Stow Lake, #3

Bare branches on the trees at Stow Lake. Subtle beauty on an otherwise cold and gray day.

"I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do."

Willa Cather, O Pioneers!

Stow Lake #2

More fog and gulls that don't seem to mind the damp air.

Stow Lake, Sun, Fog

Walking back to my car after a recent visit to the de Young and the Post Impressionism exhibit, the fog rolled in from the Pacific and I happened to have my camera at hand, my eyes open.

"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we will not find it."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tule Fog, Night

The view out front of the house these days and nights of the Tule Fog. Eerily reminiscent of photographs of California wild fires at night. Oh, those sodium/ mercury vapor streetlights!

Backyard Tangled Wood

A backyard winter scene in Walnut Creek, California. With all the rain we've been having of late the conditions have been very favorable for the formation of Tule fog. Tule fog is a dense, thick, ground fog that forms in California's Central Valley during the winter months as opposed to the air borne summer fogs that blow in from the Pacific. Both, however, have the same effect, one more enjoyable than the other. In the summer, we generally welcome the fog because it means a warm spell- a span of 4 or 5 days of triple digit temperatures-will be ending. In the winter, it means your 45 degree day will feel more like 25. Like today. Brrrr, though the ivy seems to thrive in it, much to my chagrin. Ivy changes everything and grows everywhere if you don't keep it in check.

New Moon, January, 2011

What feels like the dead of winter, Bay Area style.

That little sliver of a thing that looks like a bit of dust in the lower center of the image is the first New Moon of 2011 setting over Acalanes Ridge in Walnut Creek, CA, on 7 January 2011. Some Tule fog from the Delta is blowing over the ridge in the lower right quadrant, making sure it feels colder than the 38 degrees or so it is.. It's been quite foggy and dreary in the 'hood the past few days and fairly cold by local standards.

Goodbye, Christmas 2010

January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany in the Western Christian tradition, is the date on which the Three Magi, Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, visited the infant Jesus bearing their gifts of gold, frankinsence, and myrrh. It's also  the "Twelfth Day of Christmas" and thus signals the end of the Christmas season at which time the Christmas decorations come down and the trees get tossed in the street. See you next time, Gabriel!