The sun sets on August

(Click for the full size)

trap door

This marble door beneath the vanity sink conceals the drain plumbing. It weighs about 60 pounds. There is a humorous story about it getting broken, twice, before our tenure here began, but I won't go into that, other than to say it has been reinforced with embedded steel bars epoxied into slots cut into the back side.

A recent unsuspecting guest mistook that latch handle for the water faucet, since the actual faucet is semi-remote from the carved marble "sea-dragon" spout. The door merely sits loosely in the opening and the latch at the top keeps it from falling outward. One rather bruised shin later, the marble door was broken 'anew'.

With some epoxy and a bit of super glue, it was patched back together...

and re-set in place, this time with a discreet label which reads, "DO NOT OPEN!"

SeaRocky

This brazen fellow hopped cavalierly past me in the courtyard and up a tree, so I figured he was spoiling for a portrait, so I obliged him.  He was very vocal and never let up barking at me for about 10 minutes as he hopped from tree to tree over my head. 

One a day

 

yarrow

 

Not clematis; passion flower.

Passiflora vitifolia:

 

Adorning Melanie's arbor

Two lights on the horizon

Yesterday evening at sunset there was a bank of clouds shrouding the horizon far out to sea, but there at the offing was the light of a ship twinkling brightly.

Tonight the shroud was diffuse and thin enough for the sun to make a final curtain call as a gull was sailing hurriedly by.

blue angels and grey green poachers

I was chatting with a co-worker this morning when over the treeline at Point Lobos emerged 6 jets in formation, silent at first but suddenly filling the air with that throaty sonic roar. Too late, I grabbed my camera off my belt, and as they turned north back towards Monterey, I zoomed the lens and snapped 2 photos. Angels are hard to see, of course, and even harder to snap a picture of.

We'd been discussing the crab poachers just offshore. Much easier to see, unfortunately. They really got our attention when they set off an M-80 type firecracker that's supposed to scare the seals away from their crabpots, legal where commercial fishing is allowed, but not in a national marine sanctuary. I think there may have been a welcoming party waiting for them when they got back to port. :)

greenhouse reds

The Adenium Obesum (Desert Rose):

and the Anthirium (Flamingo flower):