Despite the expectations of friends, I have little to say this week about the national election. I’m, of course, glad the predicted “red wave” never materialized and that Republican candidates who called the last presidential election “rigged” mostly lost. Now that Donald Trump has said he’ll be running for president again in 2024, I’m sure there will be plenty of malarky to write about in future postings, so I’ll wait and write about other beasts this week.
An old man, wrote Leo Tolstoy in War and Peace, used to say a nap “after dinner was silver — before dinner, golden.”
A cornucopia (i.e. horn of plenty) in the living room of Mitchell cabin symbolizes the harvest season and dinners to come.
A cottontail rabbit enjoys a golden nap after showing up in the field outside our bedroom window.
Outside our kitchen window, a sleepy blacktail buck enjoys a silver nap as well as a golden nap before resuming his grazing.
Later outside our living room window, a raccoon lay deep in a silver nap.
Most days I get a caffeine hit in the late morning at Toby’s Coffee Bar in Point Reyes Station. It’s a convivial place with good pastries as well as good tea and coffee. I was sitting at a picnic table inside the barn a week ago when an older gentleman came up to me and asked if I was “Dave Mitchell’s father.” Unsure whether he was joking or serious, I replied, “I’m Dave Mitchell himself.” In either case, I took his comment as reflecting how much older I look these days. My hair’s gray, I’m stoop shouldered, and I often shuffle when I walk. Old age is a bitch.
On another day last week, I was again seated inside the barn when I heard a loud crash. Assuming two vehicles had collided on the main street out front, I went outside to look. Instead I found that a balcony on the front of the building had partially collapsed. A forklift raised too high had slammed into a lateral beam.
A different older gentleman had been sitting on the deck under the balcony, and he too had heard the crash but didn’t realize at first that the balcony overhead might come down on him. He wasn’t upset, but since then he’s taken to sitting inside the barn.
With the deck encircled by a yellow warning ribbon, the feed store moved its flower display indoors too. Here Danny Holderman enjoys having lush bouquets beside his table.
Toby’s might as well be a community center so much goes on there. Beside the store and the coffee bar, a farmers’ market is held in the parking lot every Saturday each summer. Behind the store, art exhibitions are frequent, such as the current Marvelous Marin Landscape Show, featuring works by 14 artists.
As for events closer to Mitchell cabin, more rabbits than usual are around this summer. This jack rabbit, which is technically a hare, not a rabbit, frequently hops close to the cabin but never comes in.
Also seen around the house in early summer are baby cottontails, which are true rabbits.
Buoying Ukraine: West Marin residents’ opinion of Russia has fallen pretty low since its invasion of Ukraine. In a show of support, the blue and gold Ukrainian flags are being flown at the Peace Garden next to Toby’s, along Highway 1, and elsewhere around town.
As it happens, crab-pot buoys periodically break their harnesses and wash ashore in the National Seashore where I’ve found several. A couple of them have Ukraine’s colors, so a blue-and-yellow buoy now adorns our garden.
