I, The Jury, not

i reported this morning at 8:30 am to the nevada county courthouse for jury duty. the last time i had jury duty was in 1966. i did get a summons 2 years ago but was excused as i had just begun chemo treatment for colon cancer.

today's case was a bit unusual. it was a civil proceeding to determine if the county could show beyond a reasonable doubt, the standard for criminal cases, that a woman was seriously enough disabled by mental problems to be put into a conservatorship by the county. i was not among the first eighteen called from the jury pool. the rest of us, maybe 35 or 40, watched and listened to the judge and opposing attorneys question the eighteen. after one prospect was dismissed for cause and seven more dismissed without prejudice by the attorneys their places were filled from the pool. one of those called was robert mack. as i pondered whether i should ask if the name was actually roger mack a man from somewhere behind me walked down to the jury seats.

in due time several of the replacements were dismissed and i and others took their places. robert mack and i exchanged smiles as i took my place. the judge immediately asked me if robert and i were related. i said not. the judge and the attorneys asked our new group fewer questions than they had asked the others. maybe they were tired. i guessed that one of us might get dismissed for cause. didn't happen. she was dismissed peremptorily, as were several others i had suspected would be. the attorney for the woman seeking to not be placed in conservatorship used his final peremptory challenge to dismiss me.

there was considerable conversation between the judge, the attorneys and the prospective jurors during voir dire about psychiatric treatment, psychotropic drugs, marijuana, and the nature of a conservatorship. the juror dismissed for cause said that she didn't see psychiatry as sufficiently grounded in science. i thought that was tactful.

i did already know that the questioning of prospective jurors is called void dire. i did not know till just now that it means "to speak the truth" in french. and how did that creep into our law system, based as it is on english law?

the judge and both attorneys impressed upon us that the woman in question entered the courtroom assumed to be competent. i liked that. i was impressed that they also thanked us often for being there and repeated their commitment to a seating an unbiased jury.

i had time to examine my own thoughts about involuntary conservatorships. here was a woman, described by the county counsel as kind and sweet, who was willing to sit in court and be judged by strangers because she wanted to run her own life. over there were presumably kind, well-intentioned professional helpers who were going to testify that she was incompetent to do so. to feed, clothe, and house herself. i assumed that they would have to include testimony about her actions as well as about their assessments of her mental state.

my other two experiences on jury duty were easy in comparison. in sum, if you don't want to read the other post, the murder verdict was easy because there was no real evidence. the civil trial was even easier. the state's agent was stingy. while i was fully prepared to serve on this jury i am relieved that i will not have to make that decision.

Anniversary Walk

October 17th is the anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake and our wedding anniversary. We got married three years after the earthquake, and picked that date for the earth shaking event that our wedding was. Hah! I've written about it here on the blog.

So, today we celebrated our 21st anniversary by taking a nice long walk up the Yuba River to Hoyt's Crossing. It's a 1.2 mile walk in to the beach. The South Yuba River Park Association says this about the trail, "Numerous down trails lead off the main trail to small beaches, smooth, water-sculpted granite perches, and pristine swimming holes." All true, it's beautiful even when the river is low at the end of the dry season. The granite and sunlight, the crazy clear water creating caustic rainbows, the sound of water flowing over giant boulders. It's a delight for the senses.

We were the only ones around, and despite the Hoyt Sign prohibition against CLOTHING, we kept our clothes on. We played a bit on the rocks like little kids, climbing around and acting goofy, getting to the top of smooth granite boulders and sliding down on our butts. Let me tell you it's fun to be ten years old again for five minutes.

We were lucky too to see these beautiful displays of caustics. The way the light and water interact is pretty spectacular. It doesn't always look like this, but when it does it makes me wish I were an artist of some sort, so I could try recreate this and hang it on the wall.

I think I would like a house to look as if it had been painted by someone who watched light and clouds and water. The natural world has color displays in places that you would never expect it. Who would look for shiny-rainbow-y peacock feather-like swirls in the shallows of a river? We do! We do!

The mountains are in full fall mode here too. We were surprised by these autumn colors. The day was warm and bright, and we had a perfect anniversary walk.

Images Of The Real World

There's so much going on in the "political reality" of our world.  I was going to call it the "real world" but it's not. So, here's what we've seen in the real world lately.

 An uncommonly beautiful Common Buckeye.

 Bear tracks across the irrigation ditch.

 An Acmon Blue butterfly simply being beautiful.

 A coyote looking back at me when I shouted hello.

 A circumzenithal arc with crepuscular rays and shadows.

Iridescent clouds that no one else looked at, even though they could have just by turning their eyes skyward.

Remember that headache I had in August 2011?
The neurologist said I had "an event."
The residual effect is that I stopped feeling burns. This 2nd degree burn is from extremely hot oil that spattered when I was making homemade felafel the other day. I felt it happen, and then NEVER felt it again. That's my real world.

King Salmon Run Up The Yuba

Roger and I did something we hardly ever do. We joined a group of strangers on the banks of the lower Yuba River to watch the King Salmon run. I read about it in the local online press last month and registered us for Saturday morning (10/5). We drove about 40 miles to get to this spot. We didn't know what to expect, and were a bit surprised to have two reps from California Fish and Game come and spend time talking about the crazy life of salmon.

You can barely make out the tail of this salmon making its way up the river. The Fish and Game folks explained that these salmon are probably from the Feather River, but come to the Yuba to spawn. I'm pretty sure he said only one or two salmon that actually hatch here, survive to make it back. The rest are from out of town, so to speak.

When we weren't trying to spot these tail-flipping giants on their biological way to salmon nirvana, we were treated to the sight of osprey overhead. We hadn't seen osprey in a very long time. They were quite beautiful against the cloudless blue sky.

The best and most soulful view we had of these salmon was of their dead bodies along the shore. I'm sure when we crazy tourists leave, the vultures come and have a monstrously good picnic.

It's interesting to think of such a compelling life history, to be biologically driven to make this journey from the sea to reproduce and to die. We come to watch them, to be a witness to the power of their genetic message. At least that's why Roger and I were there. Some of the others were there to watch and talk about how delicious salmon are when they're freshly caught and barbecued.

Ps-- Remember that pic I took of the lenticular cloud with lacunosus? I sent it to the Cloud Appreciation Society and they published it on their website. Wheee!

The Sky Put On A Show For Free

Just after sunrise on Saturday morning (9/28) I walked out on the deck to look at the crepuscular rays. My brother-in-law Gary, who was visiting from Kauai with his wife Lynne, came out to see. We watched the light change and thought we could make out just the faintest hint of a 22 degree halo in the rays. Such a nice sight. I told him and Lynne that the sky looked like it might produce some iridescent clouds. We were pretty happy about that. I've been wanting someone in the family to see this beautiful phenomenon.

And then it happened. We had to go out in the front of the house and stand in the shadows to see the hints of color at the apex of the roof line, where the sun was completely blocked. The colors were changing so fast, going to pinks and greens, blues and lavender. It was wonderful.

Roger took this pic of us watching the sky. It made me so happy to share this with them.

A short while later Roger called me outside to see this. So lovely, like a portal into another world, we all agreed. It was a "beam me up, scotty" moment.

And then, the piece de resistance-- this iridescent cloud was as beautiful as I could have wished for. The really cool and interesting thing (to me, of course) is that this stunning display of deep hued colors comes almost three years to the day of this, the first iridescent cloud I ever photographed.

I photographed these clouds on September 29, 2010. I called them sundogs, of course!

My Mother's Birthday

My mom dancing with my twin brother at her grand-daughter's wedding in June

Today is my mother's birthday, but I'm not allowed to tell you how old she is. She is keeping her age a secret from the "inmates" at the Assisted Living facility. She likes to keep them guessing. Mostly they guess her to be younger than she is. She loves that. It makes her very happy.

My older brother who will be eligible for Medicare in November told me if I'm getting my nails and hair done as regularly as our mom does when I get to be her age, he'll be impressed. I laugh, I tell him, "I don't even do that now. I've never had my nails done, and I get my hair cut once every six months, if I remember." I must be older than she is already!

I told my mother, if she tells her friends at the facility that her eldest son is going to be 65 soon, she'll have to tell them she had him when she was ten. We laugh and laugh. She likes to be young. It's good for her in every way.

I was born old. It's true. It happens to some people. Here's a random story that illustrates my ancient qualities. When I started kindergarten I wrote a poem everyday and asked the teacher if I could read it to the class. She said "yes" everyday. One of my poems began like this: Now that I am old.

I absolutely love my mother's vitality and passion for life. She reads books on her Kindle. She checks her Facebook account on her laptop. She loves watching the Dodgers and the Clippers play. She loves to dance. She plays the Word Jumble every morning, and most of the time she guesses the words before I do. I think if she were to write a poem today, it might begin like this: I can't believe I'm still this young.

Happy birthday to my amazing and inspiring mother. I know why Dad fell in love with you. I love you.

Wasps and a story

Robert Mitchum in the movie Night of the Hunter, playing a religious fanatic, had "love" and "hate" tattooed on his fingers, love on one hand and hate on the other.

I have, temporarily, hands demonstrating "wasp-stung" and "not-wasp-stung" without any tattoo. This is the second time this summer that I have been stung by the more aggressive sort of paper wasp. The swelling goes away, well it did last time anyway, in a day or three.

RANDOM STORY

Back in the early 70s, maybe 71, I lived in Fortuna in Humboldt county in northern California. I moved there from San Francisco and had good friends to visit in the city. I would leave my house at 8 AM and hitchhike to SF, usually arriving in 6 or 7 hours. Almost as fast as if I had driven myself. After a few days I'd hitch back north. One of those trips found me somewhere a bit north of Ukiah at the end of one ride with my thumb out for another. In the way of things back then it wasn't long till a van pulled over, stopped about fifty feet away, and the rear door swung open. I trotted over and jumped from the bright sunlight into the dark back of a windowless van. No fewer than three voices welcomed me with "Hi Roger." Neighbors and friends from Humboldt. I was dropped off in Fortuna and enjoyed a leisurely 10 minute stroll home.

pert and saucy sauce

well, here we are the next morning, back in real time, not here in blog time.

the sauce is now in a smaller pot and is chilled, ready to be put into jars.

and here are the jars! half pints because there are usually just the two of us to cook for.

our high tech metering system to ensure that each jar is filled just so.

the automatic labeler

and the finished products. sauce and tomato chunks and pepper pieces.

i'll add here a garden recap because we use blogger to keep a record of some parts our life.

the tomatoes seemed to ripen a bit late considering the early heat spell we had, but they have come on quite nicely. the purple cherokees are pretty much done. we may get 3 or 4 more. some early girls and beefsteak are still ripening and we will have loads of green ones to ripen inside when the weather turns cold. there are many romas left. maybe we'll freeze some.

our corn was delicious. we could have planted more. the bush beans only gave us about 4 meals. we planted 5 basil starts and all flowered very quickly. there were enough nice new leaves for daily use but mostly the leaves turned bitter. we didn't make any pesto this year. an early potato crop is tasty but has very thick skin. we tried a midsummer 2nd planting. the tops grew well and are just now fading. i've poked into the dirt a bit and found at least one large tater.

the transplanted strawberries grew well but didn't produce many berries, though they were quite tasty. they have gone wild with runners and probably need thinning. aaah zucchini! the heat messed with it a bit but we have had fresh zukes all summer and have thrown away some monsters that seemed to grow huge overnight. there are about two dozen mature butternut squash of various sizes hardening for winter storage.

the shade house was a slow start. we did eat a lot of kale, but the chard leaves got burnt a lot in the early heat. the kale finally got aphids and is gone. the chard pulled through and we have eaten quite a bit. after sowing carrot and beet and onion seeds in the outside beds more than once and having almost no plants come up (save the early beets mentioned below) i sowed some of each in the shade house and now we have all three coming along nicely.

we harvested about 15 pounds of garlic in late june. the onion sets we planted last fall along with the garlic didn't do so well. we did harvest almost two dozen good onions but the majority fell to root rot and tiny worms. an early spring planting of beets gave us many nice meals.

we grew mini red bell peppers, regular red peppers, red rocket hot peppers and jalapenos. they should have been staked. they all fell over and i have added straw mulch under them several times. they are prolific. we have been cooking with the bells and frozen some. i pickled some mini bells and i have made some tasty hot sauce with the red rockets and jalapenos.

even though we have decided quite firmly to move next spring we ordered garlic for fall planting that will mature after we plan to leave. and we'll do onion transplants instead of sets.

best laid plans "gang aft agley" and all that.

saucy sauce

we eat lots of tomatoes. cooked tomatoes most of the year because the fresh ones available in stores aren't good raw. we like to grow them. we enjoy fresh, vine-ripe tomatoes for about 4 months, so we make sauce and freeze it for the rest of the year. we also cut some tomatoes into quarters, freeze them on a cookie sheet, and put them in freezer bags. we do the same with whole golden cherry tomatoes.

the ingredients: early girls, romas, and beefsteaks. the onion is store bought. the garlic is ours.

two workstations: i stepped back to take the picture we rinse them in cold water and cut them meticulously into exactly equal pieces.

ready to simmer: the garlic will be put through a press. it looks better whole for a picture.

the summer kitchen: who wants simmering pot going all day in the house when it's 90 degrees? that is a sears campstove, maybe 50 years old. i found a nifty conversion thing so it runs on propane instead of liquid fuel. the sauce will reduce to about a third its beginning volume 5 or 6 hours. then we let it cool for a while and transfer it to a smaller pot and cool it overnight in the refrigerator.

Crepuscular Rays and Shadows

I wish I knew more about photography. That's actually an incorrect statement. I wish I knew something/anything about photography besides point and click. Yes, I have a good eye for beauty, but that doesn't give me any way to convincingly convey to you what the sky looked like on Sunday.

It had crepuscular rays all day long, from sun up to sun down.

From our backyard to the co-op parking lot to the highway. Crazy clouds that looked out of focus even before I pointed the camera at them. Crazy colors in mid-morning.

Roger says I should learn how to do manual focus and F stop stuff. I say, what? My brain is on overload all the time as it is. Put more stuff up there? No way.

So, this is what you get. It really looked like this, but who would believe me?

A Post About Comments

When Roger and I first started blogging in January 2005 we used Haloscan for commenting. Not sure why, except that some of our favorite political bloggers at the time (like Eschaton) used it. It wasn't a good idea because Haloscan quit hosting a commenting platform some time in 2008. We were able to save all of the comments, and there were literally thousands of them, but only in a ridiculous Excel format that is seriously unfriendly in every way. The comments were deleted from blogger, and that was the end of that. I still have 18 database files of comments and planned to edit out personal data and would like to try to append them to original posts where they had been left. It's an absurd amount of work, and in all likelihood it won't ever get down, but not for lack of good intentions.

It was right about that time that we quit replying to comments. It always bothered me that we stopped, especially since we love bloggers who do reply, but our enthusiasm for had been diminished. We were moving around a lot back then, and blogging became more about journal keeping than communication. Still, we always loved comments and the amazingly bright and wonderful people who became our friends here and stayed.

So, you may have already noticed, I have made a commitment to reply to all of your comments. We appreciate hearing from you so much. You have enriched our lives and we just want you to know. So, you'll be hearing from us!

And, thank you.

PS The skies cleared. The local American Fire is 26,194 27,440 acres, 98% 100% contained, and expected full containment today, August 29th (DONE). The Rim Fire rages on. It is now 192,737 199,237 201,894 213,414 219,217 222,777 228,670 231,086 235,841 237,341 246,350 252,156 253,332 254,685 255,858 256,169 256,895 acres, 30% 32% 35% 40% 60% 75% 80% 84% contained and the 6th 5th 4th 3rd largest fire in California history expected containment is September 20th October 1st. It will continue to grow. The above photos were taken Wednesday in our clear blue blue skies. I think these clouds are Lacunosus formations. What do you think?

Coming Up For Air

This has been one long hot smoky summer. I got burned out writing about smoke and fire, but then one of the largest fires in California history (The Rim Fire) started burning about 125 miles south of us. That's not very close, until the wind blows out of the south and our air gets smokier than we've ever seen it. The above pic is a screen grab of what the air quality map looked like on Saturday morning. It was bleak, and yes, unhealthy.

And here's what that air looked like when we went into town to shop at the co-op. It's what everyone is talking about. Like a crazy slow motion disaster, it goes on and on and on. The cashier says, "Take it easy out there, it's like smoking 20 packs of cigarettes today."

What else is there to write about? Well, we've been freezing batches and batches of tomato sauce. Roger has been painting the exterior of the sauna to match the house paint. There have been flocks of migrating warblers in the oak trees. When I went out to take some photos, I found this female Western Tanager. One of my all time favorite birds! Such a treat. Wished I'd seen the male. He's quite a stunning beauty.

Roger found what we think is a juvenile skink  a young Northwest Alligator lizard (thank you for the ID, Bev!) in our bathroom. It was hiding under the scale in a dusty little corner. It dropped the tip of its tail when Roger caught it. That tail wiggled on the ground like a perfect distraction. Pretty crazy to see. We set it free on the deck and it high-tailed it out of sight in a hurry.

Yes, it has been one long hot smoky summer.

What The Blazes...(With Updates!)

The American Fire has grown beyond what we thought it would do. Last Sunday, August 11th it was 15 acres, by Sunday morning the 18th it was 12,950, and is now 13,730 14,765 14,990 15,738 16,822 20,232 22,040 24,135 24,684 24,935 26,004 acres and  45% 49% 54% 63% 60% 66% 67% 78% 83% 88% 92% contained. We have been under an air quality watch and from the above pic you can see why. It's been pretty smoky here most mornings. The estimated time of containment for this blaze is August 28th September 1st August 29th. So, we have many more days of this hazy air. If you click on the above link you'll see the incredible effort being made to suppress this fire. There are 1433 1822 1614 1283 1082 personnel, and the team has been transitioned to an Incident Type 1 -- the toughest fire fighter crews there are. 

The skies cleared here on Wednesday. This is what it looks like now.

When the smoke blows north of us and the skies clear, we go outside to see what's happening out there. On Friday, there was this perfect circumzenithal arc. It was visible for no more than two minutes. Poof... gone.

Last Monday, when the fire was only 800 acres, after the smoke blew away, there was this lovely sundog. We take advantage of the clear-ish air whenever the opportunity presents itself. Fortunately there have been sights to dazzle us in these brief moments.

It's been interesting and challenging staying indoors. It's not a good idea to hike or do much physical exertion during times of such intense smokiness. We'll just add this craziness to the column of why we plan to leave here next year. Not another blazing hot summer, not another blazing summer fire...