Spring Lake...

...from the dam. Sometimes the details jump out more when the sky is overcast. That seemed to be the case today when we walked across the top of the dam which was featured in my Mono Monday shot taken from the trail at the bottom of the earthen dam. The dam on the other side of the lake can be seen in this shot. The hills have gone from green to golden and the damp foggy mornings are keeping the fire season at bay for the moment, but they are also enabling a bumper crop of grasses which will be a fire risk later on.

There was a daunting report to the effect that California will be experiencing more and bigger fires as a result of climate change. Two major insurance companies are refusing to write homeowners' insurance policies in California. They have suffered huge losses as a result of wildfires since 2017. All we can do is pray that ours isn't canceled and do everything we can to 'harden' our homes against fire. We have done everything we can having had such a close call...our house is surrounded by what amounts to a concrete fire break and we have covered all our vents with ones designed to close when the temperature rises to prevent embers from getting into the attic or the crawl space under the house. We even put in a new fire rated deck with a metal railing. (I confess I wanted to do that before the fire anyway. Pedro's guys will be here soon to mow our field, which is nothing but dry grass.

On a larger scale, I think California and the country needs a much greater sense of urgency about reducing our dependence on fossil fuel. California has more cars per capita than any other state. There is still a lot of resistance to switching to renewable sources of power. It is going to cost money but it will cost a lot more if we don't do more soon.

I'm almost finished with my little sewing project,  and I should be getting the quilt back from the quilter next week. I don't know how they did it, but our friends have moved from Corvallis, Oregon to Southern California. I kept getting strange messages on their phone and cell phones didn't work in their rural area but I finally called it and Anne answered! They flew down to SoCal last week. The moving van with their things got stuck on the grapevine (the name of the section of Interstate that crosses the Tehachapi Mountains between the Central Valley and the Los Angeles Basin) and was a couple of days late. 

I forgot to get their new address so I'll have to do that before I can send them the quilt that started as a get well for Anne after her stroke and ends up being a housewarming gift!