Beauty & The Burn: Fireline Recovery Comparisons
Yes, those two photos were taken only six days apart: on the left, after six days in
which more than an inch of rain fell on the rocks in that gully. Yes, it’s the exact same gully and the rocks are the exact same rocks. It was right on the fire line three years ago when the Nuns fire burned up from the south, and threatened to meet the Tubbs fire which was burning down from the north. I’ve been chronicling this gully, and the specific rock below, since this portion of Annadel reopened a few weeks after the fire’s forward progress was halted here. You can see these rocks and their various dry and wet season states in many previous posts, including this post with sequential study of the rock shown just below https://somuchworldsolittletime.com/2018/02/07/marred-scarred-marvelous-mountains-of-sonoma-county/
County Views Special: Mt St Helena
Consider this something like a special edition of Beauty & The Burn, and County Views combined. People who’ve heard of our region’s wine country are most likely to know the name Napa, and possibly the name Sonoma. Before 2017, folks mostly thought of this region for its wines, if they thought of it at all. Since then, well, you know we’ve had more and bigger fires than anyone had seen in recorded history thanks to, you guessed it, climate change and our greedy society’s stubborn inability to reimagine life without the burning of fossil fuels. Locally, when we meet someone new and they say they’re from xx or yy location, it’s reasonably common to ask – when relevant given where they live – “did you and your family do ok in the Glass / Nunns / Tubbs / Walbridge fire?”
The most recent of those four was the Glass Fire, which started on the Napa County side of the (twice-burned) ridge you see above, then burned its destructive way over onto the Sonoma County side. The fire crews worked hard to keep it from burning all of Mt St Helena. You can see this dramatic mountain in every picture in this post. It’s the core of Robert Louis Stevenson State Park, has five different peaks, and straddles both Napa and Sonoma Counties as well as Lake County, at the point where all three counties meet. Its highest peak is also the highest point in Sonoma County at 4,342 feet above sea level; another of its peaks is the highest point in Napa County. Once I get far enough away from our local ridge (in which the highest point is Mt Hood at 2730 feet above sea level) to see past it, Mt St Helena’s profile is quite visible. In case you didn’t guess, it’s volcanic in origin although it’s not an actual volcano, just uplifted rocks from a 2.4-million-year-old volcanic field.
County Views.67
Yes, a bit of a rivers theme to encourage more rain: the egrets (can someone tell me if I’ve mis-identified them, please?) only reappeared after our first inch or so of rain, about ten days ago. We must hope for more, in part so they’ll hang out a bit longer here :-).
County Views.66
A gorgeous late-afternoon moonrise at sunset on Native American Heritage Day, along the Russian River.
A City of Gardens, Hills & Covid Chalk Circles
Normally I’d be in SF with friends and going to concerts or museums at least a few days every month. Such has not been the case since I returned home in July … because covid, duh. So I’ve been in the city precisely three times: when I returned from Bangladesh for a night since bus services are more limited now; and briefly in September linked to the flights to and from Wisconsin. These pics are from both trips and I’m mashing them all together to keep from falling even further behind in the backlog of photos I’ve not yet posted. Whenever travel becomes more appealing again…as you can see, SF’s a lovely city, so do think about visiting. And of the densely-crowded US cities, it’s so far done comparatively well at limiting the spread, in part due to measures you can see in a lot of these photos. The joys of a population which uses science and evidence as the foundation for its policies and politics… 🙂
Errant Masks.1
Another new series, dedicated to finding art even in masks which can no longer protect their original owners or any other humans…
The Habit of Gratitude
A thing I’ve come to appreciate enormously about our culture here in Sonoma County is the tendency to gratitude for our blessings, gratitude for all those whose work helps us, gratitude as an approach to life that helps us all remain healthy and live together in greater harmony. It’s a thing amply demonstrated every time another blasted fire rampages through our hills and reaches our streets. It’s a thing people have also found time to demonstrate related to covid, as you’ll note if you read carefully the photo with multiple signs, below. Happy day on which we Americans are meant to appreciate our many blessings, which include, one must acknowledge, gaining control of a large and fruitful continent-sized territory to the great detriment of that territory’s prior human occupants, who descendants still live among and around us, often ignored by the general culture at large and certainly dismissed far too readily in the “histories” we tell ourselves. Peace, health, gratitude and opportunity.
And since I’m still working through a backlog of photos from recent months, while getting out for hikes and rides often enough that I’m amassing more photos of this beautiful world at a faster pace than my own posting speed…plus, since here in the US it’s the holiday we dedicate to eating LOTS and LOTS of food (tribute to that bountiful stolen continent I mentioned above?), I’m going ahead and posting some of my food photos to get your appetite juices flowing. Gratitude for the chance to break bread with friends, and a hope that more of our human family will experience the same opportunity in peace and good health: a fitting aspiration for today.
County Views: Turkey Special
For my readers not familiar with the American customs of thanksgiving: most families eat a whole turkey that day. Yes, it’s conspicuous consumption, and yes, the turkeys have been specially bred over generations to be quite different and have more “light meat” than these turkeys likely would, if a mountain lion ever noticed the local buffet available to it if it just settled in for some good hunting. 🙂 Me, I’m vegetarian so it’s nothing to me either way. Still: enjoy, those of you to whom the turkey makes the holiday. And if your bandwidth is sufficient, you can tell me how many you count as this large group moves past:
(so much world, so little time....) 