Snow finally vanished from the yard last week. Western fence lizards now cruising around for bugs and sun.

Hail the Country Squire!

On their first US tour, Go4 was one of the best bands I saw live. Ever. Tight, driving sound with a get-out-of-our-way attitude. Music for a revolution.

Writers who influenced you and your work?

Or heck, what influenced you?

The beavs are flourishing and helping to sustain a vibrant meadow ecosystem in this relatively arid part of the Sierra. Two decades ago they were widely seen as pests. No longer.

Walked the Martis Valley trail today. Impressed by the nearly 6-year-old Truckee River Watershed Council restoration project that reconnects broken creek channels and rewaters 70 acres of meadow. Best news? Beaver dams are adding even more water to the meadowlands (see right area of photo).

👍!

Idyllic, yes, but there’s less of the pleasure that comes from experiencing the unexpected.

I’ve been living in the Sierra for the past 25 years, and lived here as well as a kid. Everyone mostly fishes the same places. I miss the DIY nature of fishing in the city — exploring can be as much fun as hooking. Amazing how many spots hold fish overlooked by an even more amazing # of anglers.

Peavine, from I-80, looks so seductively gentle irrespective of season.

Waaaaay cool! A roadside ditch in the LA conurbation — THIS is adventurous fly fishing!

Picked this cap up last summer to cover my noggin while strolling the streets of Vancouver. It has become a favorite over the past few weeks.

YMG! That single blew me away — quietness transformed into something intense. Saw the band live in Oct ‘80, in Berkeley and San Francisco. Did not disappoint.

Thanks for the post. Beautiful film; captures perfectly what the sport should be about.

And an informative wildfire news and analysis blog is the-lookout.org

Yay, John Lyndon and the Sex Pistols! Their’s was the right response.

Read it in ‘76, as an undergraduate. Cemented my interest in cities and planning. Still on my shelves; thank you for the nudge to revisit it!

Only Dec 31st and I’m already dreaming of June.

Yay tacos!

And yay Fleetwood Mac in every version OTHER than the one with Lindsey and Stevie!

(BTW, for wildly obscure Mac history given a neato Finnish soundtrack, check YouTube for the video by the band Sur-rur that’s titled “Fleetwood Macin villi valkausi.” Too crazy and cool for words.)

A hip-pocket meadow with a lovely bit of creek that I came across this past summer. I fished small streams as a kid, and over the past few years have happily rediscovered the pleasures such waters can provide. Looking forward to more exploring in ‘25!

Wow, that was a deliciousness read! Thank you for the tip. Please feel free to pass along more that’ll take us into imbued landscapes.

Nice-looking bugger! BTW, Gary Soucie’s “Woolly Wisdom,” published in the ‘90s by Frank Amato, offers a boatload of WB variations appropriate for a variety of fish species. Good book for generating ideas.

Alfred E. Kahn played a huge role, noting airlines were “marginal cost with wings,” and thus an appropriate target for deregulation.

This is an important, useful story; thank you for the post. I’m beginning to think The Guardian is the paper I should be reading.

Christmas visit from what’s likely a bobcat — paw width 2”, stride 12”. (Deck is 2x6 planks.) Rare for the neighborhood, and darn cool. I guess this is what a couple of ravens were shouting loudly about this morning.

With its red tag and almost-palmered appearance, perhaps an antecedent to the Woolly Worm? Or maybe vise 😉 versa.

A band I still follow.

On the back of a black T-shirt at the Feelies show, Berkeley Square, ‘88 or ‘89:

“When there is no more room in the river, the trout shall walk the earth.”

Dunno the origin of those words, but they obviously made an impression on me. As did the music.

“Blows Against the Empire” — a title that, as I read it, reflected the turmoil of the times when it was released. And that again resonates today.