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After a morning of atypically insane behavior from my sweet little toddler, Ossian and I headed to the beach to regroup. When we arrived, we were the only humans there. We could hear the sound of rioting sea lions from the parking lot. As we walked over the sand dunes to our first glimpse of the blue vastness, the sea lions’ hearty sounds grew enticingly louder. The sea was glassy and cerulean blue. Slight breeze and mellow waves. An incredible day at Mattole Beach. There were 20-30 Sea Lions hanging out in the waves who seemed to be partying. They were just messing around on their backs and taking turns jumping completely out of the water and twisting in mid air before playfully plunging back in. Though the waves were small, they surfed them at every opportunity and seemed to break into group peals of laughter. It felt like we’d walked in on a private party. We just watched in gratitude until naptime reared its head.
Despite many attempts, I wasn’t able to capture the party on camera. I’ve posted one blurry photo of one jumping sea lion just to disappoint you. The consolation prize is a cute photo of Ossian sitting on a log that she asked to sit on before we left the beach.
Just returned from a trip to Arizona where we saw Nana, Poppu, Phyllis, Bob, Renee, and Marcel…. it was great.
Now we’ve got Manama here from NY for her first visit to Petrolia. We spent the fist half of the day at the beach where we encountered islands of seafoam that we played in like snow. Ossian was in heaven. The second half of the day we waited in vain for our turkey to cook in a tepid oven that never really heated up…. at 9 pm we ripped off chunks of the turkey and fried them up for dinner.
Wild turkeys were everywhere today. They seemed a little cocky like they knew they had outrun, outsmarted, or out-turkeyed all of us carnivores. Good for them.
We’re doing lots of “projects” with Manama – super fun.
Ossian and I went the beach this morning. We said hello to the wild turkeys on the way. Then stopped at the post office and store.. a big trip downtown. I have yet to make a trip “downtown” that doesn’t include running into at least 2 people we know. It’s the place to see people. It’s the hub in Petrolia. There’s always something to talk about… the power is out again, the beach is really windy today, the mail to Humboldt always takes a few extra days… etc.
We were forced to stop on the gravel road to the beach because of a deer who couldn’t decide which way to go. We drove slowly behind it for a stretch while Ossian squealed with glee. “Following” is one of her favorite activities right now and getting to follow a deer in the car was a super thrill for her. Once the deer made its decision and effortlessly leapt up the vertical hillside, we were then stopped by what appeared to be a very pregnant cow that had wandered from it’s pasture and was walking very slowly down the middle of the road. We waited for it to leave us some room to pass and finally arrived at the beach. It was sporadically gusty with moments of sandblasting wind. With each gust, the surf towered and flocks of pelicans lined up to coast through the curling crests. They seem to do it purely for fun. It is an atypically graceful thing for such clowny birds to do. We watched a small pod of porpoises in the surf while Faucet ran through the dunes and Ossian gathered seaweed and drew kitties in the sand with driftwood pencils.
We left the beach to head home and cook lunch noodles but had to stop again on the road. This time, an enormous tree had come down and an equally enormous tractor was working the problem. Ossian’s eyes were huge with intrigue for 20 minutes while we waited and watched the tree inching off the road. She has been saying “cow and a deer and tractor, fell down tree” all day. I love her pithy synopses of our life events.
Ossian has been charged with feeding the chickens every day. They live next door and she calls them “roti”, short for rooster. She feeds them “cereal” and compost. As she approaches the chicken coop, her walk turns into a focused march and her expression is all business. This is a job that she takes very seriously.
I’ve been trying to down play one thing a little… the eathquakes. We’ve had 7 in the two weeks that we’ve been in lovely Petrolia. 7 that I could feel, anyway. I knew before moving here that it was a very seismically active place but wasn’t quite prepared for the frequency of shaking that I’ve experienced. When I bring it up with people who’ve been here a while, they seem to not have noticed the quakes and with very little interest say things like, “oh yeah, it shakes a lot here” or “oh yeah, I forgot that you haven’t lived here before”.
I have already noticed myself normalizing these little events. The first one was very tense – when one starts you don’t know how strong it will get, how long it will last, and whether you’ll be running for your life.. or ducking for your life? What are you supposed to do exactly? I’ll look into that. But by the third one, I was guessing exactly what the magnitude was and distance from Petrolia. I then run to the computer and see how close I was by checking the earthquake record on the internet. Kind of a fun little game, really.
I’ve screwed all tall furniture to the walls and have nothing hanging over any place we might sit or sleep. We have some supplies but could shape up a bit in that department. Think that’s about all you can do. Just hang on for the ride.
life on the lost coast 