The Christmas Quilt

This is a Hawaiian quilt, ginger motif that I did for my mother's birthday in June. Well, ok, she got it for Christmas. She is ninety years old and can remember all the words to songs from a long time ago, but day to day memory is troublesome. She may or may not remember who made the quilt or why, and who knows how long she will appreciate it, yet, it was important to finish it. Mom has written a book about her time running a roadhouse in Alaska, when she was 17 and those memories are the ones that count for her.

We were struck with the power of the ocean this trip as those logs in front were rocking with the force of the spent waves. A coastal trip north would need to be done twenty miles from shore, with full watch schedules in order to avoid any floaters like this.

Mom's beach on a stormy, wet day is better than the best day in any city.

Into the wet........

Between Eureka and Crescent City is a small red school house and several large field where these traffic stoppers live.....hundreds of them...along with many signs warning drivers to watch for them. There is one huge problem - the road is windy and you can be face to face with them at any given moment. They look calmly at the dogs inj the van who look back with frantic barking. Finding the surprise of the elk among the redwoods is great, but as we have done this road so many times we try to be very quiet so the dogs don't raise a ruckus.
While walking down to the beach at Mom's, there is a herd of deer that come down the river that empties into the ocean - and the deer calmly walk throught the neighboorhood chomping on everyone's landscaping. This time, the dogs just stared them down. A portion of the Brookings Harbor
and the river is in the background of the cottage.

This homeowner has a great view.

All the chart books talk about going across the bar at slack tide, and the photo below shows why. Extremely dangerous, at almost any time. Summertime has calm waves, but the waves breaking in the mouth of the channel were pretty intimidating following this winter storm. I don't think so for any crossing in the winter.

It was raining too hard to show the foam and whitewater from the surf in front of the harbor. When the sun comes out here, Brookings is a magical place. In a storm it is awe inspiring with crashing surf heard into the center of town, mists blanketing the hills, and wet, wet, wet. Even more magic,

Legislating nature.....

There are four marinas down here in the south part of the Bay: Pete's, Docktown which is derelicts and nice houseboats, the "new" one out in the Salt flats and the municapal, which has about 6 boats on the channel and and larger marina area by Sequoia Yachtclub, which has some good memories for us. We are considering joining, just to meet some people and be forced to join cruise -ins on the Ba.

These are some of our neighbors. We never used to see pelicans here, that I can remember and would startle a night heron on our dock or see a few seals.. The view is across the channel, looking towards San Mateo, which today has hills covered in snow. Both heaters are going on the boat, which is a toasty 48 degrees f. We had a lovely quiet weekend at Linda's, celebrating my birthday. We will celebrate her's and Sandy's and mine next month with a spa or some fun thing to do hopefully in a place where we are not shivering to pieces.
We presently live in this harbor, and are down channel next to the tallest mast in the top photo. There is an inner harbor which has some elegant and some tremendously ratty boats, which haven't moved in years, mostly liveaboards, and someone estimated that there are about 50 dogs living aboard throughout the harbor.There is a dog walk/poop area, and we all check to make sure we arn't interfering with others trying to "walk" their dogs, as there is a lot of growling and posturing, especially from the smaller critters. The two shepherds lunge and try to act like silent killers on the prowl while we are pulled, flailing and ungainly, trying to keep them under control and smiling bravely. Your cool is shot, though, when you carry the poop bags over to the dumpster. Such is the adventurous yacht life.

It is possible to ride bikes all along the bay front, paved and unpaved, however, you can't run the dogs there , or enter the fields any more as we used to do. Signs all over prohibit anyone human daring to think of stepping into what is now called habitat. Where before it was homeless habitat in places. It is very urban here, and the sense that there is a large swath of nature just means you can look, but don't touch. The drawback is that where there are houses along the bay, they get to smell the low tide mud, twice daily.

Not stuck in Lodi, again......

Thanksgiving was magic in the soft light of lovely Lodi. The colors of the huge trees were astonishing in their brilliance, with leaves everywhere. A big wind storm tried to get rid of the last hangers on but didn't succeed when we were there. Bridget and Dave made an incredible meal, with 12 of us sitting together. Champagne not only goes well with turkey, but goes well with everything - don't ever let anyone tell you differently.

There was abundance, color, and new fun people - light filtering through the leaves to sparkle on more leaves. Blazing reds and golds. Solid, older homes, small town main street with people doing black Friday shopping - it is middle America at its best: us gypsies really appreciated it. Bridget and Dave skunked us at Trivial Pursuit and we slept the sleep of the sated to go home to attend St. Peter's, Redwood City on Sunday.

Now, that was spooky, as there were wonderful times there, and some pretty disturbing, distressing times, due to church politics. The liturgy has changed greatly, and some familiar faces were welcoming - since 1993, you may ask. But it was the first Sunday of Lent and we sang an anthem to the tune of St. Patrick's breastplace - which is the music with very different words for all great church occaisions and my ordination. Is it a sign of age when one is disturbed about changes in church liturgy? Humph.