In the words of the poet Ezra Pound (1885-1972), “Winter is icumen in,/ Lhude sing Goddamm,/ Raineth drop and staineth slop,/  And how the wind doth ramm!/ Sing: Goddamm.”

In Inverness, 2.5 inches raineth Tuesday night with the wind ramming hard. On Laurel Avenue in Inverness Park, the wind blew down a tree that crushed contractor David Cordrey’s work van (seen here). In the San Geronimo Valley, winds gusted to 73 mph in Woodacre and 72 mph in Lagunitas. A travel-trailer occupant in Lagunitas, Jay Cimo, was knocked unconscious and suffered a brain injury when the wind toppled a tree onto the trailer.

In Inverness, a falling tree also destroyed a footbridge beside Inverness Way. The wind gusted to 59 mph in Inverness. The gusts brought down power lines in both Inverness and Bolinas.

Before the storm, a family of raccoons showed up on the deck at Mitchell cabin, so I gave them handfuls of kibble.

This, in turn, brought in a fox who dined alongside the raccoons.

The local fox is fun to look at, but he has a bad habit of marking his territory by peeing on our morning San Francisco Chronicle, which thankfully comes in a plastic bag. Obviously removing the newspaper from the bag must be done with care. Equally unsettling, the fox has taken to pooping on our deck at night. Better on the deck than the newspaper, for I certainly wouldn’t want to deal with sh*tty-fox news morning after morning.

Other members of the dog family (Canidae) are coyotes such as this one walking up to a patch of coyote brush near Mitchell cabin. We hear them most nights but see them only occasionally. What we are starting to see more often is coyote scat in the field below the cabin.

I’m certainly glad it’s in the grass and not on our deck or newspaper.

Worried that high winds could topple two dead pines along our driveway, I recently hired Nick Whitney and his Pacific Slope crew to cut them down and buck them up for firewood. Our neighbors Skip and Renée Shannon followed suit by having yet another neighbor, George Grim Jr., cut a tree, buck, and split it. Grim also split the trees I had cut down. With the Shannons contributing their tree (piled above), Lynn and I are accumulating quite a firewood collection, including three smaller stacks.

For the most part we use a woodstove to heat the cabin, so the bonanza of logs is most welcome.

Enjoying the warmth, Lynn sits by the fire with Newy, the stray cat we took in last year.

President Joe Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, walking up to the White House, their new home, after his inauguration.

Judging from what a number of West Marin residents told me afterward, the inaugural ceremony for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris earlier today cheered us not only politically but also musically. Before today, I could not have imagined singer-actress Lady Gaga, country-and-western singer Garth Brooks, and singer-actress Jennifer Lopez performing at such a formal event.

And I certainly couldn’t have imagined President Biden singing public notices, as per a CNN written report on climate crisis: “Biden will rejoin the Paris Agreement, singing a notice that will be sent to the United Nations later today.” I watched the day’s events but missed Biden’s operatic diplomacy.

As part of the ceremony, Amanda Gorman, 22, of Los Angeles, the youth poet laureate of the United States, read her poetry eloquently despite, like Biden, having needed to overcome a speech impediment. The New York Times called her presentation a “miracle.”

Kamala Harris being sworn in as Vice President of the United States. She is the first woman, the first Black person, and the first South Asian to hold the position.

Before the inaugural ceremony, Donald Trump left Washington, DC, in disgrace to spend some time at his Florida golf resort. However, because of a zoning agreement Trump previously signed, the City of Palm Beach is not yet not certain he can legally live permanently at the resort. (For that story, click here:  Mar-A-Lago.)

Trump’s refusal to acknowledge Biden won the presidential vote has been disgraceful. Hoping to block the electoral college’s Senate vote to confirm the popular vote, he stirred up a mob (above) that a fortnight ago rioted in the Capitol. Trump supporters did major damage to, and stole property from, congressional headquarters. Five people died. Nor was that the last of the problem. Following today’s inaugural ceremonies, another crowd of violent protesters broke into and vandalized Democratic Party headquarters in Portland, leading to eight arrests with more expected. In Seattle, there was widespread vandalism downtown, and one woman was arrested on assault charges.

Most people, including some of Trump’s backers in high places, have become outraged. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who had been a sycophantic supporter of the President, has now accused him of feeding “lies” to the rioters, saying, “They were provoked by the President and other powerful people.”

House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi has initiated an impeachment case against Trump that will be decided in the Senate. TV (seen above) printed her words as she spoke.

The mere fact that Biden is a decent person and experienced means a better day for America and the world has arrived.

Perhaps it’s just the newspaperman in me, but over the years I’ve collected numerous front pages reporting historic events. How events were covered as they unfolded often determines how they are remembered.

No other front page ever brought so much joy to my family as this San Francisco Chronicle on Aug. 15, 1945, shortly before my second birthday.

The Berlin Wall is breeched.

“The fall of the Berlin Wall,” Nov. 9, 1989, was a pivotal event in world history which marked the falling of the Iron Curtain and the start of the fall of communism in Eastern and Central Europe,” to quote Wikipedia. “The fall of the inner German border took place shortly afterwards. An end to the Cold War was declared at the Malta Summit three weeks later, and the reunification of Germany took place in October the following year.”

It’s now mostly forgotten, but before the fall of the Berlin Wall, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher told Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev that neither the United Kingdom nor Western Europe wanted the reunification of Germany. She said they feared a revival of German imperialism, but the argument didn’t hold.

A new day in America.

Despite pockets of racism, the United States elected Barack Obama its first Black president in 2008 and reelected him in 2012.

Officers with guns drawn confront protesters breaking into the House chamber.

But now we have an insurrection with a pro-Trump mob breaking into the US capital building on Wednesday in an attempt to stop the Electoral College from confirming Joe Biden as our president-elect. Five people were killed, windows were broken, doors were smashed, vandals damaged the building’s interior.

The FBI is investigating, and it seems that the Trump crowd may be planning additional riots in each state on or around Jan. 20, when Biden will be inaugurated as our new president.

The violence has shocked the Western world but was gleefully reported in Russian and Chinese news media.

______________________________

Rather than end with news as dreadful as the pro-Trump insurrection, I’ll take a jump back to earlier times when deeds counted more than lies.

Henry Morton Stanley on the cover of Allgemeine Illustrite Zeitung, 1877.

“On March 21, 1871, Henry Morton Stanley set out from the African port of Bagamoyo on what he hoped would be a career-making adventure. The 30-year-old journalist had arrived on the Dark Continent at the behest of the New York Herald newspaper,” the website History relates. “He had been placed in charge of a grand expedition to find the explorer David Livingstone, who had vanished in the heart of Africa several years earlier.

“Dr. Livingstone was the most renowned of all the explorers of Africa. Among other exploits, the Scottish missionary and abolitionist had survived a lion attack, charted the Zambezi River and walked from one side of the continent to the other. In 1866, he had embarked on what was supposed to be his last and greatest expedition: a quest to locate the fabled source of the Nile River.

“The mission was supposed to last two years, yet by 1871, nearly six years had passed with only a few scattered updates on Livingstone’s whereabouts. Many Europeans had given him up for dead.

“Stanley knew that Livingstone had last been spotted in the vicinity of Lake Tanganyika, but reaching the area proved to be a monumental task. Between March and October of 1871, the New York Herald expedition endured repeated setbacks as it trudged though endless miles of swampland and jungle. Crocodiles and swarming tsetse flies killed their pack animals, and dozens of porters abandoned the caravan or died from illnesses. By the time they arrived at Ujiji, a remote village in what is now Tanzania, they had crossed more than 700 miles of territory.

“On Nov. 10, 1871, after hearing rumors of a white man living in Ujiji, Stanley donned his finest set of clothes and entered the town with a small band of followers. As crowds of locals gathered around them, Stanley spied a sickly-looking European with an unruly beard and white hair.

“Sensing that he had found his man, he approached, extended his hand, and asked a now-famous question: ‘Dr. Livingstone, I presume?’ When the stranger answered in the affirmative, Stanley let out a sigh of relief. ‘I thank God, doctor, I have been permitted to see you,’ he said.

“After being resupplied by Stanley, [Livingston] parted ways with his rescuers in March 1872 and made his way south to Lake Bangweulu in modern day Zambia. His illnesses later caught up with him, however, and he died from malaria and dysentery on May 1, 1873.”

A Pacific tree frog after I rescued it from my hot tub.

When I opened the lid of my hot tub one day four years ago to check the amount of chlorine and other chemicals in the water, a tree frog that had been hiding between the lid and the top of the tub took a flying leap into the caldron.

At 104 degrees, the water is hot enough to quickly kill a frog. I’ve seen it happen. This time, however, I had a sieve with me and was able to scoop the frog out in time to save it.

A Pacific tree frog climbs a bamboo shoot growing near the hot tub. Lynn and I are fond of the little guys even though frogs aren’t exactly people.  But as the Greek philosopher Bion (c. 325 to c. 255 BC) observed: “Though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, the frogs do not die in sport, but in earnest.”

Tree frogs change their colors as they move between dry and damp places. This frog is sitting on a dry persimmon leaf on the deck beside the hot tub.

When I lifted the lid off the hot tub, I found these two fellows squeezed under it. Notice that they are starting to change colors.

Tree frogs hanging out around a hot tub and the people soaking in it can occasionally create unlikely juxtapositions. Twice in years past, lady friends obliged this photographer by posing with frogs that showed up dazed from immersion in the hot water.

The U.S. Postal Service also recognizes how alluring frogs can be and featured four varieties on its “forever stamps” a year ago. I wish I’d bought more.