Author Archives: youngholm

We get right up to the edge of the water, and then we can’t bring ourselves to take the plunge.

It’s only 8:15 but the temperature is almost 90 already. The chickens are preparing to sit out the heat in their dirt holes.

Signs like this pop up outside the supermarket whenever there’s a fire.

This close. The yellow area on the map is the so-called “fire advisement” area. People in this area are not under immediate threat or warning, but are supposed to be on constant alert for changes in the fire’s status. Because … Continue reading →

Ok, so like I was watching a couple of my gray/blue dragonflies around the pool and it occurred to me that they were being quite friendly with each other. Which then got me to wondering about how dragonflies mate. Which … Continue reading →

As of Friday afternoon, July 22, we have another fire about 25 miles north of us — the Oak Fire. After a little over 24 hours it’s already at 11,900 acres. That’s almost 20 square miles. https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2022/7/22/oak-fire/ I took the … Continue reading →

The hottest day of the summer so far. The chickens take refuge in the shade, either in a watering hole like this or in a dust bowl that they scrape for themselves out of the dirt. We bought the raised … Continue reading →

Quail are common around here, but they’re so shy it’s hard to get a good photo. Today a covey came marching past the kitchen window, so I raced to get the camera that has a zoom lens. I caught these … Continue reading →

Fruit production is completely random here. I’ve neglected the grapes this year shamefully. I forgot to prune them in the spring and gave them no extra water — in fact, I’ve barely remembered to check occasionally to see that their … Continue reading →