I’m baking a big pan of granola as I’m writing this post. I made granola way back in the early 1970s in order to qualify as a Real Hippy, but I didn’t get serious about making granola again until five years ago when our friend Abigail took me through her process of making granola, which I have since modified to fit my improvisational tendencies.
So today I was in Corners buying ingredients to make granola and I ran into a man I know in the bulk foods aisle and he asked me what I was up to and I said I was buying the fixings for granola.
He slapped his thigh and said, “Dang. I used to make granola. Loved it. Don’t know why I stopped. I gotta get back into it.”
I encouraged him to do so and then brought my basket to the checkout counter where the checker started ringing up my bags of nuts and seeds.
“You making granola?” he asked. I said I was.
He smacked his forehead and said, “Man. I used to make granola all the time. I have this great recipe. Don’t know why I stopped. There’s nothing to it. I’m gonna get back into it.”
Coming out of Corners I ran into a guy named Guy. He saw my heavily laden baskets and said, “Looks like you’ll be eating well this week.”
I said I was making granola and he stomped his foot and said, “Shoot. I used to make granola all the time. So good. Don’t know why I stopped. I’m gonna start again. Nothing like homemade granola with fresh-picked berries.”
Moral: Sometimes we just need a little reminder to find the path again.
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This week we had five minus tides during daylight hours and the weather was fine, so we got down to the beach multiple times to get our feet in the cold water and groove with the beauty.
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When one is an aficionado of low tides at our ever-changing town beach, one sees many of the same people who are also aficionados of low tides, and many of these people have dogs, most of those dogs friendly. When I first moved here twenty years ago, the town beach was officially a No Dogs Off Leash beach. Over time, as the state parks budget declined and enforcement of the dog rules lapsed, and then with the breakdown of everything during the pandemic, the beach became a Many Dogs Off Leash beach, and remains so.
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This year’s beach configuration features a huge sandbar accessible by crossing Big River, which is wide and deep this time of the year so one must swim or paddle on a surfboard to get across to the sand bar. By May or June we will be able to wade across the river and get up on the sand bar and walk to where the breakers reach the shore.
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Canadian Geese winter over here in Mendocino and I got a picture of a handsome specimen bathing on the other side of the river near the mouth.
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The unseen spirits use the sand as a canvas to leave messages for those capable of interpreting their symbology. This sand message says Big change is afoot. Don’t be afraid, be excited.
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Seen from above this piece of driftwood enticed us to go down the steep stairs to Portuguese Beach where we discovered the piece of driftwood was actually…
the hand of God gesturing toward the east where the world is born anew each morning.
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I saw this grebe at the mouth of Big River swimming slowly upstream. An hour later I saw him a half-mile further upstream paddling along having, I intuited, a wonderful time.
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Sometimes the river resembles the pelt of an ocelot.
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These pretty blooms grace our orchard every spring, emerging simultaneously with the plum blossoms and shortly before the apple blossoms burst forth.
Fin