MALIBU - THE SANTA MONICA MOUNTAINS - A HEAT WAVE HITS SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA - IT'S 88 DEGREES TODAY!

Sadly, the last few days have been unseasonably hot - very much so.  While parts of the United States of America have more freezing weather, in the last couple months we've had only two significant rainfalls, which brought a "normal" amount of rain, but have no effect on the drought here in California. 

There's a construction site down the street, dug down low for a parking garage, and it's clear that we are living on a deep bend of sand, which once must have been under the ocean.  After the last rain you could see wetness saturated the sand about three feet.  It only stopped construction a couple days and then it dried up and they went ahead and poured cement.  However cement and tarmac roadways, driveways, and construction prevent rain from soaking in.  Instead it makes its way into the Santa Monica Bay, which is very polluted.

Hiking in the Santa Monica Mountain chain, which barely qualifies as a Mountain chain by the way because much of is simply not high enough, you can see more evidence of dramatic earth changes in the past, millions of years ago they say.  Along one trail there are on the top of the mountain the equivalent of undersea scoop outs that are still full of sand.  When it rains sometimes beach quartz and petrified shells that have been in place for ages and were once part of the COASTAL BEACHES are exposed.   Something - a massive earth quake, comet hit, or perhaps volcanoes out at sea or maybe even "polar shift" are responsible for throwing beaches thousands of feet and making these mountains.

There are only two mountain chains in the world that go east to west rather than north to south.  These Santa Monica Mountains and the other chain are the Carpathians of Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary.

My concern is not just about water for drinking, cooking, washing, and personal bathing, which is in short supply for the farmers in less citified areas of this massive state of California, resulting in ever higher prices for fruits and vegetables but that the food chain is also effected.

Case in point, the thermostat went up to 88 and insects started coming into the house looking for water.  This means I have to start exterminating, something that I never had to do before the heat wave.  As the earth dries up and the bugs start dying, well so it follows that birds will starve, and so it goes.

Because of the construction site, which is on what had been a long vacant lot, every morning we smell skunk.  In the middle of the night a possum and a cat seem to be getting into a fight for turf in the back yard.  There was a raccoon in our garbage cans.  I figure they have been displaced from the long vacant lot. 

The raccoon was in our cans in the morning light and was bigger than my dog!  My dog was barking, I looked out and saw no human beings, so I opened the door and there was the raccoon.

So do I hope for more rain?

Yes!


NATIONAL PARK SERVICE - SANTA MONICA MOUNTAINS

DROUGHT and the TOO HOT SUMMER - THE INSECTS ARE COMING INDOORS

Insects of all types are coming into homes, and in some cases rats and snakes are following. 

You've probably heard that we are in a drought. 

You're probably in a drought too.

I love to cook but dishes - not so much.  I usually let them soak overnight and do them in the morning.  Ah well,  one day I noticed a roach.  Where there is one there are - many.  So I started washing and drying my dishes after years of letting them air dry.  One day I dropped some water on the floor, there was a coin sized drop, and I saw three bugs run out from under the stove in daylight to drink from its edges as if it were a pond.

As a friend said, "To them it was."

So I went out and bought those boxes with the glue inside that trap interested bugs; a hideous death.  That only proved to me that the roaches were invading. 

So a person who manages an apartment building told me to get powered sugar and boric acid powder, mix it up, and put it in little containers here, there, and everywhere.  My place is damp and soon enough this mixture was no longer powder.  So I bought an ORGANIC, SAFE TO HUMANS AND DOGS, spray, that has an intense clove smell to it.

Let's just say that I am just now winning the battle, and it took having to be willing to spray the bugs dead and watch them die. 

But it's not just typical roaches coming in for they have only lead the way being the most survivalist, it is also spiders (big and thin and small and fat), mosquito hawks (waiting for mosquitos to land in my laundry presoak), as well as centipedes, ants, flies, fruit flies, and well, some I can't identify.

Someone told me they all hate the smell of pine sol and also lavender.  Though I was washing down the inside of the refrigerator with bleach and  the bathroom with ammonia, I got the lavender.

Under my steps, a mostly shaded area, where there are pots that include a huge rubber plant and a plum tree, I water.  There I found a Red Salamander clinging to the underside of a basket!  A grasshopper has been eating my geraniums and was on my sunflowers yesterday morning.  I moved him using a piece of cardboard. I could imagine him making a claim to the territory under my steps.

All sentient beings want to live.  And they all need water.

We are to save fresh water and reuse the not so fresh.  I'm taking fewer showers and shorter showers.  I'm going swimming one day a week for about an hour which isn't substituting as a bath but which makes me feel fresh.  When I rinse out a tea pot or a coffee pot, I used the rise for plants.  When I rinse dishes I try to pour the rinse water into standing pots that will need some soaking. And so on.

We have all been asked to let our lawns die and to voluntarily cut back our use of water.

And now we fear fires.

Is there global warming?  I think so.

Is the drought really a "Conspiracy" of big corporate entities that actually own plenty of water and are going to create a fake drought so they can kill off people in this world?

I don't think so.
But people are dying of heat and dying of dehydration already, mostly in countries where the poor are already living close to the earth.

One of the interesting things about drought is that it makes people stock up on bottled water from other places, and some people day from the less expensive tap water, and all in plastic.  If these plastic containers get hot in the sun the plastic leaks into the water, we drink it, and that plastic remains in our bodies. 

I wonder to myself if this water, product of Iceland or Mexico or Russia, is depriving people who actually live there of water. 

I hope not.

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SLIP-SLIDING INTO THE NEW YEAR WITH MY DOG

Luckily I don't live in a snow zone, but it has finally started to rain, which may ease the drought of California somewhat.  Because it has not rained in so long, the roads are slippery with oil and auto exhaust, and the sidewalk underfoot requires some tread to walk safely on it.

The leaves have turned color and fallen too, which doesn't happen every fall or winter here.  It makes you think of the eastern United States.

My dog stops and smells and I wonder if she enjoys the sensation of actually walking on the leaves instead of the cement sidewalk.  She knows to avoid big puddles and jumps over obviously wet patches.

Lately we've been burrowing in, as I crochet while watching films and try in my off time to get organized for the New Year.  An old sofa is on its last days but I want to wait until the weather clears to put it out on the curb for pickup.  An old TV set is no longer fashionable - it's not a thin screen - but still running fine.  It's the DVD/VHS player that needs to be replaced and with a replacement I will most likely donate the VHS tapes to a library, senior housing or community center.  So I want to watch some of these films just one more time.

I stayed home for Black Friday and I'm not buying electronics today, though I may be missing some deals.  My quiet and private time is too precious to me and I don't want to be out among the crowds, compete for products, or stand in lines.  I love staying under the blanket and I notice my dog has been staying under blankets too.

After so much heat in the summer, many of us here look forward to the opportunity to wear a sweater and hat, and to pull out that umbrella.  We're just glad that shoveling snow and truly freezing weather is not part of our lifestyle.