Quiet Storm

The latest storm, which is a shy-seeming one, tiptoed into our area yesterday, disheveling trees with noncommittal puffs of wind.  It has a bit of an ambivalent approach to stormhood; I suspect it will disappear as quietly as it has come, probably after it has a chance to sit, rest and ponder the unknowable reach of the universe for a while.  More of a wet sneeze than a rain has moistened the ground and splashed cars and streets.

Even so, the air is cool outside and requires that you layer your clothing.

March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb is the old saying.  I'm not sure I've ever fully embraced that idea.  March comes in like a very confused person wearing a raincoat that's buttoned wrong and socks that don't match.  You know the kind of person:  "I can't find my glasses.  I put them down and now they're gone."  Tossing heaps of magazines aside and looking in the most unlikely places, where they've never put their glasses ever before.  There's no logic, no rhyme, no reason.  Then, suddenly they're beaming with happiness and relief, discovering they'd had the glasses in their hand the whole time.  March does that; it ends up feeling satisfied and relieved but still a little rumpled, waiting for April to come 'round.

Since the winter solstice, the days have been getting longer and the nights shorter than they were back then.  I noticed this morning that there was more light when I got up.  You don't notice that every day; the change feels to have arrived in a chunk of difference, but really it has happened every day, two minutes at a time.

My favorite flowers, daffodils, are blooming, waving, tossing their heads coquettishly.  I used to think they might jump up and sing like the Munchkins in Oz, but if they do, it's with tiny voices I might have mistaken for something else all this time.  My sweet potato vines are swinging low, singing high.

The quiet storm, uncertain of its intentions, is keeping very few groovers inside.  With light jackets and umbrellas at the ready, they are out walking and bustling around town, the middling weather hardly a challenge for those who have withstood flying tree limbs, drenching downpours and the gargling cries of windblown seagulls for the last few months.  No sir, we all know spring is right around the corner, and no milquetoast storm like this one is going to keep this good town down.

In the Storm

The stormy weather that had been approaching us for the past week has arrived with all its bad manners and ill temper, holding us hostages in our homes except for brief tantalizing glimpses of sun and blue sky.  Because it's so gray and heavy outside, the only way I can tell one part of the day from another is by paying attention to my appetite or need for sleep.  Without looking at the clock, I feel like it's 10 AM, but it's after 2. 

There have been some big gusts of wind that have thumped the house soundly.  Rain has soaked things already, driving in from left, right, front, back and sideways.  By all accounts, we need this good soaking, and we are all grateful.

The trees are doing a restless little rhumba out there as gusts of wind shove against their branches, but it's a lull at the moment.  Starlings - trash birds because they are non-native - are squealing and chittering, probably recounting the morning's flights to each other.  "You know Sam? Saw him go by a few hours ago.  Was taking aim at a pine branch at 20 feet and missed it.  Twice!!! HAW HAW HAW!!!  Starlings yell and pound the countertops when they talk, whistle at the girls, full of themselves like that, horning in on nests they didn't build and hogging supplies whenever they can.  Other trash birds you've seen around are English Sparrows, pretty dominant in most human-inhabited areas.  They have the most tuneless call, a shriek really, and grab food off plates at outdoor cafes like tiny wild dogs with feathers.  I do believe that if any bird species can snarl at one another, it has to be English Sparrows.  Cute but mean.  They don't count because they don't belong here.  Not that I'd kill them - and this is off my subject - but invasive species throw a spanner into the works of a native ecological system. 

They're all out there - trash or not - dealing with this winter storm, taking opportunities to forage at the moment, tougher than we are.  We wondered where the sea otters go during storms as we looked at the Asilomar area yesterday.  Usually ineffably cute and charming, they float on their backs or make graceful curving dives to look for abalone and sea urchins, crunching them up with rocks they've found on the sea floor.  They need to groom their thick furry coats constantly to incorporate oils and air bubbles, and they need to eat all the time to keep their metabolic systems in high gear.  I think of them when I see the choppy, nasty surf whipped up by the wind.  Somewhere, somehow they're out there, staying alive.

Storm's Coming

The word's out:  There's an approaching storm, and it's gonna be a soaker, coming in slowly, heavily, from the west and south.  It's just the way nature is.  You know it's coming, taking its good old sweet time, like a fat old aunt who comes and sits on the sofa with a big heaving sigh, settling in for a long time. 

The city hangs its toes over the edge of the country's left coast with nothing but a zillion miles of blue, deep cold water between us and Foreign Lands.  As we teeter on the edge of the continent and peer to the western horizon, we see hints of weather coming, written in code by the clouds.  Just as a soothsayer gleans knowledge from the dregs of Turkish coffee in a cup, we predict what kind of trouble might lie ahead by watching clouds.  We tilt our heads, squint our eyes and look at the ocean's surface, reading the chop and swells, feeling the direction of the breeze.  Then we shuffle back to town for a stiff cup of tea.  We go indoors and stay there, out of the wind and wet, knowing that our homes are sensibly built on solid rock.  Coastal chaparral and stubby trees grow low to the ground with roots in the west and tips of branches stretching to the east, parallel to the ground, bent that way over years of abuse by the prevailing wind.  They are tough and hardy, built to endure.

On the other hand, folks in Pebble Beach (aka Del Monte Forest) prepare for storms quite differently:  They go get an extra round of golf in and then zoom home in their Benzes and Beamers.  They are a wealthy bunch, keen to remain apart from the ordinariness of the Peninsula, safe in their locked community. Better be wealthy in The Forest, 'cause trees are gonna getcha.  Those who live in "The Forest" own expensive properties filled with whippy, top-heavy Monterey pine trees that are just no damn good in high winds.  Every year their houses are smashed and flattened to a spectacular degree when the big storms hit.  The local paper always features dramatic photos of crushed cars, squashed houses and downed power lines - storm damage.  "Bob Jones of Seventeen Mile Drive in Pebble Beach views the remains of his home and car," states the photo caption.  A dismayed man wearing clothing purchased in an LL Bean catalogue stands next to a pile of splinters and distorted metal faintly resembling a structure.  There is usually a sidebar indicating how many trees crushed what number of cars and houses and, of course, how many trees went down on the various golf courses. 

PG has fewer trees.  We are more exposed to the bluster of storms and take the brunt of them before they blow over to Monterey and points beyond.  The trees left standing now are ornery and mean trees that have withstood wretched abuse; they stand around in the evening and tell their tales, spitting seeds to the ground for emphasis.

Our birds have adapted nicely to our blustery climate.  They know how to adjust to severe winds, flying backwards and upside down with a jaunty devil-may-care attitude.  Raccoons, residents of the storm drain system, find higher ground once the rain begins in earnest, but the inconvenience is short-lived for them as the town is built on a slope and the drains empty quickly to the bay. 

About three years ago, an intense storm system blew across the peninsula, and the surf was whipped to a gigantic frenzy of pounding breakers.  The lights flickered on and off for a day and a half, trees were bent sideways and all over everywhere debris and leaves littered the roadways.  Finally, as the storm relented, residents began to emerge and peer about for evidence of the storm's fury.  We drove over to Pt Pinos to have a look at the still very large storm surf, to oooh and ahhh and count ourselves lucky.  It made us feel like gritty survivors, tough and wise in some way, to look at wreckage and destruction. We'd had the good sense to live here, not in a disaster-prone region someplace else, and we had snug homes from which to gaze upon a more unfortunate world Out There Someplace.  Police yellow tape blocked our progress along Ocean View Boulevard, so we parked, got out and walked the rest of the way to the point.  The Big Blue had smashed relentlessly on the bashed-for-eons coast, overwhelming the scenic road that snakes along the perimeter of the peninsula's western face.

In that area of the city's coastline, the distance from the usual surface of the ocean is only about 10 feet below the road's surface.  Storm waves at peak high tide had thrown tons of kelp, boulders and large drift logs across the road, all the way to the nearby municipal golf course water hazard, giving new meaning to the phrase. It was dramatic and amazing and it was a mess.  Sand covered some sections of the road, with seashells, sea stars and anemones littered around.  Usually bucolic and pleasant parking areas were eroded and sections of the coastal boardwalk hung ragged and forlorn, like old laundry flapping in the wind. Waves were still in the 30-foot-high range - surfers call this double overhead - cresting wildly, then blown backward by the stiff breeze.  They looked like charging horses galloping to the beach, manes flying. This was a memorable storm, worse than usual, but that was about the extent of the damage to our coast.  Pebble Beach was without electricity for five days and could have passed for a third-world country disaster zone except for the caliber of cars flattened here and there. 

Gradually our birds came back, some with suntans after being blown all the way to Cabo, and the city righted itself pretty quickly.  Weather just does not take us down.  No sir.  I think the worst I can say about climate conditions in PG is that the air temperature now is exactly the same as it is in the summer when fog throws its wet blanket over us for the season.  It's a very steady specific weather groove, to be sure.