Farewell to my beautiful, brilliant, and courageous mom.

There's an odd kind of relief in missing the two-year anniversary of the Woolsey Fire, which reached Malibu on November 9. Our state has had hundreds of wildfires since then, each seemingly worse than the ones before, human and wildlife communities devastated, living with the consequences for decades.

I'm sorry if you've seen this one before but he's so pretty, it's worth the repeat.

Throwback Thursday: Parrot on the Pepperdine lawn on December 14, 2015.

A yawn so big it knocked her over. Also, puppy belly.

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It's all about the angle of the light.

I love these autumn colors, too.

I love these autumn colors.

It rained:

Then this happened:

And a dance party got started in Bluffs Park:

We'll get occasional shreds of fog these days, and if we're lucky, smallish swathes, but the kind of fog that covers the ocean and muffles sound, grounds the birds and drifts high up into the hills, that doesn't really happen any more.

Throwback Thursday: Fog in western Malibu on November 4, 2009

You know who has no idea that the electoral college is an antiquated, divisive, and fundamentally anti-democratic institution? Sleepy puppies! (A reminder that videos on the site are taking a long, long time to load.)

First, the good things that happened on our walk in Solstice Canyon this morning, starting with the fact we actually found parking. Then there were the bird sightings, three types of hawks, a flock of chatty parrots, and best of all, a covey of California quail. At least a dozen of the sweet and goofy ground-dwelling birds, all but wiped out in the Woolsey fire two Novembers ago, right there on the trail. The wish to watch overcame the urge to photograph, and it was a few moments of life being wonderful. The quail soon got spooked by some hikers, but even then you could hear the whir of their wings, their retreat through the brush, and their catalog of calls, greetings and warnings and explanations.

And now the hard part. If you're a Solstice regular you may know this oak, a giant where a path splits away from the road. Shade in summer, shelter in rain, so tall your sense of time shifts from seconds to centuries. And now gone. Too many fires, too many drought years, and then last week those crazy winds, which had the final say.