La Casa Rana

Santa Ana Winds suck. If you draw a straight line from the Cajon Pass to the ocean, the Santa Anas blow through the Pass, across the Inland Empire, down the street and into our pool before going through Santa Ana Canyon and to the beach.

For the past several days, we've had sustained 30 mph winds with 50 mph gusts. Over the years, I've fished several of the neighbors' tarps, Sunday papers and lost mail from my pool skimmer.

In 1894, environmentalist John Muir wrote his book, The Mountains of California. In Chapter 10, he tells of riding out a storm after climbing high into a tree. According to Muir, "Winds are advertisements of all they touch, however much or little we may be able to read them; telling their wanderings even by their scents alone. Mariners detect the flowery perfume of land-winds far at sea, and sea-winds carry the fragrance of dulse and tangle far inland, where it is quickly recognized, though mingled with the scents of a thousand land-flowers."

More than just an environmentalist, the poet Muir added, after the storm "the setting sun filled (the trees) with amber light, and seemed to say, while they listened, 'My peace I give unto you.”