From the mountains to the sea

   

There are really only two seasons in Southern California.

Wildfire season and mudslide season

The yin and yang of the local weather patterns if you will.

We are heading directly into the latter, so let me explain.

The native plants, all of whom are evolutionarily acquainted with the semiregular Californian drought conditions bide their time in the sunshine. When the occasionally heavy rains of an El Nino year occur, the plants grow thick and tall in the steep canyons and arroyos leading to the ocean.

During the fall, months after the last measurable rainfall the stuff makes great kindling…add a touch or a torrent of dry offshore wind and wildfires burn, "From the mountains to the sea".

No stopping them really.

During a subsequent rainy year water runs off the hills in sudden rivers. 

Doubly so in the "burn scar" areas. 

Places that were once thriving ecosystems, 

bushes and trees, flora and fauna, 

now just dead roots and ashes. 

The hillside soil can only hold so much water 

without the plants to doing their part in the water cycle. 

 

Suddenly a hillside becomes more fluid than solid 

and tons of topsoil flows in whatever direction 

gravity and the local topography dictates. 

Removing topsoil and occasionally the whole hillside.

The winters watery Yin

to the

summers fiery Yang

This is the Way

So I sit

drinking my coffee

biding my time

waiting on the Fall

when all the good stuff happens

and they give out free candy