SWCAMBORNE

Rebecca and I hiked up to the Eaton Canyon Waterfall on Monday.

There was enough boulder hopping over the stream to make it fun with out it being dangerous.

This rock has been lodged at the top of the falls for perhaps 20 years:

And the graffiti is still everywhere.

Rebecca thought that the best solution was to invent a paint that has a release antidote.  I wanted to put in remote cameras catch and then spray paint some young men.  Albert Nock would say that if you live in an urban area this is one of the penalties, live with it.

The Station Fire has changed the habitat of the animals who live in the San Gabriel Mountains and we are having more bear sighting and a small herd of bucks have been grazing the front yards during the day. I know that deer are a common sight in Ohio, Georgia and Virginia but in suburban Los Angeles deer sightings are as rare as honest politicians.

A deer is behind the tree just to the left of my mailbox

through my gate into Lew’s front yard

That will be three bucks

Life is Good

NASA sent a drone over the Station Fire and compiled this very cool map showing the extent of the fire:

Want more details?  Go to the NASA site. Your tax dollars at work.

The Prickly Pear Cacti in Eaton Canyon

have a white mold looking stuff on them. This years there is a lot of it.

Inside the mold is a small sac of red liquid created by a bug called: Cochineal-dactylopius coccus.

The red liquid used to be the only really good source of red dye and was one of the early exports from the “New World” to Spain.  It still is used as a red dye in foods.  So when you eat red velvet cake part of what you are eating is bugs.  More information

I see an opportunity for local, natural, organic, color dyes to sell at farmers markets.

Rebecca and I were hiking up the Mount Wilson Toll Road last Friday and we saw this deer near the upper slide.

We walked up the newly bulldozed road (Click here to Read that wonderful story) and we saw him peeking at us over the ridge:

Then finally as we looked down off the road we saw him again wandering off:

Clearly this is a deer who does not feel threatened by humans.