Thursday October 28th
The Santa Anna winds are roaring off the desert this morning again, fierce and warm, it is still a surprise each year as winter closes in, to awaken to hot early morning winds. The trees are bent in half again and raining acorns, the entire hillside is covered in this year’s crop crunching underfoot as one walks. Acorns bounce off the tin roof of the shed making a sharp pinging sound. When oaks are being threatened by drought, they produce more and more acorns to make survival certain. It has never been like this before, even in the last drought. The mountains are brown as far as the eye can see with a warm, dry winter predicted.
Our young neighbor takes photographs for a very successful living and this morning he wrote neighbors an email enclosing a photograph. He has a drone he uses in his work and after the very unexpected storm of Monday bringing an inch of much needed rain to Southern California, while drenching and destroying much of the Northwest, he sent the drone overhead to take a look. We have never seen an aerial view of where we live, the picture was of a vast forest with a slender two lane road meandering through it, ours and one other were the only roofs one might see if you squinted. It was awe inspiring and overwhelming all at the same time. We really do live in a forest.
