Window in my office. Various birds on left. On right, from top down: raccoon. big bobcat, small bobcat, fox. I use industrial strength hydrogen peroxide to bleach bones white. Never use Clorox; it eats away the bones.

Cow skull on left from Canyon San Bernardo, near the town of Miraflores in Baja California Sur, 1988; 16″ horns. The skull at right is from a horse I found near Diana’s Punch Bowl hot springs, which is south of Austin and Highway 50 in Nevada. On the shelf in front of the shop window is my growing collection of skulls. The latest two are a bobcat and a fox. I’ve learned how render the skulls (if fresh), then bleach them in hydrogen peroxide. Each one is so beautifully constructed, with unbelievable joinery of skull plates on top, and each one is so different from those of other species.

The ocean has been vibrant these 3 days. Big swell, crashing waves. Surfers are a hardy bunch up here. This ain’t no stinkin Southern California. Water’s cold, there are rip currents, surfer dudes are tough.

Lots of driftwood on beaches. When I leave this cafe in Gualala, I think I’ll head back down to the beach where we went yesterday, this time with my backpack to pick up driftwood treasures.

On Wednesday, I skated for an hour and a half. First real skateboarding in months, injuries healed, thank the lord, or rather, body1 It’s a half-mile downhill narrow road, v. little traffic, going out to the Pt. Arena lighthouse. I bomb a stretch of it, what a thrill. I shot movies of the rides with my GoPro Helmet Hero HD video camera, will get into YouTube when I can. (Looks like I’m going faster than I am.)

I went down a little canyon path a few hours ago to shoot the above pic of the driftwood beach, and on the way back up, spotted this skunk skin, or rather,skunk fur. I probed around with a stick, but there were no bones, just this image of a skunk draped on the pine needles.

I’ve heard of Taoist masters who have died and supposedly left no physical traces. When monks opened the master’s room, there was nothing but the master’s clothing and hair. The body had dissolved into thin air.

I was on the beach last night around sunset. The surf was big and I was taking pictures of 2 surfers (who were getting hammered) and turned around and here was this horse and rider materializing out of the surf. (It was darker than it looks here.)