The dear patriarch of the farm I have visited frequently over the past 40 years has passed on. Alex was 98 and died peacefully in his sleep surrounded by his loving family. His decline was not without pain, but like everything else about him, happened with profound honesty and dignity. He was a farmer and a mighty warrior for the water rights of Northern California...it seems fitting that he died on the early morning of the first day of the Year of the Dragon...a water dragon...when the rain was pouring down in bucketfulls...
Seems like now the rain is quiescent, but the drops are still on the oxalis:
It is another sort of new year now...there is sadness, and there is love, and there is hope.
4 hours ago