This little ChrisCraft, with its old-school wood and zippy silhouette, sits patiently in a nearby canyon. The sun can't quite reach it, but on cool nights when the fog rolls in, it gleams (and dreams?) beneath a coat of briny droplets.

Time was, rain this late would have been odd. But if you've been paying attention over recent years, our stormy season has moved into March and even April. Am I alone in looking forward to another storm, or even two?

Remember this, the balance in a neighbor's checking account?

Well on Saturday, I received this, a dividend check from Southwest Airlines:

From the ridiculous to the sublime, though which is which is up for grabs.

It's so absurdly lovely here that really, I'm not so much a photographer as a stenographer. Merely reporting the seascape verbatim.

And in case you were wondering, traffic here today is impossible.

I love these two neon signs, fronting tiny businesses on 4th street in Santa Monica.

Amy and I recently drove to the top of Corral Canyon, to where the paved road ends and the dirt track known as the Castro Motorway begins. The light up there is different. The colors aren't the same. The scents and sounds and wildlife all let you know you've left the flatlands behind.

Though ours was one of maybe a dozen cars parked in the dry and dusty lot, the whole time we hiked, we never saw another human.

And if you're in the market for a great blog to read, Amy writes LA Explored, a look at LA and beyond.

Despite what the rhymesters say about June and gloom or May and gray, the clouds and fog and mist and marine layers that equal springtime here in SoCal actually start much sooner. Like yesterday. And today. And maybe tomorrow.

All the more reason to resurrect my obsession fascination with the silken, saturated orange of the lowly nasturtium blossom:

Ahhh, better now.

And check it out -- craft beer labels as the new orange crate art.

It's a reflex -- see a hawk, grab the camera. This guy is one of a pair of hawks who have chosen this eucalyptus as the spot to await the sunrise.

Yes, the camera settings were still scrambled here, and while this isn't quite how the wisteria in the courtyard of the 1928 house we were touring looked, it's exactly how it felt, deeply purple and somehow hopeful with a persistent undertone of "Dude, what on earth are you doing indoors?"

Excellent question.

I was messing around with the settings on my little Canon point-and-shoot and, as almost always happens when I do that, forgot. So this is a photo of today's sunrise, but it really didn't look like this at all.

Today's the vernal equinox, the first day of spring! Here in Malibu we're treated to that annual rite by which local kids, giddy with spring fever hormones, write stuff on a wall:

...and local dads promptly erase it:

It was unnerving, really, driving near this particular horse trailer, whose occupant reached as far out as his long, long neck would allow to grin and whinny and nibble at passing cars.

A little color, a little texture, a splash of sunlight and look -- it's spring.

Ah, orange blossoms, all prim and virginal when the buds are shut tight. But when those petals part, when the plump and sticky, frilly and feathery bits of pistil and stamen spill out, a siren's song to pollinating bees everywhere, well those orange blossoms look just the teensiest bit slutty.

This car's plenty cute enough just being so shiny and red and retro-looking. Check behind the rear wheels, though, and you'll see propellers. As in a boat. As in you can drive this car to the water's edge and then in and then keep going.

Oh the things we see on PCH on a is-it-spring-yet afternoon.

Can you tell that's a squirrel at the very top of that tree? He's been there the last few weeks, gently swaying in the canyon breeze.

Drives the dogs nuts. Makes me laugh out loud.

To take the edge off the fact we're back to that beknighted idea, daylight savings time, the semi-annual rite by which we lose complete touch with the true solar cycle of light and dark, here's Maisie the Teacup Lab®.

Happy:

Happy:

Still happy:

And thanks to B. J. White for the semi-annual correction on daylight saving (correct) versus savings (hey, English is my third language) time.

This is just one of the many signs at the Point Dume Nature Preserve, the fragile sweep of land that forms the northern tip of the Santa Monica Bay:

And here's what too many careless and clueless visitors do -- ignore the signs to hike and climb and dig and collect and incrementally destroy the landforms and plant life in this amazing, irreplaceable place.

We're walking along the bluffs, the dogs and I, in a meditative state, which for the dogs means ball!coyotepoop!ball!deadgopher! I, meanwhile, have taken leave of my senses entirely because I get a glimpse of this tall creature standing in the brush and my mind goes, huh, a baby giraffe. (I know, right?)

It's a heron, of course, just standing there, and then suddenly flying, passing right by us, the wing beats a tenor thud you feel more than you hear, and it's all so graceful and unexpected it takes the dogs a full ten seconds to patrol the area and see whether heron poop makes the Top Ten list.

I've been coming here ever since I was a little kid and still, this stretch of coastal bluff in Malibu takes my breath away.

There are days when what you need most is blue, blue, and ever more blue.

After a winter of rain the mountains here are lush and green, every open space a sweet-smelling meadow.

All of which means Maisie the Teacup Lab®, not the tallest dog you've ever met, goes for a run and vanishes for long stretches of time.

Well, it's really the view from way up there, the top of Corral Canyon, reached on what's jokingly referred to as a road but is really little more than a series of hair-pin turns, each a taunt or a dare as it thrusts you out and over (well, looking over, anyway, and once you look, lord it feels like you're falling) the precipice.

And when you get there, this is the view.

Get the message?

Every year I plant a garden up at the barn:

Which, despite soil so full of clay you can actually make pottery out of it, does pretty well:

See?

And since I love the parrots who live in the canyon, I always leave some sunflowers for them to eat:

And because Mother Nature turns out to be a toddler who can't pass up a good poop joke, the parrots perch in a tree across the road and, um, recycle those seeds:

I love that this pelican looks like he's walking on water, which I imagine, for the briefest of instants each time he lands, he actually does.

There's that thing happening when the TV weather person says stuff like low pressure and jet stream and moisture and is my eyeliner on straight?, all the time gesturing vaguely at a map s/he can't actually see, which means there's more rain on the way.

And to all of you lovely Canadians who have somehow found this blog, congratulations on a thrilling conclusion to the Winter Games.

Another sign of spring is this little gopher, tunneling near my garden up at the barn, flinging dirt with joyful abandon while flipping Maisie the bird.