It's Puppy Wednesday! and it's also Walter's birthday. He's 5 years old, which is hard to believe. He's now the same age as one of the boys next door and all of the little kids here find that to be thrilling.

The boys have done some birthday shopping and also a bit of gift wrapping and they're having a party for Walt after school. Although he's definitely enjoying all of the extra hugs and pats on the head, the handsome border collie has no clue what's going on.

Meanwhile, here are Walt and Daisy on their morning walk yesterday. This was a non-stop activity throughout the entire hike and as you can see by the drop in intensity between the first and second video (and the shift from racing to wrestling) they wore themselves out.

And finally, here's baby Walt, carefully considering which bit of mischief he should get into first.

A few raindrops fell last night, just enough to dampen the grass and wet the dogs' feet but that's all. Today we've got high-flying clouds and no hint of a storm, the opening days of Year Two of what's turning out to be one of the driest (and hottest) periods ever in SoCal.

It's probably my own schedule and radius these days that has cut down on the raptor sightings, but whatever the reason it was thrilling to see this red-shouldered hawk in Bluffs Park. (And all the more reason that the Malibu City Council's lust to turn this last remaining bit of undeveloped bluffs in Malibu into soccer fields is a short-sighted, dunderheaded, catastrophic boondoggle.)

(imho.)

This time it was an adult black-crowned night heron doing a bit of basking...

...and a juvenile flying away.

I miss you so much, dear friend.

That about sums it up on a quiet afternoon walk.

The egrets are usually in the water and hard at work by the time our morning walk takes us past their bit of habitat in Legacy Park. These last few days, though, with a seasonal chill finally here (and everyone wearing winter coats with their flip-flops because brrrr, it's 45 degrees!) instead of fishing and wading there's a lot more sunbathing.

Daisy knows she's a spring.

Chilly and clear with winter-blue water on the drive north.

Just didn't want another day without posting to go by.

That's Patsy in one of her favorite spots at the Latigo Shore cottage a few years ago, one of my least-favorite (loud, lead-footed bully upstairs) homes in Malibu.

Oil wells in Venice in the 1930s

California is already mobilizing against the Trump cartel's fever dream of oil drilling on the California coast.

From CNBC:

California has released its battle plan in a brewing war between the White House and coastal states opposed to the Trump administration's expansive offshore drilling ambitions.

The state's powerful land commission said on Wednesday it will refuse to issue permits for infrastructure that drillers need to bring oil and gas from offshore fields to land. Meanwhile, the California Coastal Commission, which has authority to review oil and gas activity off the state's shores, also formally opposed Trump's plan to allow new drilling in Pacific waters.

The hope is this strategy can become a template for use by the governors and congressional delegations of the other coastal states that think new drilling is a terrible idea.

When there's no real weather for months and months on end, we make do with another climatic event that has become vanishingly rare -- fog.

OK, so technically it's not in the Bu plate genre, but it's very Malibu nonetheless.

Because seriously, what a face.

There's a spot on the Pepperdine campus where the angled lawn meets the sweep of the horizon and every minute, as the light shifts, there's a new Rothko.

Morning hikes in Solstice Canyon require constant coyote radar.

Malibu's iconic beach is the first time surfing history has made it to the Register.

From the Santa Monica Mirror:

The 160-acre Malibu Historic District is entirely composed of public property and includes: the First Point, Second Point, and Third Point surf breaks, the Malibu Pier, and portions of both Surfrider and Malibu Lagoon State Beaches. The immediate area of eastern Malibu now has three periods of California's cultural history represented in the National Register: the Chumash Humaliwo village site; Stiles O. Clements' Adamson House; and now the Malibu Historic District.

The Malibu Historic District listing establishes a new pathway for coastal conservation -- complimenting established protection models based on natural habitats or important species with those based on historical and cultural significance. The listing is site-specific and secures protections in state and federal coastal project planning explicitly from the point of view of the area's significance, in this case surfing. The listing serves as a qualifying step for additional state protections based on historical significance.

From the Malibu Times:

This is the city's third listing; previous two listings in the register include one for the Chumash Humaliwo village and another for the Malibu Adamson House.

Nonprofit organization Sea of Clouds, which is dedicated to "recognizing and protecting America's special coastal places," first pushed for the nomination in 2015, and secured letter of support from City Council through a unanimous, 4-0 vote at an April 2016 meeting.

A dedication ceremony will take place sometime this summer.

It's been a long time since the fog swept in like this, thick and fast and no-nonsense, erasing the horizon, obscuring landmarks, blocking the sun.

We have now had exactly one storm in the last 12 months. One. And lately it's been 80 degrees at the coast. In February.

I'll never get tired of the wild parrots here, whether it's one or two of them meeting your gaze from a branch just few feet above, or the full flock screaming (and I mean that literally, the sound they make is like the rending of sheet metal) across the sunset sky.

Well that week flew right by.

I could have posted, should have posted really, but it would have been fevered images of a weird world courtesy of someone taken down by the vicious, horrible relentless crud that's going around.

So here's the re-set, blue on blue, coming to you from our dry, so dry, when-will-it-ever-rain-again? stretch of coastline.