Yard Art

I would call this a "bonus day". The weather report was for cloudy sky turning to rain tonight, but we've had another sunny day with just a few puffy white clouds in the sky. We will be getting up in the dark for another ten days or so until we go back to standard time. Then it will be getting dark by 5:30 pm. I'd rather get up in the dark. Better yet, why don't we just skip all this changing back and forth and just leave things to nature?

A visit to the Physical Therapist (Brian) produced a diagnosis of soft tissue damage due to the fact that I walk with my knee turned in. They have a name for this, but I've already forgotten it. Apparently enough things got better since I saw him last week so that he could rule out a torn meniscus.

On the way to have lunch with my friend the healer, I stopped by a house with a yard full of sculptures made entirely from items found at the waterfront. The elephant is made from marine rope. His non-natural elephant coloring is due to the natural color of the rope. Well, probably that's not natural either, but it's the color it was when he found it. I also liked the large tree decorated with dozens of hanging hard hats and the polite sign asking people to enjoy the art but not to touch it or walk on the property without permission. Like most Berkeley homes, the yard is very small.

I usually hike with my friend the healer, but since I am temporarily grounded we had lunch in her beautiful, large back garden. It has, among other attractions, a large koi pond with a number of fish in it. When the pond was new raccoons and herons were both common predators of the fish. My friend's husband, a fine furniture maker, solved the problem by inventing what they refer to as a "waterwall, a motion detector hooked up to a water source and hidden in a beautifully carved wooden housing. Whenever something moves in front of it a wall of water shoots out, effectively encouraging predators to to move on without harming the fish.

The fish were less lucky one year when the pond was struck by lightning. Most of them seemed unaffected, but one was apparently struck At first it appeared to be dead, but it just stayed at the bottom of the pond for almost a year. When it finally came to the surface again it had a distinctly curved spine, which probably did shorten its life, but it lived another year or so before succumbing.

Today we just left the fish to their own devices and relaxed on chaise lounges and got caught up over lunch.

There are still construction projects on streets all over town, but most of them seem to be the tail end of the projects that have been snarling traffic all summer.

I dropped by the bank for some cash, but they were out of money...Go figure.