Smoke and Ash

Its been smoky and ashy here. Up the road about forty miles is Big Sur, where a fires been raging for weeks, and a couple hours south there's another one in the mountains above Goleta. Some wonderful firefighters have come to help us in California, so we can kill the dragon.

We live right up the street from Otter Cove. It's the funkiest and oldest house in the neighborhood, and you can barely see it for the trees I've planted. I'd dig a moat too, if only the town would allow it.......My stepfather and uncle were telling me one day they counted 124 otters in the water. I didn't have the heart to tell them those were the top bulbs of seaweed, which appear each summer and do look remarkably like otter heads! You can see them in the photo. The otters do like to feed in the kelp beds, sometimes you can hear them hitting shellfish open with a sea stone.

The other pic is the fruit stand on Santa Rosa Creek, where we buy our oranges and avacados. An honesty stand, where you take what you want and leave your money in the piggy. Its good to mosey out there after being in the studio for hours. But as soon as I put the fruit in bowls and check the animals, I remember there's just one more thing I have to do out there. I see that the front orange box in the picture is empty, that's cuz we cleaned them out!