Your unreliable blogger hangs her head in shame at letting so much time elapse (again) since the last post. There is no excuse, really, beyond inertia. Some of the other Things I Have Not Done:

* Replaced and repotted plants displaced by the mudslide
* Replaced and repaired the outdoor twinkle lights destroyed by the mudslide
* Uploaded the photos languishing in my phone and camera
* Wrestled with blog platforms in search of a new home
* Rescued the growing pile of toys I know the puppy is hiding under the bed

Meanwhile, here's Teddy, who goes all round and squishy when she sleeps.

Throwback Thursday: Paradise Cove on Jan. 27, 2013

Not many storms made it to our part of the coast this winter, but the rain that did arrive came hard and fast. That wasn't good news for Casa de LOUD!, which dates back to the early 1950s. It's a classic little beach bungalow that sits on land carved from the bluff. Not a lot of safety ordinances back then.

The building site certainly wouldn't pass plan check as it is today. So while the first few days of rain are pretty much OK, anything more than that soaks the hillside and, just like in the news, landslide. Or rather, mudslide, literally tons of it, right into the back courtyard.

Here's the courtyard before the slide:

And here it is after:

We heard it happen in the night, a series of wet thumps that shook the house a little bit. It took a crew of six burly guys with shovels, a bobcat, and two huge dumps trucks to dig out and cart the mud -- and the buried plants -- away. The good news is that the Christmas tree survived. So did a few of the larger potted plants that got pushed rather than buried. In recovery mode now, building up a new collection of potted plants. Photos, as usual, to come.

I never realized, until watching this video, that egrets do a quick arabesque with each step as they wade through the water.

A search of my flickr account for photos labeled 'cove' got 646 results. This one was shot on Aug. 19, 2008.

Hard to say who was more surprised, the hawk or your intrepid photographer.

The little Labrador will wait when you fall behind on a hike, but her ears let you know how she really feels.

After two quiet and empty pandemic years, the annual winter solstice dinner was a profound joy.

I've been scrolling through photos shot and not posted during the eek-it's-a-haunted-house hiatus on this blog. Here's early evening in early December, that time of the year the light starts to say that yes, it's really almost winter.