Chickadee

I know I could have gotten a much better picture with a ‘real’ camera, but for now the phone is all I’ve got. We call this ‘the brown wall’. It’s less depressing than the blackened landscape and fencing on the other side but sooty leaves will be raining down for weeks.

Work goes on to replace all the telephone poles and our internet lifeline but we will probably be the last to know when that might happen...probably when we turn on our phones and notice the WiFi is working.

John went out and replaced the bird feeder as the old one though not melted was entirely opaque and dirty. The birds are back in great numbers. And so are the ground squirrels who probably never left.The birds are such an uplifting sight. The ground squirrels, not so much as they are now wreaking havoc with the stairs.

I was looking through the Sunset Western Garden book of landscaping today and found it both calming and encouraging. Although I think her decisions were more climate than fire protection driven, everything the landscaper did before we moved here has proven exactly right in saving our house from burning. I see more succulents and even more agaves in our future.

Some progress made with the insurance adjuster today, not the least of it the fact that she answered her phone, and my phone worked! She hadn’t looked at the field inspector’s report and when she did said she was speechless at the amount of his estimate and the pictures made her cry!