Welcome to the Neighborhood

Our new house sits at the base of a vast expanse of hilly open space, so it came as no surprise that our first welcome to the neighborhood came not from the Smiths or the Joneses but rather from the Quails. A group of roughly ten to fifteen California quail make an almost daily stopover in the hillside brush of our backyard. Much like penguins, they prefer to walk and nest in the ground brush rather than in trees. At our island home near Seattle, we would see wildlife every single day. Deer, eagles, hawks, wild pheasant, cormorants, pelicans, otters, sea lions, harbor seals, coyotes, and on a rare occasion, orcas off the nearby beach. Appears our little terrier will continue to have a coterie of critter guests. The tail is wagging mightily.

Adieu 2011

The last year brought a couple of very important changes to our lives. The most immediate is that I am "back" in Northern California, having spent the past several years in the Pacific Northwest. Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver will remain very much in my heart. While the market at the SF Ferry Building is nice, it's no Pike Place or Granville Island Market. And let's not mention the coffee issue, Blue Bottle notwithstanding. Something about the water up there. The second major change in 2011 is that we bought a larger spread in a very nice town in the Bay Area, if for no better reason than to allow our precocious Norwich terrier the space to run to his heart's delight. That and we needed the extra rooms to house all the books accumulated over the years from caffeine-induced spending sprees at Powell's and Elliott Bay. Now if we had room for the kayaks... and all the umbrellas.

Now that I am replanting my flag back in the People's Republic of California, the lights on this long dormant weblog have been switched back on. I'll be cleaning off the cobwebs and sanding down the rust from five years of dormancy.