Angels on the mountain

The first photo shows in the sunlit area the slope where the first angel climbs, seen in photos 2 and 3.  At the top of that slope, a zip line will attach and travel over the chasm seen in the first photo to the other side, just to the right of the area where the other two angels climb, depicted in the 4th through 9th photos.

The 10th & 11th photos show another zipline being used to remove brush from and deliver material to the western edge of the property.  Finally, a water angel and a granite angel bide their time watching the other angels winging about.

California's favorite flower

 

Today's haul

Spotted this poison oak on my way to rock harvesting, so I had to harvest it first. It had that blush of spring freshness to it. Thankful for my continuing immunity, I nonetheless would rather it not gain a foothold here. These tenders are the kind of leaves natives would injest to aquire homeopathic immunity. Imagine being the first to try that!

Then began the rock hauling in earnest. We've seen this before, but here is a progressive sequence of photos as the rock cart gets hauled up the rail.

Finally, as we scouted rocks at low tide I noticed the sunlight falling on the water inside a cave and realized it was either through a skylight or an adjacent cave. Some calm morning hence, at low tide, we'll take the waterproof camera along and post our findings.

 

at Point Lobos, and looking west

The Woody enjoys an outing to Whaler's Cove at Point Lobos on a warm spring afternoon.  Later we enjoy a serene setting of the sun, the view from the front door. 

Signs of Spring

A weekend loop back to Sonoma County via Fairfield to the wedding of dear friends.  Even the trees and flowers were smiling. 

Viewing the blog

Just a brief reminder to visitors that blogs are time-reversed relative to pre-blog narratives in that, typically, the blog entry first encountered at the top of the page is the most recently composed.  Thus to follow a chronological narrative it is necessary to scroll to the bottom of the page or click on links to archived posts(what a bore) and scroll up.  Otherwise one frequently will encounter posts making seemingly non sequitur reference to previously posted information. 

Also, many of the photos, though not all, will respond to a mouse click by offering a larger version of itself, which can be quite a treat.
Your comments are welcome.

Water

It's raining lightly here this morning. Yesterday was sunny. For days, weeks and months we've read and heard about the scarcity and rising rates of water being pumped into our homes. Based on the water bill here and the spinning of the meter when no one was using water I knew we had some undiscovered leaks in our system, so I decided to go after them, starting at the meter and digging my way in. Within 5 minutes I found our first leak: a corroded fitting on a cobbed-in tee right on the customer side of the riser the water company installed that attached to our main service line.

The shut off valve to the meter was frozen, wouldn't budge, and the leak was spurting erratically with every nudge, threatening to burst with no means of shutting down the water. A call to Cal-Am Water brought, in succesion, one then two additional service personnel, none of whom were able to shut off the water at the meter, or locate a suitable gate valve in the vicinity. After consulting their atlas, they drove off to a location about a quarter mile away, up the hill, where by means of cell phone and garden hose technology, they & I identified a certain gate valve that shut down the water for us and several of our neighbors. Repairs were made and thus the first leak has been found and fixed. And no bill, other than a hopefully reduced water usage fee.

The guilty cobbed-in tee fed a line that actually was closed off by the gate valve just adjacent to the tee and in fact was no longer in use, inasmuch as it terminated some 4 feet away where the pipe simply and abruptly stopped in open-ended fashion. Consequently it was removed. I am alternately relieved and unnerved to think that any morning I could've gone out to find a gurgling lake feeding a new stream across the driveway and down the storm drain.
So, onto the next leak, and in the interest of water resource conservation, I'm pondering the utility and practicality of a water catchment pond that could be incorporated into the ravine below the cottage for irrigation purposes.
(p.s. click on the top photo for a larger version of Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, and on the other pics for a larger view of ugly pipes)