Even Better

If you've been on Facebook with a Pasadena friend in the last couple of days you know we were treated to a magnificent sunset Sunday night. Everyone posted photos of it.

John, Bellis and I walked Hahamongna with our friends Karen and David and our various dogs. The sky changed and changed and changed again, and we couldn't stop taking pictures. The dogs didn't notice the sky, but they may have been aware of our stopping to say "ooh" and "ah," like at a fireworks celebration.

A spectacular sunset is spectacular no matter where you see it from, and the visuals rivaled what the gods must have viewed from Mount Olympus. But when you're walking with friends on a dusty trail and the lightning begins to strike while coyotes yip, and the air is a sweater woven of the scent of buckthorn, not even perfection compares.

Not the Last Day, After All

Word has it that the Devil's Gate Dam interim silt removal project is complete. If so, all the silt has been moved to Johnson Field from the dam. For now.

It's not the whole project by a long shot. There will be an environmental impact report before the rest of the work is done. I don't know how long that'll take or what the end result will look like, but it will be a much larger project.

Here's how Johnson Field looked last Saturday at dusk. Not nearly as bad as I'd feared. I took the photo from my usual spot, so those of you familiar with PDP's Last Day Project could make comparisons even if you've never seen Johnson Field in person.

A pan to the left:

It's a bit dark, but I hope you can see in both photos that the trees have been spared. Basically, the county workers piled the silt neatly at the north end of the sunken basin that is Johnson Field. The silt took up about half the space. Room for more silt in the future, I guess.

I have a list of disappointments related to this work, but those disappointments are (mostly) not with LA County. There's plenty of time for it to get worse but so far, the work they've done has been more sensitive than I expected. We even saw a few toads at the fountain. With a little rain we'll soon have some nice weeds growing in the silt. Maybe wildflowers.

We were treated to spectacular skies that night. More pictures to come.

Zen Monday: #161

Today's a holiday, but Zen Monday isn't taking the day off.

In Zen, one learns through experience rather than books or lectures. Zen Monday is the day you experience the photo and tells us what you've learned, rather than me lecturing you about it.

Please leave your thoughts in the comments box and enjoy.

The Best Laid Pipes

Boz and I had planned to hike yesterday. We were going to head to Johnson Field, where this pipe stands. Or stood. We're not sure. A lot's been going on at Johnson Field lately, and for all we know this above-ground access to water has been buried under the mounds of silt being moved from behind Devil's Gate Dam to what we hope is temporary storage in Johnson Field.

But we didn't find out for sure last night, as we had to postpone our hike. We'll find out later today, though, and bring you a report.

Fun news for the meantime: the September issue of Pasadena Magazine features the Dena's daily photo bloggers. For her article, "Daily Affirmations," Kelly Shimabukuro interviewed me, Laurie Allee (Glimpses of South Pasadena), Kat Likkel (Pasadena, 91105 and Beyond) and our already sorely missed Ben Wideman (The Sky is Big in Pasadena and wherever else he goes). Thank you, Kelly!

It was Ben who turned me on to our newest daily photo blogger. She's a bit anonymous, but she's got style. Check out All Over Pasadena.

Noble Beast

photo by John Sandel

The noble beast, the pompetus of love, the elder statesman of his radius, has been suffering neighborhood walks for an entire month. A month! Walking on cement! With his delicate toes!

I remind him that some dogs don't get a daily walk, but he's spoiled. He remembers hikes in the mountains. When do we get to go back to the wild? he wants to know. When do we get to smell coyotes again? Not that he wants to meet them in person.

Boz doesn't know it yet, but today we get back on the trail. He has new flea meds, a special water bottle and desire enough to carry him far past where we're going, no matter how delicate his toes.

But you can't tell a dog these things until the last second or they'll follow you at your heels, gazing at you desperately until the moment the leash jangles and the car door opens. So I haven't told him yet. Right now, the fava bean of farts is snoring.

Ubiquitous Utilities

At first I didn't see pipes like these.

Then I noticed one. It stuck out above ground. Someone had painted it a bright color.

Then I saw them everywhere. I mean, they are everywhere. All different colors and sizes and shapes.

I exagerrate. They're not everywhere. I don't have one at my house, for example. But I'm thinking of getting one.

Theme Day: Perspective

Today's theme at City Daily Photo is "perspective." That can be a technique used in art and architecture to show distance or elevation. It can also be how you look at things. For instance, this could be a hole in a hedge, through which you view a field of small avocado trees being watered by a sprinkler. Or it could be a window into the past, to the days before Henry Huntington bought his land in San Marino and this was merely a farm.

City Daily Photo is now 1412 blogs strong, the most recent being Denpasar, Indonesia. To see how other blogs around the world have depicted the theme, click here to view thumbnails for today's participants.