Took off on my bike around 3 yesterday afternoon. As soon as I hit the gravel road, potholes and all, I felt excited. This bike is like a motorcycle. Vroom-vroom! A few miles from here there’s a small winding steep paved road going up to the ridge of the mountain, it’s a good workout and yesterday was the first day I went all the way up. Hardly any cars. Bike muscles coming back. Boy, it’s good to cover (and see) so much territory.

Speaking of which, my thrill of the month: came around a corner, saw what I though was a big bobcat bounding up the road. He spotted me and crossed to run into the brush, and just before he melted into the landscape, I saw that his tail came down to the ground! My 3rd mountain lion spotting. This is the most elusive and arguably, most beautiful graceful, powerful animal in our territory. Tot-uhl thrill!

A friend, a hunter with a bunch of guns, recently told me he would never shoot a predator, not even the coyote who was snatching his chickens. Made me realize the beauty of our local predators like cougars and red-shouldered hawks. They’re built for speed, and therein is beauty. Form derives from function.

Above, a spot on the road, a double creek, magic spot I’d say, that only flows in wet months; I stop and drink. Hello mountain!

Godfrey always been an inexhaustible bundle of energy. One of his present-day projects is to pepper me with emails about sailboats, which he feels are the ultimate in tiny houses. He is responsible for a 6-page layout we just did (in the now-under-production tiny homes book) on Paul and Julie and their exquisite live-aboard) 41-foot teak sailboat. One day last week he sent me 25 emails. In my “Stephens” folder I now have 464 photos. Help!

Here is a photo taken on one of his many sailboats in the ’80s, when a sea lion jumped on board. Godfrey writes:

Sailing  out of Avalon, anchoring for the Night off DANA point, early in the morning, fired up the wood stove with the espresso pot on top of the Coals, main and Genoa up moving south at about 3 knots —

a Bump, and more bumps and Lo there a determined Stellar Sea Lion, suddenly made it aboard with a Huge wet Thump on the steel deck,  I managed to get 3 pictures with the Spotmatic Pentax, 1982, 

She stayed aboard, sad to see her leave just off the Scripps marine institute, slipping along, one could Feel her heart beat when on deck throughout the whole boat. (I)… had to shoo her off because in a JYBE the boom would hit her.

Tied up to friends that night in the Shelter Island anchorage, now gone (to the “Ponderosa House boat “), a fantastic amount of anchored liveaboards .

Thats where (I) learned how to carve two bladed wind generator blades with the adze, and attach to old computer tape drive Motor/generators… 

I’ve been lying  around, using a circulating ice machine for my operated-upon left knee (torn meniscus, thanks to dumb down-hill running during Dipsea Race). Walked out into living room a half hour ago and a little bird was flying around inside. I hobbled around after him, opening windows, but he kept flying into another room and banging into the glass on windows as he tried to escape. Finally I was able to pick him up. Took him outside and he made a few attempts to fly and just fluttered to the ground. I kept him a while, shot a few pics, then he looked at me and flew away. Looks like a baby sparrow.

The 6th mouse I trapped in about 3 days. I think this wipes out the family. BTW, you can mummify a little critter like this (or say a dead hummingbird, if you find one) by placing it on a pie plate in the freezer, wrapped in Saran wrap with air holes punched in it, and leave it for about two months. I learned this at a workshop on bones at The Bone Room, a great natural history store in Berkeley, Calif.

Note: they have invented a better mouse trap. The Ortho 0321110 Home Defense Max Press ‘N Set Mouse Trap has a “bait well” that you fill with peanut butter, so the trap is sprung by mouse digging around in it; this solves the problem of mouse deftly removing bait without springing trap. Ortho also makes a rat trap with the same feature.