The Morning Blue and Sunset Too...Pacific Ocean Carmel Beauty

                                     A real Saturday... I had my feet up and was reading on the terrace...but light on the water and the myriad changes that I saw each time I looked up distracted me.  I was delighted to realize I had actually stuffed my little camera into the pocket of my jeans.  This first shot was from my perch...but  after that I lay down my book
 and played with my camera.
                                       
  The crows needed photographing.  It actually is hard to read when they start scolding, they can be very demanding and persistent, especially when they arrive in droves.  However, these  two seemed to be taking Saturday off too. 

                                             But now that I was on my feet the light on rocks and tree and water seemed a better read. Though I must say, I am enjoying  the novel I've started by Tobias Wolff, Old School.
                                          

                                                      Water-Rocks-Tree?  Rocks, Water, Tree?


  Here is :    Tree Water Rocks

Cypress frame the view...

The cloud cover moved in suddenly and the morning sun was suddenly just a memory.

But in the afternoon the clouds had passed by and burned off and just two little puffs remained as the sun set.

It really was a lovely day. Hope you've had a fine weekend too.

~~~

Exercise for the Mind...Reading and Writing despite all the distractions.

The longing to communicate, to bring the top of the hill view down to the valley and the quiet of the night into mid day, to capture the beauty of a face ever changing ,is evident in all man’s art and many of his technologies. But if we always, as a people, had the photographic devices we now have, perhaps the gift of verbal description would not have developed as potently in mankind’s abilities.

I suspect part of what got me thinking about this topic is that I have just started reading David Denby's Great Books where he describes his journey, at age 48, of returning to Colombia, going back to school to become a reader again. He read various journals and news but he wrote that he had no concentration for real reading. " My rhythm had changed. I was a moviegoer, a magazine reader, a CNN- watcher. " ( p.36)


Words take using.

Reading, decoding dense pages that are unrelenting visually, except for the variation of small shapes that chisel out sounds and mound up meaning, takes concentration but can yield place, person, happening, history, continuum, or even, that most proximate and yet distant terrain, an internal landscape.

Inner landscapes have no camera but the picture that emerges from the work we lay our hands to, the daily arts of living and the music, the canvases, the literature and the love we are able to make of our lives.

I am a believer in story. I hope the art of reading does not pass away.
                                                                       ~~~~~~~~~~
Today I posted a piece, with pictures, no less, on my write purpose blog.  I still am not sure why I have two blogs, it's not that I believe in compartmentalizing.  I think of  "Bread on the Water" as the more playful and visual of the two spaces and so I decided to publish the California history, early personal memory, tribute to 9-11-2001  essay there today. These thoughts which I had written this morning would be right at home on "Write Purpose"  but here they are...of questionable fun, no picture, just a little jam for the bread.

Often I write in my journal (my ink on paper journal) and think of sharing some of it here on line, but that means typing it up and then the editorial eye, the more critical eye emerges; the eye that opens up after the first draft ink has dried and the first draft out- pouring has cooled.  Lava is hot stuff, but when it cools, lava rock is often quite light and  porous... you know, full of holes.  That's okay, I guess, holes are good for peeking through. Reading and writing is a joy and it is also work. I  thank you for sharing any of it with me.

Traditions shared: Blackberry Pie Summers and Macedonian Spanakopita

September's arrival threw me into a mini panic, summer weather hasn't quite arrived yet, so summer can't be over. But it is September and Labor Day is coming.  Yikes, fall and winter must be lined up right  behind that coastal fog bank that has blanketed us so consistently.  I knew I had to beat back these concerns so I set out to gather blackberries to make a  pie. Blackberries were the wild free fruit of my childhood summers in Mill Valley and then later a big part of our children's summer day's in Sebastopol. It's family tradition to pick and eat almost just as many berries fresh off the bush as we'd  bring home for jam and pie.  As one of our girl's often said, "I don't really need a bucket, I have my own little bucket right here..." and she'd pop a big purple-blue-black-juicy- berry still warm from the sun into her mouth.

As there are no blackberries ripening in my current neighborhood I set out for the  farmer's market.  You've heard that scarcity and demand can control price?  The organic berry farmer from warmer than Carmel Watsonville was charging more this week than he had all summer for the same amount of blackberries because, he explained, these were the last of the crop, he didn't have any more berries to sell.

I paid the price,  reminding myself that he had not only grown and tended them, he had picked them and boxed them and driven them to market and he would pay tax on the sale and tax on the land and what, after all  was $30 for all that work?  Yes, I  was seeing just how serious I was about having some semblance of summer as I have always thought of it... and that includes a blackberry pie.

 However, before I could get things any further along than mixing in sugar and lemon juice and corn starch to thicken the berries ( and take the picture above), our friend Blagojce arrived with sacks of groceries.  He had been promising to make spanakopita like they do "back home" in Macedonia.  Of course for such an offer I was willing to get out of the way.  As the berries need to sit a bit in their thickening sweetening state.... and as we have a one derriere kitchen in the cottage, I took refuge behind my camera.

Before I knew what hit me...there was butter melting

Leeks were sauteed

and spinach and chard had been cooked...apples had been cut...and simmered

 I mean things were cooking...or I should say men were cooking...

Layers of filo dough are brushed with butter and then feta and cooked spinach an chard and arranged...

rolling it up

When Mark's assistance wasn't required...we had live music

curled up like a snail...

These are oven- ready having been basted with butter and sprinkled with sesame seeds....

One batch baked receiving more butter and another ready to go in the oven...some are leek, some are greens and feta and some are apple...

they all were good.

             And now there was room and time for me to mix up my dough and roll out the crust for my               pie...before dinner was served.

Oh, and corn on the cob was steamed...that's pretty summertime, isn't it?

By the time we had our Macedonian spanakopita, eaten with big bowls of yogurt, the pie was cooling.

How about pie for breakfast?  Now that sounds like summertime.

No men were injured in the making of this dinner.

~~~

Central California Talking Terrain

Such a tree...

 This oak tree is in Los Olivos, California, how old it is I do not know.
The occasion did not allow my climbing up, but that's what this tree said to me, "Climb on up and spend the day...read a book, dangle your feet, watch the birds, follow the clouds...dream a dream."
 
Such a sky...

Taking a morning walk in Arroyo Grande, the steeple caught my eye and said,

"Look up..."

                         

Such a flock...

                                                                          
 Looking  down ...The birds are not always on wing. Here they rest on rocks at  the water's edge at Pismo beach.

                                                Such a Sea...

Remind me to keep a fresh outlook...

three palm trees and the distant pier...the same ocean that I see every day and yet...

Such a field...

passing the crops on the west side of Salinas on the way home... the whiff of chemicals reminds me to eat organic...

Such a sunset

                                 I am grateful to be home again and reminded to take nothing for granted.

Reverse Psychology

Weather prevails, whether we like it or not.

Sunday morning was another foggy morning in August. It isn't what is typically expected in a California August, and while morning fog is not terribly unusual, all day fog has  been a rather reliable visitor in Carmel and other parts of the California coastline this year.

I know there are floods in Pakistan and Iowa...I see the maps depicting sweltering heat over much of the United States, so I offer my pictures and my foggy musings knowing that whether or not I like the weather, I am very fortunate. Maybe some of my pictures will even cool a few hot folks down a bit.

On  Saturday we drove up north of the San Francisco Bay to a wedding in the Sonoma County coastal  hills at a ranch called  Ocean Song.  There was sun for a time that afternoon and the recent rarity of sunny warmth made it very welcome.  The sun disappeared quickly though, and the bone warming temperatures dropped rapidly. 

Traveling home on Saturday night, we slept in on the outskirts of the town of Mill Valley just north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Although our location on a clear morning would have yielded a perfect view of the mountain of my youth, the mountain I carry with me in my memories and dreams, there was not a glimpse of her to be had. Not only were her lovely peaks hidden, the flowing lines of the sleeping princess, even the base of Mt. Tam was shrouded. The hotel had lovely enlarged photographs of the local environs. Our room had a night image with the moon captured full and bright over the silhouette of Mount Tamalpais.  I couldn't see the mountain, but I knew it was there.

 In the morning's chill and mists we decided we'd walk along the bay in the town of Sausalito. Under gray skies on apparently gray waters, sail boats were already dotting the bay. As we began our stroll, we could only just make out the shapes of Alcatraz Island and the Francisco Bay Bridge through the curtains of fog.

BUT!

It wasn't going to be an all day fog day...the fog was melting away, burning off, as it is often described.  Blue sky appeared and light made colors once again apparent and abundant.

We peeled off our jackets and we even took shelter on a bench  to drink coffee in the welcome shade of a blooming red gum eucalyptus tree where we could  watch the boats pass Angel Island in the now sunny blue. What a fickle thing our preferences can be.

We stopped just south of the The Golden Gate Bridge  to have one more peek at the blue sky.  As we entered the city we were back in the fog. 

And yes....we woke this morning to another Carmel foggy morning but I know there is sun out there...and I'll be watching for it to break through, any day now.
                                                                           ~~~

Beauty in compost makings...even the clippings delight me...

Dead heading flowers I looked down in my bucket

and was stunned  at their beauty.