An odd thing about living in Northern California is that you might as well toss the calendar into the trash when it comes to predicting what the weather will be like.
Today turned out not only to be the last day of November but a strangely hot beach day. It wasn't a Santa Ana, technically, but a soft warm breeze from the north, as near as I could tell.
In the park, mating pairs of ducks, geese, and seagulls were having a field day consuming the seeds thrown by humans.
It was a lovely, peaceful scene; the only break in the calm came when various male Mallards sensed another bird moving in on their family territory.
Sure enough, there in the shadows, young ducks were cowering, not quite yet ready for prime-time, with hawks, crows and Pacific gulls overhead, and snakes always on the prowl nearby. The problem with the shore, of course, is the raccoon, never far away, with its sharp claws, silent step, and very long reach.
Big trees line the lake.
With amazingly thick patterns of bark.
Skinny bamboo lines the island.
A lone turtle sunbathed, undisturbed by all around him.
At the shore, the peace was replaced by a strange violence. Monster waves rushed ashore, discouraging all but one lone surfer from testing their violent currents.
Hundreds of people lined the cliff over Ocean Beach, mesmerized by the sight of an ocean raging in ways rarely seen.
The occasional kid tested the tide line.
Creatures with no hope of surviving the gap between low and high tide were pushed up onto the sand by today's huge waves.
Back home, I have a newly redone back porch, looking west, toward where I spent this day, in the park and on the beach. It wasn't winter this day.
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