

Three egrets and a black duck. On the back was this haiku she had written.

Even as I type this my eyes fill with tears of joy. So much love and beauty in one day. Our hearts were full.

Minus Tide On A Sunny Day

The skies finally cleared up. So we took Roger's brother Gary who is visiting from Hawaii (where it's nice and warm all the time) to Trinidad Beach to take a minus tide walk with us. We knew it was going to be windy and chilly out there, but thought we should give it a try. It was even windier and colder than we thought it would be, so we didn't stay very long. Our Hawaii visitor couldn't believe how crazy cold it was. Even we were chilled to our bones. 

But we got to take such a nice quick short walk and see such lovely sights.

The rocks are always teaming with life

A slightly closer view

This is called an Echinaster Sea Star, an orange beauty

Lovely green anemones

The waves of waves on the beach

Here is Gary, freezing on the walk

I checked the temps in Hawaii when we got home. It was 81 degrees there. It was 56 degrees here with 20 mile an hour winds. 

I'm trying to stand steady in the winds

We walked back to the car as fast as we could and turned the heat on. It was that wind-chilled out there. We were warm again and really glad we braved the elements for such a view.

This...

  ... is what it has looked like here for quite a while. I have shared with you the few times the sun has been out, showing rainbows and iridescent clouds, halos and crepuscular rays. But for the most part this is what it has looked like for weeks. So, I thought I'd show you the view from our Sunday morning walk.

The flowers, egret, and heron were a wonderful balance to the gray gray grayness of these times. This last photo shows how it lightened up a bit while we were out there, but it was still a gray sky. This persistent gray is why my twin brother decided to head back south and not buy a home here. 

Hope it's sunny and beautiful where you are and that you're out enjoying every moment of it.

And Now The Twins Are 70!

I first published this post on the blog in 2017, when my twin brother and I were celebrating our 65th birthday. Today we are celebrating our 70th. So here is a short look back at our 70 revolutions around the sun.

We went from this:

1953

1956 or 1957

 To this:

2008

2016

In the blink of an eye! I'm pretty sure we are senior citizens, although we're still total goofball kids at heart.

2022

And now we are 70 years old. Roger took this photo last month when Michael was visiting and we were out working in the front yard. Speaking of goofballs, I think this photo captures our utterly goofy selves. 

Iridescence and Rainbows

After months without any iridescent clouds or rainbows, it finally happened. The sky put on a short and beautiful show for free. Yes, it made me happy. So I'm sharing that happiness of sky beauty here with you. 

I saturated the rainbow photo because it revealed even more colors not seen by my eyes in the moment. A bit of light, some ice crystals and voila! Beauty everywhere.

The rain is returning, but soon there will be sunshine again. 

PS-- I purposely avoid talking about the news, these insane times we're living in. As if a pandemic wasn't enough, as if four years of Donald Trump wasn't enough, as if Russia invading Ukraine wasn't enough, as if Roe v Wade headlines wasn't enough... what's next, friends? How about California running out of water. We're pretty safe here (where it has been raining like crazy), but the rest of California is withering away.  So, run outside, look at the sky and dream of better days.

Remembering My Mom

 I can't resist posting this photo on Mother's Day. I'm sure I've posted it here before, but I didn't search for it to check. There will be no new photos of us. There is only this, the bookends of our lives. 

Roger and I shout out Happy Mother's Day to our moms. We hold you in our hearts always.

And Happy Mother's Day to all mothers out there!

Friday Music: You Don't Own Me

All the talk here in the United States about abortion and women's rights made me think of this song.  I listened to this song all the time when I was 12 years old in 1964. What an interesting song to come of age to. It seems so relevant now almost 60 years after its release. So, here's a flashback and a reminder. 

Here is a follow up of my appointment with the ophthalmologist. It did not go well at all. In fact, it did not happen. When I went to check with my fully filled-out three page paperwork, I mentioned that I had been diagnosed many years ago with Narrow Angles, a condition that doesn't do well with dilation of pupils. I was just mentioning that even though my appointment was supposed to just be a vision and eye exam. I had called the office two days earlier to tell them of the Narrow Angles and spoke twice with whoever answered their phone. The receptionist said the the doctor could not see me. She said he couldn't do cataract removal without dilating my pupils. Cataract surgery? I thought it was just for an exam. I was shocked. She would not let me even speak with the doctor, and that was that. I had made that appointment in March and waited six weeks for it. So, now I'm back to looking for a competent ophthalmologist. Not an easy thing here, finding good medical care here. 

Morning Rays

 We're still getting rain and big winds here. It's very unusual weather for this time of the year. By May it's supposed to be summery weather, but instead it still looks and feels like winter. There's even more rain in the forecast. I'm beginning to think that this is what climate change might look like here. It's really great for our redwood coast range forests and for the rivers, lakes, and reservoirs that provide our water. So, I'm not really complaining... well maybe a little bit. This weather has reminded me of our four years up on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state (2004-2008). Oh the wind and the rain. 

So that's why when there's a really bright sky in the morning, I run out to see what that sunlight a clouds might be doing together out there. This is what the sky looked like at 6:20 am.

Well that made me happy. Cloud shadows and crepuscular rays. The winds hadn't started yet, so we figured we better go for a walk after breakfast while it was calm and not crazy cold.

This is what it looked like an hour later. It had cleared a bit more and was even more dramatic. Yay, said I!

I'm pretty distracted lately by an ophthalmology appointment I have on Wednesday. I'm worried about the possibility of discussing cataract surgery. I know I have cataracts. Should I have them removed? The thought of surgery on my eyes does not make me happy. These aging bodies are such interesting things. But sometimes I wonder what the sky really looks like without having to see it through my cataract eyes.