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Silverfish are one of the oldest insects and may predate the dinosaurs by 100 million years. By now they’ve evolved into household pests that eat documents, photos, and clothes. So while I’m usually displeased at seeing a spider in the shower stall, I forgave this one because of his taste for silverfish.

Another encounter at home. A dove left its image when it crashed into the living-room window last week. Although initially dazed, the bird eventually few off.

A red-tailed hawk perches at sunset downhill from Mitchell cabin.

Waiting for the music at the No Name Bar in Sausalito a fortnight ago. Sitting from the left next to me are Friday night regulars Vivian and Ray, my wife Lynn, Paul Leclerc, and in recent weeks Billy Hobbs.

Sitting by the fire. Billy had been homeless for five years and was sleeping outdoors in Point Reyes Station when the rain and cold winds hit two months ago, so Lynn and I offered to let him wait out the bad weather in Mitchell cabin. Once he did, Billy was able to resume showering and getting his clothes cleaned regularly. Add to that a haircut and a beard trim, and he had dramatically cleaned up his act.

Resting indoors by our woodstove. Being warm, clean, and well fed led to quite a metamorphosis for Billy, as regular readers of this blog know. Now his story has been read worldwide.

This week, his story reached journalists around the globe, not only throughout the United States and Canada but as far away as Ireland and Nepal, when the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors (ISWNE) republished my Dec. 10 posting. In short, Billy has now become an internationally known artist.

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No more comments for now. This posting was slightly delayed by an avalanche of scam comments that began showing up on past postings, and it took a fair amount of time to delete them all. Among the hundreds of comments were ads for sex toys, “free” porn, NFL t-shirts, swimsuits, dating sites, and food. Some of the scam comments came from Thailand, China, Korea, Japan, and Indonesia, occasionally with words written in non-English script. Most probably were attempts to hack this blog. As a result, I’ve had all additional comments temporarily blocked.

More than once I’ve commented on wild turkeys intermingling with deer around Mitchell cabin.

Judging from this pair of Siamese twins, that intermingling has progressed to interbreeding.

Santa and Mrs. Claus find they have each other’s sacks.

Also delaying this posting was a false alarm from an eye doctor who thought I might be at risk for a stroke. After days of scans and blood testing, an MRI and visits to different doctors, it turned out that I’m not at risk although my wallet is a bit lighter.

KWMR is the radio station I most often listen to, but of recent I’ve started to also listen to a Sonoma County station, KHITS (104.9 FM). It’s all pop music from the 70s, 80s, and 90s presented with mirth, such as this oft-repeated exchange between two men. “Surely you can’t be serious,” says one of them. “I am serious!” the other man growls, “and don’t call me Shirley!”

Something is definitely wrong with the US Postal Service. For a month, just when people have been trying to send out Christmas cards, the Point Reyes Station postoffice has been out of stamps and unable to get a new supply. Couldn’t district headquarters just mail a bunch?

Equally hard to believe: the friendly face of Point Reyes Station’s postoffice, the clerk Brian Stage, departed Saturday for a new postal job in San Bernardino where he has a good friend and housing is cheaper. During the roughly two years Brian worked in Point Reyes Station, he was homeless and living out of his car. The next time someone speculates about the causes of homelessness, you might point out that one of them can be working for the US Postal Service.

Caveat lectorem: When readers submit comments, they are asked if they want to receive an email alert with a link to new postings on this blog. A number of people have said they do. Thank you. The link is created the moment a posting goes online. Readers who find their way here through that link can see an updated version by simply clicking on the headline above the posting.

Billy Hobbs last spring impressed me with this self-portrait that showed his face collapsing in a landslide.

Billy Hobbs first showed up in SparselySageAndTimely.com (click here to read) at the end of May when he wrote a letter to Marin County Supervisor Dennis Rodoni, suggesting ways county government could help its homeless population. Billy, who will turn 62 at the end of this month, grew up in Lucas Valley. He has been homeless for five years following the breakup of his 25-year marriage.

For a year, he has spent his days sitting on a bench near the Point Reyes Station postoffice, drawing in sketchbooks. For awhile, he slept in the postoffice lobby but hasn’t in recent months, instead lying down at night outdoors under an overhang.

When the weather is good, I usually have my morning mocha at Toby’s Coffee Bar, sitting at a picnic table not far from the postoffice, and that juxtaposition led to Billy’s and my getting to know each other.

Billy last May drawing pictures inspired by Native American, Buddhist, and Greek history while sitting next to the Point Reyes Station postoffice.

He may have looked scruffy, but I came to realize that despite his dirty hands and clothes, Billy was worth talking to. Previously, he had lived and worked (primarily as a carpenter) in Montana, Mexico, Novato, Tiburon, Ross, San Anselmo, Fairfax, San Rafael, and San Francisco, which gave him insights into a variety of cultures. Nonetheless, because of his appearance, aggressive men occasionally demanded he leave town, but of course he never did.

Then came the last couple of weeks of cold winds and rain, which made Lynn and me worry about his sleeping outdoors, so we invited him up to Mitchell cabin.

The new Billy.

Staying here not only let Billy sleep warm and dry, it gave him a chance to resume taking regular showers and getting his clothes cleaned. Then Danny at the Point Reyes Barber Shop cut Billy’s hair and trimmed his beard. Voila, suddenly there was a new gentleman in town, and more than one person complimented him on his appearance.

For Lynn and me, watching it all happen has been heartwarming, but it’s also been another demonstration of how appearance alone can determine how people fare in society.

Caveat lectorem: When readers submit comments, they are asked if they want to receive an email alert with a link to new postings on this blog. A number of people have said they do. Thank you. The link is created the moment a posting goes online. Readers who find their way here through that link can see an updated version by simply clicking on the headline above the posting.

Thanksgiving dinner. Lynn (right) and I (left) with Inverness architect Jon Fernandez, his wife Patsy Krebs, and his son Michael enjoying dessert following a bountiful Thanksgiving dinner last Thursday at Vladimir’s Czech Restaurant in Inverness. Beforehand, a couple of friends at different times expressed surprise that we’d choose Czech food on turkey day, but it turned out to be a good decision. In fact, it was the start of a series of social adventures.

The Michael Aragon Quartet

The next day, Jon and Patsy, Lynn and I headed to Sausalito’s No Name Bar where the Michael Aragon Quartet played its last performance after 36 years of Friday night gigs there. Drummer Michael Aragon, the bandleader, is retiring at 75 for health reasons. Sax player Rob Roth has been there with him 25 years, and keyboardist KC Filson has been there for 10 of them. The regular bass player, Pierre Archain, unfortunately was ill and guitarist Rob Fordyce filled in for him.

Michael is known throughout the Bay Area jazz scene, and the bar was packed with admirers who wanted to catch his last show.

Billy Hobbs

Saturday was wet and cold, which made Lynn and me worry about Billy Hobbs, the homeless man often seen sketching outside the Point Reyes Station postoffice. He sleeps outdoors nearby under an overhang, and periodic gusts of wind can blow the rain in a bit.

So we invited Billy to spend the day with us, and Lynn fixed a second Thanksgiving dinner, this time with turkey. With the storm not abating, we urged Billy to bed down here for the night, and he did.

On Sunday, the storm only got worse. When I drove to the bottom of our fairly long driveway in heavy rain to get our morning Chronicle, I found that the wind had dropped a large, dead limb across our driveway. Thankfully, no car was hit. Several pieces had to be moved, and I got a full baptism doing so.

Lynn, who was fighting a cold, put all of our clothes through the wash while much of my energy was spent carrying armloads of firewood up 50 steps to our house. Now that will get you warm. Billy meanwhile spent most of the day sitting by the fire arranging his sketches, which he hopes to make into greeting cards. 

Another get-together: While we stayed warm indoors, two blacktail bucks with no show of rivalry showed up to dine outside. The deer at left has a deformed right rear leg (probably hit by a motor vehicle) but manages to get around fairly well. And so in the end, it appeared that everyone had a reason to be thankful.

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The big fundraiser every year for the Point Reyes and Inverness Disaster Councils is a pancake breakfast at the Point Reyes Station firehouse followed by a raffle. Unfortunately, the blackout two weeks ago forced organizers to call off this year’s breakfast. The food, refrigerated during the outage, was donated to our local food bank at West Marin Community Services.

The raffle was postponed until last Saturday when it was held at the firehouse. Displaying a photo Carlos Porrata of Inverness donated as raffle item are: (from left) my wife Lynn, coordinator of the Point Reyes Disaster Council; Cindy Morris, a neighborhood liaison to the council and a member of the council’s radio-room team; firefighter Ben Ghisletta, senior captain at the firehouse.

Nora Goodfriend Koven of Inverness looks over some of the raffle items, which included gift certificates from various merchants.

Continuing on… It was a pleasant surprise to look up from the dinner table and find I had a gray fox for a dining companion.

Also a surprise but a less welcome one was looking out my living-room window into the eyes of a pair of roof rats, which were nibbling birdseed off a picnic-table bench. Around Mitchell cabin, the roof rats try to nest in everything, and we’re forever finding them in our car engines and in of the wine barrel halves we use as planters. Just this week it cost me $25 to have a large nest cleaned out of my car’s engine compartment and have the rats’ damage to the wiring repaired. I leave the rats in our woodshed alone but trap the ones that get into the basement.

At this time of year, sunset is often accompanied by the honking of flocks of Canada geese heading to Drakes Bay.

Come nightfall raccoons inevitably show up to drink from the birdbath on our deck and snooze atop the railing. As long as there are no blackouts or disasters in Point Reyes Station, life is pleasantly peaceful.

Finally, let’s take a closer look at Russian President Vladimir Putin. Is he really a serious adversary? All he wants is the Ukraine. Click here and see what you think of his rock’n roll offensive. Right off you’ll notice in his audience the French actor Gerard Depardieu (who has taken up Russian citizenship), American comedian Goldie Hawn, and American actor Kevin Costner. 

Caveat lectorem: When readers submit comments, they are asked if they want to receive an email alert with a link to new postings on this blog. A number of people have said they do. Thank you. The link is created the moment a posting goes online. Readers who find their way here through that link can see an updated version by simply clicking on the headline above the posting.

PG&E vs. LSD. Overheard outside the Point Reyes Station post office during the blackout a week ago, one Sonoma County evacuee grimly commenting to another: “Reality is like acid! It’s intense!”

At Mitchell cabin, thankfully, the absurdity was far more gentle. In time, we got used to leaving a candle burning in the bathroom all evening. (For safety, we placed it in a corner of the acrylic shower stall.) We briefly stopped using the woodstove because of a red-flag alert and couldn’t use our large, electric space heater. I therefore had to turn our propane furnace on for the first time in 15 years.

All that, just because of earlier wildfires elsewhere, which the President says are all state government’s fault.

President Trump expressed his contempt for California Gov. Gavin Newsom in a tweet, “Get your act together, Governor.” The President claims that California’s failure to “rake” its forests has been causing its wildfires, and now says he’s going to withhold emergency wildfire aid from the state.

The President holds Russian President Vladimir Putin in higher regard, calling him “smart,” and saying that Putin “has done an amazing job.” So four months ago he offered Russia aid in its battle against wildfires in Siberia. Putin hasn’t yet decided whether the aid is needed. No wonder House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last month observed, “All roads seem to lead to Putin with the President.

Lynn with our cornucopia. The decoration is a harvest-season tradition in Mitchell cabin. Having worked for several days on the Point Reyes Disaster Council’s response to the blackout, she’s now hoping to get some rest and forget about the disaster in Washington.

Caveat lectorem: When readers submit comments, they are asked if they want to receive an email alert with a link to new postings on this blog. A number of people have said they do. Thank you. The link is created the moment a posting goes online. Readers who find their way here through that link can see an updated version by simply clicking on the headline above the posting.

On a normal evening, this is how Mitchell cabin’s sitting area, dining area, and kitchen look. A journalism student once described the scene as a collection of “mismatched furniture.”

But for three evenings this week, here is how it looked as seen from the other end of the room (thanks to an oil lamp and 11 candles) as a result of PG&E’s turning off power to West Marin, along with many other communities. It was a precaution against high winds that might knock down power lines and spark wildfires in this dry weather.

Although most of West Marin was spared unusually high winds, the blackout cost Mitchell cabin not only its lights but also its water pressure. During the blackout, water coming from our faucets was barely more than a trickle. The cabin’s elevation is close to that of the North Marin Water District tanks on Tank Road in Point Reyes Station. As a result, gravity alone doesn’t provide much of a flow in our household water system, so we rely on an electric pressure pump to have strong streams of water in faucets, hoses, and in the shower.

Nor were showers much of an option during the blackout for any townsperson with an electric hot water heater. With the power back, I finally got to take a shower this morning. If the blackout had gone on for too many more days, Point Reyes Station might have developed a stinky population.

As I write at 6 p.m. Wednesday, power is still off in parts of Dillon Beach, Fairfax, Kentfield, Marshall, Mill Valley, Muir Beach, San Anselmo, Sausalito, Stinson Beach, and Tomales, the Marin Sheriff’s Office has reported. Better wear a face mask when you visit folks there.

But even before the blackout began life here was seeming strange. I looked up from my living-room chair a few evenings ago and was startled to see this damsel outside peering in the window.

Once I thought about it, however, the explanation was obvious. I was seeing a reflection from part of a plant holder hanging inside near the window.

Canada geese heading west to Drakes Estero for the night one evening last week. I get to see them most evenings if I listen for their honking around sunset.

Memories of spring: a kestrel on the railing of our deck.

Dealing with the blackout has been tiring, so I’ll stop here and take a snooze. Goodnight. I’ll sleep tight. And I won’t have any bedbugs bite; after all, Mitchell cabin is not a Trump hotel.

Caveat lectorem: When readers submit comments, they are asked if they want to receive an email alert with a link to new postings on this blog. A number of people have said they do. Thank you. The link is created the moment a posting goes online. Readers who find their way here through that link can see an updated version by simply clicking on the headline above the posting.

With a world of chaos emanating from the White House all week, I once again took Thoreau’s advice and looked to nature for solace.

(Photo by Lynn Axelrod Mitchell)

PG&E blacked out the West Marin towns of Bolinas, Stinson Beach, and Muir Beach for three days beginning last Wednesday night, as the troubled utility braced for a heavy windstorm that never materialized here. In the aftermath, a helicopter checked powerlines on Inverness Ridge.

ALSO LAST WEDNESDAY, FOUR RACCOONS AND A SKUNK got together here for dinner. As regular readers know, such get-togethers are becoming commonplace on the deck at Mitchell cabin. 

What’s changing is the number of skunks that show up at one time. On occasion nowadays, we’ll get as many as three on the deck at once.

A black-tailed buck with a deformed right rear leg, which caused him to hobble when he walked. I don’t know how he got injured, but I suspect he was hit by a motor vehicle. (Photo by Lynn Axelrod Mitchell)

The buck repeatedly scratched its head on a pine sapling outside our kitchen door. The scratching bent a few branches, but the tree survived. (Photo by Lynn Axelrod Mitchell)

(Photo by Lynn Axelrod Mitchell)

The bird bath on our deck lures a constant stream of bathers and, especially, drinkers: not only birds but also roof rats and raccoons, foxes and yellow jackets. Yellow jackets? Yes, yellow jackets. They often show up for a drink when the water level is almost up to the rim.

Yesterday when I went to refill the birdbath, I found a yellow jacket struggling in the water. I didn’t know how it fell in, but I cupped the water around it with my hand and flipped it off the deck. As it sailed down to the ground, the yellow jacket no doubt felt greatly relieved to be rescued, but I wondered if he had any idea how his rescue occurred.

As long as one doesn’t get stung, it’s good to have yellow jackets around. They eat flies and fly larvae, along with insects that damage gardens.

A golden-crowned sparrow paused on the deck railing at sunset last Wednesday. Here in Point Reyes Station it had been a mostly peaceful day.

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Gallery Route One’s popular Box Show closed today with a silent auction, drinks, and hors d’oeuvres. A throng of art lovers and curious tourists filled the gallery within an hour after today’s show opened.

A box titled “XXI Century” by Ted Stoeckley, like several boxes in the show, amounted to artistic social-commentary.

“Thinking Outside the Box” by Rich Bolececk and Margaret Boehm.

A visitor studies “Celebrating Their Legacy,” a box by Bruce Burtch.

“Off We Go” by Dennis Ludlow and Prartho Sereno.

“The Bear Valley” by Bernie Schimbke.

“Where Are the Children?” by Suzanne Radcliffe.

More social commentary, “Immigration Policy” by Kieu Lam.

“Sticks and Stones” by Earl Speas.

The annual box show is both an exhibit and a fundraiser for Gallery Route One, and today’s show appeared successful on both fronts. Past Box Shows are archived on GRO’s website.

Caveat lectorem: When readers submit comments, they are asked if they want to receive an email alert with a link to new postings on this blog. A number of people have said they do. Thank you. The link is created the moment a posting goes online. Readers who find their way here through that link can see an updated version by simply clicking on the headline above the posting.

The number of homeless people living in West Marin is rising while it’s declining in Marin County overall. In a meeting at West Marin School hosted by Supervisor Dennis Rodoni and the Point Reyes Village Association, county representatives last Wednesday reported on what’s occurring here and what county government plans to do about it.

Speaking for the county, along with Supervisor Rodoni, were representatives from county Health and Human Services and West Marin Community Services, and they presented three graphs of the situation.

There’s been a 275-person reduction in homelessness countywide in the past four years.

In contrast, the homeless population of West Marin increased by 79 people during the same period. Of course, not all the homeless are living outdoors. Many are living in their vehicles.

The increase, moreover, is probably under-reported. Taking a count of all the homeless people here and there around West Marin is incredibly complex, and the county is about to devote more time to doing it.

County staff and members of the public who spoke Wednesday stressed that too often people assume drug use, or alcohol, or mental-health problems, or laziness, or personal choice accounts for almost all homelessness. That, however, turns out to be far from true. “The primary causes of homelessness are things that most people will experience in their lives without losing housing,” Health and Human Services reported. More than half of the people without permanent shelter became homeless when their households broke up or because of physical-health problems.

Billy Hobbs, who is homeless in Point Reyes Station, lost his housing when his 25-year marriage ended. He now spends most days sketching outside the post office and spends nights sleeping inside it. He showed up for Wednesday’s well-attended meeting but did not address the crowd.

One young man living out of his van told Wednesday’s meeting that he, like numerous other homeless residents of West Marin, does various kinds of work. The problem is earning enough to afford housing, he said.

Here on the coast at least, homelessness definitely isn’t a ploy for getting public assistance. In fact, the county noted, “many people who experience homelessness in West Marin are less inclined [than the homeless in East Marin] to accept services.” County government says it is now going to give particular attention to getting past that resistance and helping the homeless navigate the hurdles to receiving medical care and housing.