Winter Wildflower

Along the shoreline of the San Francisco Bay and adjacent salt water areas, one meets the hardy Hairy Gumweed (Grindelia cuneifolia).  All yellow flowers are there to be loved, no matter how ignoble their names, how sticky their buds, or how prickly their foliage -- and especially to be loved are things that bloom in winter.  This one is in northern Contra Costa County, at the Martinez Regional Shoreline park.  The picture is from a few hours ago, the afternoon of 9 December 2012. 

No Vacancy

I have never accepted the opinion that Mary, by virtue of her Immaculate Conception, escaped all the aches and pains and inconveniences of human life. 

Would she not rather,  like the Son she was chosen to bear, freely choose to undergo our trials and sufferings out of love for us, if not out of necessity?  So it is with all due respect that I consider the following. 

I have had occasion to travel by car when my spouse was "great with child", as they say.  It's bad enough in a car.  The posture is all wrong, breathing and digestion are a challenge, and there better be a rest stop of some sort every fifteen minutes.

But on a donkey?!  I chose the image above (found by way of an images.bing.com search for "posadas") because Mary is visibly preggers.  Aren't they a darling couple?  Can't you see Joseph lifting her (them) down from and back onto that donkey?  Can't you see him finding a place and then guarding her so she can, um, powder her nose?  Can you imagine how much work it was to travel with a nearly-full-term woman?  Oh. Right.  You can.

I also do not particularly accept the idea of "Saint Joseph the (Communist Peoples') Worker."  That is too solidarist for me, and I'm more a subsidiarist kind of guy.  I prefer to think of San José as "Saint Joseph the Dreamer".  Matthew's gospel mentions three dreams of divine inspiration -- those are the ones we know of. 

But in spite of all the "ins" Joseph had with God, The Big Guy somehow failed to call ahead for a reservation at any of the inns around Bethlehem.  God lets us sweat the details, I guess.  Something about freedom.

Random bonus thoughts:  The Roman occupiers of Judea remembered the hammering the Seleucids took from the Jews some time before.  I am sure I have read that the Romans did not look kindly upon Judean natives carrying arms.  But as a wood-shaper and carpenter by trade, Joseph would have been expected to have lots of pointy steel things in his possession.  Good choice for guardian of Mary and Jesus.  What would be more natural than for Joseph to be on hand to cut the umbilical cord when Jesus was born?  (I believe Jesus underwent natural birth, remember?)  So, think of it:  Joseph ties cord; Joseph wields a small blade; Joseph with the Most Precious Blood on his fingers...
A great miracle happened there.

Fungus Among Us

After recent rains, what is this I see popping up through a mat of spruce needles next to the parking lot at work?  A whole colony of toadstools, in various stages of emergence.

After the dome pops through all white and shiny, it begins to spread out.  The outer layer dries and darkens into interesting texture.

The tops become flat, and the spore-bearing surface on the underside matures.

Spores will drop from the "gills" of mature basidiomycota.  There's a whole lot of life out there when you look!

Remember Pearl Harbor

It is important to remember.


It is also important not to go all truther about it.

On 5 December 1941 Task Force 12  departed Pearl.  The Lexington went along to ferry Marine aviation to Midway.  Lexington had been the last carrier remaining in the harbor, since the others were on scheduled training exercises.  It just happened that way.

The code the British had broken was the diplomatic code, not the military code.  Even the British had no idea an attack on Pearl Harbor was going down when it did as it did.

Roosevelt may have been evil in many ways (social/economic policy, sucking up to Stalin) but don't you think if he had gotten the carriers out because he knew an attack was coming, he would have snuck a few battleships out of there too? 


But do remember.

The Dark of the Year

Depending on where you live, places in the northern hemisphere are experiencing their earliest sunsets around now.  In Miami, Florida, the earliest sunset was back around November 29.  In Seattle, Washington, the earliest sunset is not until December 10.  In San Francisco, the earliest sunset is around December 7. 

The latest sunrise for Seattle is about January 1; for Miami it's not until January 12; for San Francisco, it's about January 6.

Mid-winter, the winter solstice, is on December 21 at 11:12 Greenwich Mean Time.  That's the "shortest day of the year" but due to astronomical sciencey stuff called the analemma, the day of earliest sunset, the day of solstice, and the day of latest sunrise are not the same (unless you live on the equator, where all days are 12 hours long!). 

I am always glad when the earliest sunset is past, even though it only varies by much less than a minute per day when the sun is rounding the corner of the analemma, as it were.  I'm glad because I tend to do more of my non-employment-related outdoor activity in the evening, and even a few more seconds of light gives me some hope that the evenings will soon be noticeably brighter. 

May your days be merry and bright!

Rainstorm Morning

The picture is shot of the Weather Underground (I wish they wouldn't use that name) "Wundermap" at 7am 2 December 2012.  The orange streak is the heaviest rain.  We have had just about an inch of rain in the last 24 hours, and it's coming down hard right now. 

Geologist Clarence King, writing in ca. 1880, is quoted in Oaks of California (Pavlik, Muick, Johnson, and Popper, Cachuma Press 1991):

Riding thus in the late summer along the Sierra foothills, one is constantly impressed with the climatic peculiarities of the region.  With us in the East, plant life seems to continue till the first frost; but in the Sierra foot-hills growth and active life culminate in June and early July, and then follow long months of warm stormless autumn wherein the hills grow slowly browner, and the whole air seems to ripen into a fascinating repose -- a rich, dreamy quiet, with distance lost behind pearly hazes, with warm tranquil nights, dewless and silent.  This period is wealthy in yellows and browns, in great overhanging masses of oak, whose olive hue is warmed into umber depth -- those are the conditions of the vegetation.

The same is true of the coastal hills at the same latitude, with the exception of the micro-climates so near the Pacific Ocean that the morning fog cools the day and waters the ground. For the most part there simply is no precipitation from May to October.  The grass looks dead -- this is the real reason, I think (and not the excitement in the second half of the nineteenth century over metal mining), for the enduring nickname of "The Golden State". 

The weather, rainfall and its absence, and water politics are always topics of conversation in California.  For now, talk of raising my water rates due to drought is silent.  Much more of this, and talk of raising my water rates due to damage to our hydrological infrastructure will begin.  Flood watch is in effect for many areas.

Coyote Bush

Coyote Bush is a large part of our Northern California coastal chaparral.  Here are two views of female Coyote Bush in the process of releasing seeds to the winds.  Pictures taken Saturday, 24 November 2012.  Viewing the ongoing unfolding of life in the natural world is a primary reason I love running trails.