Showing posts with label weather. Show all posts

Sunday, December 7, 2014

Sturm und Drang

Once or twice each decade, Hawaii sends Los Angeles a big, wet kiss. Sweeping far south of its usual path, the westerly jet stream hijacks warm water-laden air from the Hawaiian archipelago and hurls it toward the Southern California coast. This “Kona” storm system—dubbed the “Pineapple Express” by television weather reporters—often carries...the equivalent of half Los Angeles' annual precipitation.

—Mike Davis, The Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster

This week, the Pineapple Express delivered the first extended Southern California rainstorm in almost two years, bringing between two and four inches of rain to most parts of Malibu and the Santa Monica Mountains.

Raindrops glisten on the leaves of a blueberry bush in a Malibu garden. This was one of those rare storm systems that wasn't immediately followed by Santa Ana winds, which meant plants and soil had an opportunity to absorb the moisture. Malibu received between two and four inches of rain from this weather system. The Malibu Post's rain gage recorded 2.25 inches. Photo © 2014 S. Guldimann

Malibu residents found themselves almost entirely isolated from the rest of the world on December 3, when mud, rockslides, traffic accidents and downed power lines caused all of the major roads in and out of town to be shut down for a time.

The impact of the storm may have caught some of our newer residents by surprise, but longtime Malibu residents expect the canyon roads and Pacific Coast Highway to be blocked by rocks and debris during storm events, especially when heavy rains follow wildfires like the 2013 Springs Fire.

Nearly 10 miles of PCH north of Yerba Buena remained closed until late Thursday this week, while crews cleared mud and rocks out of the road, but on the whole, Malibu got off lightly this time. That isn't always the case.

Pacific Coast Highway—or what was left of it—looking towards Malibu from the intersection at Chautauqua during the Great Flood of 1938. The photo is from Water and Power's collection of early Santa Monica photos.

During the 20th century, Malibu experienced major "100-year" storm flooding in 1914, 1934, 1938, 1956, 1969, 1978, 1980, 1983, 1992, 1993, 1995. That's more than 1000 years' worth of 100 year storms in just a century, and the list doesn't include smaller but still destructive storm events.

The 1938 flood, a five-day rainstorm that deluged Southern California with 11 inches of rain, was so bad that it rates capital letters: The Great Flood of 1938. That flood is credited with triggering the massive civil engineering campaign to chain the Los Angeles River and transform it, and all its tributaries, into the bleak, sterile concrete channels that are now recognized as one of the biggest ecological disasters in Los Angeles history.

It's hard to visualize it, but that's Victory Blvd. in the San Fernando Valley during the Great Flood of 1938. All that runoff water ended up in the Santa Monica Bay, carrying with it hundreds of road signs, cars, trees, fences, bridges, and entire buildings. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

In Malibu, the Great Flood of 1938 washed houses and parts of PCH out to sea. On March 4, 1938, “Sections of Roosevelt Highway, main coastal highway, were shifted to the sea like chips,” the Prescott Evening Courier reported. “Other sections were covered with landslides 15-16 feet deep...Malibu Beach, the swanky seashore movie colony, was as isolated as Robinson Crusoe’s Island.”

Here's another view of the highway. This image is from the Santa Monica Public Library's excellent collection of digital images, and shows PCH before the floodwaters had entirely receded. It took weeks to dig out from the aftermath of the 1938 flood.

The 1938 flood transformed Santa Monica Canyon into a white-water river that swept everything in its path out to sea. Access to and from Malibu was interrupted for weeks during the cleanup.

In January of 1983, high surf and a series of powerful storms swamped a ten-mile stretch of PCH from Malibu Canyon to Trancas Canyon in mud and damaged more than 100 homes. That was the now legendary storm that destroyed the Paradise Cove Pier and badly damaged the Santa Monica Pier. Giant pylons were tossed around like Tinker Toys, and almost every creek crossing in the Santa Monica Mountains was flooded, stranding residents.

Low-lying areas, including the Corral Beach section of PCH and areas near the Ventura County Line were swamped by waves during a high surf episode on Jan. 19, 1988, but its more common for the road to be closed due to rock and mud slides, rather than waves.

Rockfalls on PCH occur after almost every major storm event. These boulders are from a major 2010 rockslide on PCH near Point Mugu. The biggest rock in the photo is about the size of a washing machine. Photo © 2014 S. Guldimann

On Dec 20, 2010, long before the Springs Fire, the same 10-mile section of Pacific Coast Highway, from Kanan Dume Road in Malibu all the way to Point Mugu in Ventura County was closed to through traffic while Caltrans engineers and geologists worked to stabilize large sections of coastal bluff.

An effort in the late 1970s in the same vicinity involved helicopters positioning metal nets on the cliffside in an effort to mitigate rockslide activity near Point Mugu. Dynamite was used in the 1920s to blast the road through coastal terraces and along the sea cliffs. The precipitous cliffs and geologically unstable rocks continue to make rockslides along this stretch of coast inevitable, but they also occur in more densely populated parts of the coast route in Malibu.

The caption by the Santa Monic Public Library for this 1943 PCH landslide photo describes the trucks clearing the debris as amphibious "ducks." I couldn't find an image from the 1956 slide, but it occurred in the same area.

The Oxnard Press-Courier on Feb 11, 1956, reported that “The Pacific Coast Highway was reopened to all lanes of traffic Friday, six days after it was blocked by a landslide [near] Pacific Palisades … Crews remained on the job around the clock since the landslide tumbled tons of dirt from the 275-foot bluff onto a 600-foot section of the highway."

The popular story that a quartet of elderly bridge players arrived mostly unhurt at the bottom of the slide when the deck they were seated on separated from its house and slid down the cliff may be apocryphal, but plenty of decks and gardens ended up at the bottom, including a large section of lawn, complete with sprinklers.

My mom kept a collection of newspaper clippings chronicling the floods and rockslides of 1980. This is the front page of the April 17, 1980 issue of the Evening Outlook, showing the Big Rock slide that shut down PCH for months. The caption warns that the road will be closed "indefinitely."

But the rockslide in April 1980 that closed PCH at aptly named Big Rock for more than a month is the one most people remember. Two days after the road officially reopened on May 7, a new slide closed the highway again.

“‘The rocks are falling in a steady stream,”’ state department of Transportation spokesperson Milt Stark told the media.

The road remained closed for months. A water taxi ferried commuters and visitors from the Malibu Pier to the Santa Monica Pier and back for the duration. Commuters who had access to more than one car left one vehicle on each side of the slide. Others took bicycles with them on the ferry. At least one enterprising resident kayaked past the slide to his parked car each day.

Here's another clipping, this time from the Malibu Surfside News, showing the Big Rock slide from above.

I remember taking the ferry to Santa Monica with my parents. It was a marvelous adventure for a child. Watching the coast slip past, arriving at the Santa Monica Pier from the water, seeing the ferris wheel growing closer and closer across the bay, was enchanting. We spent a never-to-be-forgotten day walking around Santa Monica and ate dinner at a long-vanished Indian restaurant on 4th Street called the Gypsy. I got to ride the carousel on our way back to to the ferry. It was wonderful.

The water taxi "Shirley Ann" ferried commuters from the Malibu Pier to the Santa Monica Pier while PCH was closed at Big Rock. This is another clipping from the Evening Outlook.

For me it was a treat, for the grown-ups it was a major ordeal. And there was no high school in Malibu in those days, so all of the older students had to navigate the road closure on their way to and from Santa Monica High School twice a day, adding extra aggravation to the already-too-long commute.

Flooding wrecked havoc in the canyons, too, during the 1980 storms. Here are several photos of Topanga from the Malibu Surfside News.

In 1980, 300 businesses in Malibu and along PCH sued the state for millions of dollars in loses, alleging that efforts to stabilize the cliff created a more serious problem. Local businesses in the Malibu Civic Center area also had to contend with four feet of water and mud when Malibu Creek overflowed its banks.

This clipping from the Malibu Surfside News had especial immediacy for my mom. My family's gallery was located in the building next door, which was on slightly higher ground and escaped the worst of the flooding, but many friends and neighbors had to deal with feet of mud and water in their shops. Combined with the months-long road closure, it was a devastating blow for local businesses. The bulldozer in the photo is right in front of where the high-end chain restaurant MR Chang is currently located.

In 1995, severe winter storms again flooded the Civic Center and rockslides closed portions of PCH in Malibu. The Malibu Creek Bridge was damaged during a major storm on Jan. 10 of that year. State transportation officials asked drivers to “avoid Pacific Coast Highway for several months,” while the bridge was repaired and the landslides stabilized. Residents would be escorted by sheriff’s department vehicles through a single muddy lane on PCH while crews worked 24 hours a day to clear the road.

I have a vivid memory of traveling past that mudslide, too. This time in my own car, in the middle of the night, waiting in the rain and darkness to be allowed through, and dreading the thought of being turned back and having to drive all the way around through the valley to get home. The mud was so thick that the pavement and k-rails were completely buried except for that one narrow lane. A sheriff's black-and-white that was almost entire covered in mud and a snowplow were on duty, guiding traffic, one side at a time, through miles of debris.

Landslide remediation measures have ranged from dynamite to complex barriers of steel and concrete. None of it would be much use in a storm like the 1938 event. Anyone who wants to live at the coast has to learn to live with disaster as well as beauty. It's one of many good reasons why the the City of Malibu's official vision and mission statements talk about the community's willingness to forego urban conveniences.

When developers tell us that extensive commercial development will be the salvation of Malibu, or when they propose a 55,000-corpse cemetery in an area with a notoriously high water table, I am reminded of the manically optimistic philosophy of the 19th century manifest destiny movement, which preached that "Rain follows the plow." It's not too different from the newer "if we cover every square inch of a floodplain with development it won't flood any more" mindset. Good luck with that.

An 1938 aerial photo of Malibu Creek and what is now the Civic Center shows standing water all over the floodplain following the "Great Flood." The lagoon has been entirely washed out and only a small portion of the sandbar, or berm, remains. Just because a flood like this hasn't happened in a while doesn't mean it won't happen again.

Floods and storms have always impacted Malibu and the Santa Monica Mountains. There is geologic evidence of ancient landslides and flood-related geology. The current storm is a good reminder, even in the middle of the holiday rush, for everyone to check and restock emergency supplies and make sure they have an adequate supply of food, water and medicines for humans and pets.

It's also a good idea to review emergency evacuation plans. Becoming familiar with the more challenging canyon roads like Latigo, Encinal and Decker during daylight when it's not raining can be a big help if you even have to drive them at night during a rain storm.

We've traded floods for drought in recent years, but the pendulum will inevitably swing the other way again in time. It's too soon to tell if the current storm is the first salvo of a wet winter, or just a temporary break in the prolonged dry spell. Either way, the rain is welcome, but it can be a challenge when it all comes at once.

More rain is in the forecast for next week. Be safe out there.

Suzanne Guldimann
5 December 2014

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

November Winds

The November new moon sets in a sky turned crimson and gold by the Santa Ana winds.

The wind that makes music in November corn is in a hurry. The stalks hum, the loose husks whisk skyward in half-playing swirls, and the wind hurries on. A tree tries to argue, bare limbs waving, but there is no detaining the wind.

—Aldo Leopold, Sand County Almanac

November in Malibu is a time of warm days, cold nights, wicked winds, fiery sunsets, and an ocean pressed so smooth by the Santa Anas that it looks like watered silk. By Thanksgiving, almost all of the winter birds have arrived, while the last of the fall pilgrims are sent on their way by gale-force Santa Ana winds.

A lesser goldfinch, one of Malibu's winter residents, seeks shelter from the Santa Ana winds among the bright autumn leaves of a liquidambar tree. By the end of the windstorm, almost all the leaves were gone, but the finch is here to stay.

At Zuma, the beach once covered in brightly colored umbrellas and towels is now crowded with gulls. The blue lifeguard towers, like oversized sheep, are pastured well away from the reach of winter tides, and sand barricades are in place to protect lifeguard headquarters and the other county buildings along the beach from storms.

Gulls gather on the wet sand at the beach to escape the scouring Santa Ana-driven sand.

There’s a distinctly autumn smell in the wind, compounded of dust and eucalyptus and sun-baked chaparral. It’s a time of waiting. Everyone holds their breath, waiting for the winds to die and the red flag fire warnings give way to winter rain.

Gale force winds whip the waves at Surfrider Beach. The Santa Anas have the power to subdue, or "blow out," the surf.

Dame Wendy Hiller, in the brilliant Pressburger and Powell film I Know Where I’m Going, is stranded by gale-force winds and prays for the wind to drop so she can cross to a small Scottish island where her fate awaits her. Anyone who has lived through a Malibu fire storm can appreciate the intensity of that prayer.

The poet Christina Rossetti famously posed the question "who has seen the wind?" The answer is NASA. The space agency released this image of the Santa Anas blowing clouds of dust far into the Pacific. You can just see Malibu, with Point Dume facing south, in the upper left corner of the image.

The Santa Anas go by a lot of names. Some people meld the syllables together to make the name Santana, others call these fierce desert winds the red wind, the devil's breath, or the devil's wind, but the winds apparently get their name from Santa Ana Canyon, in Orange County, where the phenomenon was reportedly once thought to originate.

It's unclear if the name was bestowed by Spanish settlers or later arrivals. However, the theories that the name derives from Satan or from an Indian word meaning evil wind seem to be entirely urban legends. It seems equally unlikely that the name comes directly from the saint, since her feast day is celebrated in July, a time of year when Santa Ana winds are least likely to occur. And the tempestuous Mexican military leader Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who is also sometimes credited for the name, also seems unlikely, since he never even visited California and had no part in its history.

Santa Ana, the namesake of Santa Ana Canyon, if not the actual Santa Ana winds, looks pensive and sad in this sculpture from the Cathedral Museum of Church of Santiago Campostella in Spain. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

The Chumash must have been very familiar with the winds, but their names for the phenomenon have not survived, although it's said that the name Simi derives from a Chumash term for the little white clouds that often accompany the wind.

Robert Fovell, a professor at UCLA in the department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, has examined the Los Angeles Times archive in search of the etymology of the name, but found nothing more exotic than the place name.

According to Fovell, the earliest reference to the Santa Anas in the Times dates to 1881, just one year after the newspaper began publication.

One of the items Fovell found in the Times archive is a letter to the editor complaining about the name and its connection to the community of Santa Ana:

In 1893, the Times published a complaint from an Orange County resident concerning the "the misnaming of the winds which blow at times over almost all portions of Southern California, and which, unfortunately, in some sections of the southern portion of the State are erroneously called Santa Ana winds." The name, the writer insists, leads "nine out of every ten persons in the East" to conclude that the Santa Ana wind is "peculiar only to the immediate vicinity surrounding and contiguous to the city of Santa Ana."

These winds are "an exceedingly unpleasant feature, especially in the fall before the rains have laid the dust." The writer recognizes that the winds "take the name of Santa Ana by reason of their passage through the Santa Ana mountain canyon, which is shaped very much like a large funnel" but insists it is "not a Santa Ana wind any more than it is a Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside or San Diego wind."

You can read Fovell's interesting and entertaining article here but, sadly, you won't find proof of either saints or devils in it.

The wind sweeps away all traces of human activity along the shore and leaves in place of footprints calligraphic patterns in the sand.

We aren't the only ones to experience this type of wind phenomenon. In the Alps it's the Foehn; in Provence, the Mistral; in Canada, the Chinook; in Argentina, the Zonda; and in Japan, the Oroshi.

One of the traditional Provençal santons—Nativity figures—is a shepherd holding his hat to keep it from blowing away in the Mistral, the French equivilent of California's Santa Ana winds. This was the only character I could find that is traditionally associated with this type of wind, although my dad remembered his grandmother telling him that the Foehn, the Swiss version of the Santa Ana winds, was the ghostly horsemen of the Huns, riding with the wild hunt across the rooftops at night, and Perchta, a pre-Christian goddess who still lingers on in folk tradition throughout parts of Northern Europe, is also associated with the wild hunt and with the wild winds sometimes called "snow-eaters." I find it hard to believe there isn't a Californian equivalent recorded in some long-forgotten ethnographer's notes. Our winds are so fierce and so unforgettable that it seems they must have figured in stories and legends. Photo: Marie Blanche Sorribas, Wikimedia Commons.

Most of the winds of this type begin as cold air in an area of high pressure. As the cold air travels around the high pressure system (clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere; counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere) it gains speed and is squeezed into the surrounding low pressure areas. The wind is heated through compression and gains speed as it pours through mountain canyons like water down a drain.

A tiny sanderling, its feathers blown every which way, ventures out to forage in the tide wrack, despite the wind.

Winds like the Santa Anas have a special Greek name: Katabatic, which means to drain, or flow downhill. While the Santa Ana can reach speeds in excess of 70 mph, the Alaskan Williwaw, also a katabatic wind, has been clocked at over 140 mph.

For Santa Ana winds to occur, the air in the Great Basin east of the Sierras has to be colder than the air at the coast. This NASA graphic shows the distance the winds travel before arriving in Los Angeles.

In many parts of the world, this type of wind is thought to cause madness and illness. In Germany they even have a special word for it: Föhnkrankheit. In Southern California madness isn't nearly as much of a worry as fire. All of Malibu's major wildfires have occurred during Santa Ana windstorms.

Along with the fear of fire, the devil wind really does bring a host of lesser ills: migraines, allergies and nose bleeds, among them. Also static electricity that plagues the cats and transforms long hair into Medusa's snakes; downed trees, branches, and palm fronds; and clouds of dust that covers every surface. At the beach, wind-driven sand scours the shore. In the hills, the wind screams down the canyons, breaking branches, sucking the moisture out of the vegetation; and even tipping over the occasional cyclist or high profile vehicle.

Squid season has extended far into autumn this year. The ghostly lights used to attract market squid into the nets have been a constant presence off the coast of Malibu. The fishery only closes in the fall when it meets the 118,000 short ton limit. According to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, as of November 26, 2014, total landings of market squid are 114,649.3 st. The squid fleet's continued presence off the coast at County Line was lucky for a group of kayakers swept out to sea by the Santa Anas. Two of the six were rescued by the fishers.

On Sunday in western Malibu, where the Santa Ana winds can rip down the canyons at more than 60 mph, six kayakers were swept out to sea. News reports stated that the squid fishers, anchored off Leo Carrillo, were able to rescue two of the kayakers. Lifeguards and Ventura and Los Angeles County emergency crews used jet skis and air support to reach the other four. The Malibu Times reports that the rescue effort involved 28 emergency responders.

Four stand-up paddleboarders were swept away the same day, this time near Surfrider Beach, according to the same article. Fortunately, there were no serious injuries in either incident.

The Santa Ana Winds can make the sea look deceptively smooth and calm.

Frederick Hastings Rindge, who purchased the entire Malibu Rancho in 1892, expressed an oddly optimistic view of the devil winds in his poetic collection of essays Happy Days in Southern California:

"At this season begin to blow the Santa Annas [sic], the fierce autumn wind storms, — dreaded, to be sure, but zephyrs, compared with cyclones. Three days they blow, and often precede a rain. They are a blessing in disguise, for beside their sanitary, microbe-dispelling effects, they also drive the dormant seeds hither and thither, to distribute them equally on the surface of the land. This task accomplished, down pour the early rains and up come, as by magic, the living green grasses out from the browned hills and fields..."

A gaggle of cormorants are blown across the sky at sunset. These birds are powerful fliers, divers and swimmers, but they are no match for the wind.

Joan Didion, also a Malibu resident for a time, takes a more fatalistic view of the wind in Slouching to Bethlehem:

“The violence and the unpredictability of the Santa Ana affect the entire quality of life in Los Angeles, accentuate its impermanence, its unreliability. The wind shows us how close to the edge we are."

Raymond Chandler paints yet another picture of the winds in his short story Red Wind:

“There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.”

It isn’t all bad. When the winds drop we are left with the illusion of summer: bright sun and vivid blue sky and sea. Unexpected vistas are revealed: the Los Angeles skyline emerges from the haze and smog; the Channel Islands appear like the lost lands of legend out to sea. At night, the Point Fermin lighthouse flashes in the darkness, while Orion, his faithful hound at his heels, strides across a brilliant field of stars, once the red glow of sunset has faded.

Santa Monica, with Los Angeles beyond, appears like a mirage beyond the sand berm at the Malibu Lagoon. The water impounded in the lagoon is relatively calm, but the ocean in the bay is being whipped into wild whitecaps by the gale-force winds.

The current round of Santa Anas is expected to die down just in time for Thanksgiving Day, leaving warm weather and calm skies. My mom remembers spending one of her first California Thanksgivings at the beach in Malibu on just such a day. For my parents, who both grew up in places with snow and ice from November until March, it seemed like a miracle. More than 50 years later, it still does.

The Channel Islands are revealed by the wind, emerging dreamlike from the fog that usually shrouds them from view.

November 22 marked the first anniversary of The Malibu Post. We've had nearly 13,000 visitors in the past 12 months. I am grateful and thankful to everyone who has taken the time to read these pages, but especially to my family, friends and neighbors. Thank you.

Wherever you are, and wherever you are going this Thanksgiving, dear reader, may the road rise up to meet you, and the wind be always at your back.

Suzanne Guldimann
26 November 2014

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Stormy Weather

The sun breaks through the clouds at Zuma Beach, signaling the end of three days of rain. Malibu received much-needed rain and sustained comparatively little damage during the extended deluge. © 2014 S. Guldimann

Rain at last. My mother and I went down to Westward Beach on Thursday at sunset to watch the rain arrive. The sky was pearl gray and tranquil, the ocean calm. Everything was strangely quiet, as if holding its breath.

There's a feeling of community at the beach most evenings. Locals and visitors gather to watch the sunset. People walk dogs, runners run, children try to wheedle another 10 minutes on the beach from parents, surfers gather for a last wave if the surf is good, or to commiserate when it isn't. Sometimes you see old friends. Sometimes the Rock Man is there, burning white sage in an old abalone shell, "calling" the whales and the dolphins. If he's in the mood, he might tell you stories.

There were no whales, no surfers, no storytellers on Thursday, but we met a friend, braving the weather to walk her dogs. We stood together for a while watching the light fade and the fog roll in.

The rain arrived slow and sleepy and first, then fierce and strong, driven by wicked winds. It ended as meekly as it arrived. The deluge turned to drizzle on Sunday afternoon and almost imperceptibly faded away.

The oak titmouse, silent for three days, materialized at the top of the willow tree and sang a triumphant trill. As if that was the signal, birds appeared all over the garden. The crows went back to the difficult task of selecting the right twigs for their nests, and the dog, who is convinced he will melt if he goes out in the rain, was encouraged to venture into the garden.

The tree frogs are singing. Even the secretive California toad is whistling a few tentative notes, like a singer warming up for a solo. It's been a tough year for Malibu's amphibian population, but three days of almost non-stop rain appears to have done wonders.

This tiny Baja California tree frog—formerly known as a the Pacific tree frog, but now dignified with the name Pseudacris hypochondriaca hypochondriaca—has a mighty song. This one has taken up residence in a backyard rain barrel, and fills the garden with his distinctive voice. Greatly emboldened by the wet weather, he's been out during the day, singing in the rain with all the enthusiasm of Gene Kelly. You don't need to live in tree frog country to be familiar with the sound. It's a ubiquitous part of old movie soundtracks, used by foley artists to evoke the ambience of summer nights, steamy swamps, tropical jungles,and picturesque bayous, even when Pacific tree frogs have no business in any of those settings. © 2014 S. Guldimann

It's easy to mistake the California toad's melodic peeping for the call of a small bird. This is Bufo boreas halophilus. The California Herps website (one of the best places on the Internet for all kinds of information on local reptiles and amphibians) says that this species is diurnal and nocturnal, but while I've heard toads calling during the day, I've only ever seen them at night, even during wet weather when they are more active. You can hear their song here. © 2014 S. Guldimann

Not everything that emerges in the garden after the rain is welcome. Here's a newly-hatched specimen of that monstrous, unstoppable alien invader known as the common garden snail, looking remarkably dainty and delicate as it wreaks havoc on the flowers. I don't mind. Not today. © 2014 S. Guldimann

Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head

With silver liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
The rain makes still pools in the sidewalk.
The rain makes running pools in the gutter.
The rain plays a little sleep-song

on our roof at night—
And I love the rain.

— Langston Hughes

About This Blog

The photo at the top of the page shows the gate posts of the eastern entrance to Rancho Topanga Malibu Sequit, circa. 1900. Malibu was still an outpost of the wild west in those days, a 27-mile expanse of unspoiled, unoccupied, undiscovered country. It isn't any of those things any more, but it's still beautiful and surprising.

In this blog I'll explore some of the everyday and extraordinary aspects of life in Malibu, a place that Frederick Hastings Rindge, the last man to own the entire Malibu Rancho, described as "very near terrestrial paradise." Please join me on the journey.

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