Over the next few months, I’ll be moving into my new home, a single-wide trailer on the Coleman’s property…or “the Coleman Compound” as we’re calling it. Emmy lives in her new studio there, and the crazy landlords are in the big house between us, then me…oh, and the chickens. Can’t forget the chickens. And the rooster. And Petunia, the peahen. What an awesome new life I have in front of me ☺
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The view from my yard – looking south toward Mt. Ashland. I need to trim a few trees to give myself a better view.

Same direction…from the deck.

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My bedroom has lots of light, which makes up for the ugly carpet and old-school wood paneling.

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Added a little color with diversity flags.

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Trees in bud – yes, it’s spring!

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Looking from the deck to my yard…not really “my” yard, more like “our” yard. “Ours” meaning the compound’s ☺

Lower Klamath Lake #3

Originally uploaded by heavdog.

What a beautiful day to be outside…I went birdwatching with a group of friends on this lovely, almost warm winter day. We saw dozens and dozens of wonderful birds: hawks, eagles, swans, cranes…what a day!
This was a rare shot of a very calm lake, and not a bird is in sight. Not the way the rest of the day unfolded…

Emigrant Lake

Originally uploaded by heavdog.

Just one of the reasons I love this valley so…it really doesn’t matter which season we’re in, it’s always lovely. I took this photo just after the new year began, on a blustery hike around the lake. Make that MUDDY hike around the lake. We were lucky and managed to not get ourselves too bogged down – on foot – but there were a couple of four-wheelers who got stuck in the mud.
It really did feel like being in Scotland

Or maybe I should say it’s empty – whatever…I just spent the evening with a group of middle-school kids, making a guest appearance as a songwriter. In real life, I teach many of these kids, but not anything remotely connected to music. Oh, I bill my 8th grade health class as “sex, drugs and rock and roll”, but we don’t get to do as much of the “rock and roll” as I’d like

So anyway, this group of budding authors/poets/songwriters was participating in a young writers’ retreat up in the nearby mountains. They had written some poetry/lyrics, and my job was to help them put their words to  music. Over the course of a few hours, I managed to help create five pretty solid songs, from rap to folk to a pseudo-B52’s piece. One song, the last one we worked on, was a sweet ballad, and ended up being a collaborative effort between a former student who was volunteering at the retreat, and myself. By the time we finished that one, we were both done. I forgot how exhausting creativity can be.

Exhausting or not, it was just what the doctor ordered. I’ve been trying to get back into writing music, something I’ve dabbled in over the years, and this gave me a kick in the butt in the right direction

Forecast for today: 106 degrees…actual high temp? Over a hundred, but not sure how much over. But really, once it gets that hot, who cares about a degree or two? Let’s just say it was hot…

The good thing is, the smoke has cleared. We’d been getting a valley full of smoke from the fires in northern California. For close to a week, you could barely see any of the mountains surrounding us. They just disappeared from view.

But on the morning of the 4th, once the cloud cover lifted, there was this odd sight in the sky: blue. It was an awesome way to celebrate Independence Day, on a morning walk under cloudy skies yielding to blue. 

The next few days were wonderful, temps in the 80’s, no crap in the air. And now- over 100 – but clear. As long as I can breathe, I guess I can handle the heat. And if not? There’s always a quick trip to the mountains…a river…a lake…the coast…that’s what I love about this place, not only is it beautiful in its own right, but we’re not more than an hour of two away from any sort of outdoor environment or activity a girl could wish for

Yes, anything! Including blogging, easily, with the help of the BlogIt web app for the iPhone. This entry is really just a testdrive of BlogIt..so far it looks really promising – I'll let you know how it goes!

Living in the city, you don’t expect to see certain animals just wandering, or flying, about. I thought I’d start a log of sorts of the ones that I’ve had the privilege of sighting lately…

Bats! In the evening, just after sundown and when the sky is still dusky, the bats are out, zooming about erratically as they cleanse the skies of skeeters One flew about four or five feet from my head, and I was proud of myself for not ducking it. Bats are pretty darned cool.

Woodpecker – flew across the road and landed on top of a telephone pole. At first I thought it might have been a flicker – we see lots of these around, especially at school under the builiding’s eaves. But when I got a good look at this one, with its black and white and red markings, and crest on its head, I knew his true identity.

Raccoons…damned raccoons! They make their occasional appearance on my porch, wreaking havoc at the kitty food dish. They’re sooooo cute, but also soooo huge and mean and scary! I toyed with the idea of shooting them with a pellet gun (to scare, not to kill), but all I could think of was that I would hit one in the eye, and I’d have a blind raccoon living out the rest of his days on my porch, feeding with the kitties…

My absolute favorite, and most frequent, sightings: barn owls. Yep, a mating pair and baby are currently inhabiting some trees at the end of my block. There has been a pair living there for years, not sure if these are the same or their offspring, but either way, it’s probably the coolest thing I’ve experienced as a city dweller. In the evenings, I’ll take Emma for a walk, and we’ll stop across the street from their trees and watch…tonight, I was treated to all three…first, the baby, perched atop the dead tree where they nest; then I heard the screech of a parent as he flew in to stand guard over the little one; parent number two then came in for a landing, sending parent number one scattering to another branch, after which the three just perched there and stared at me, probably sizing me up to decide if I was small enough to eat (not!)

More to follow, I’m sure…

Not that it’s a really big deal, no coffee table book or the Post or the Times or anything like that…but what I did get was one of my photos included on a travel mapping website called Schmap. It was this photo that I shot at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. I tried to include their widget in my sidebar, but I can’t figure out how to do it without a bunch of code manipulation…



Kind of validates all the photos I shoot

So I bought myself a new toy for Christmas, and have been playing around with it a bit to see what it can do. It’s a Flip Video Ultra, which seems to be all the rage for shooting quick, easily uploadable, simple video. It’s not like my little Panasonic digital vidcam, but it’s great for recording things in the moment, like this clip I shot on my first day back from vacation: About the size of a small cell phone or ipod, it’s so easy to use my 77 year old aunt could do it: press the red button to record, again to stop recording. Zoom and volume buttons occupy the ring around the red button; “play” and “delete” buttons reside to the left and right of the red one. That’s it. Simple.The other cool thing about it is the built in USB arm that swings out at the push of a button, and  the built-in software that means you don’t have to load any extra programs into your computer. Once you’ve saved the video, you can edit with other software, but for simplicity and ease of use, the onboard software works to just get the video out there.I’ll post more on this as I get better acquainted with it, but for now, it gets my two thumbs up. 

Yes, I’m in love…with my dog. I know, I know, so wrong, but hey, I don’t want to marry her or anything. I’m just nuts about her. Which is weird, ’cause I’ve always been much more of a cat person. This dog, however, has certainly thrown me for a loop, and taken over my life.Emma has been in my life for almost two years, and while it’s been a little rocky in spots (she likes to chase things, and there is NO fence too high for her!), I’m smitten. I even swore that no dog of mine would ever share my bed, and damn if this mutt doesn’t have the run of the place!What is she? so many people ask…”no idea”, I usually say, “she’s a mutt…” And a very loveable one, at that