A Distant Tree

I've called this view my mini view because I can see the hills in the distance. For several years a tree has been the focal point of many of my sunrise photos. I was never sure what property the tree grew on but it showed above the other trees and above the hills beyond. I came to like the tree. Then one day a few weeks ago I looked out at my view and there was no tree. I don't know when it was cut down, but still feel sad at the loss.

Here in Eucalyptus Hills we were very close to one of the worst wild fires in California history. It happened back in 2003 and was called the Cedar Fire. Some homes burned on the edges of Eucalyptus Hills but both Lakeside firefighters and a change in wind direction kept it from storming through here. We left without knowing if we would have a home to come back  to. Not a good feeling. Since then many eucalyptus trees in this area have been cut down. At first the chain saws could be heard every day. There was another fire scare a few years ago with the Witch Creek Fire that burned north of here.

Now we only hear the chain saws once in awhile. I didn't notice the sound of saws when the tree was cut. Or maybe I did but didn't pay attention.

This first photo is of an old dead tree that I took many photos of and on the right "my" tree.

This is the last photo I took of the tree. It is strange to feel a sense of loss at something like this tree but I do.

Schizophrenia

A 24 year old man stabbed to death his mother and sister this past Monday. His mother was an officer with the San Diego police. His sister had just graduated from high school and was looking forward to art school in the fall. Two lives taken away for no real reason. They say the young man was schizophernic but was not on meds. Someone on the news said that the young man would not have had his mental illness for long, and that he and his family were still learning to cope. He and his older brother had some sort of fight while the mom and sister were away, but the brother said that it was settled. This is all so sad. This family had no idea that their son and brother was a danger to them. If they did, what could they do about it. His mother was a police officer who's duties were working child abuse cases. You would think that if there was help for her son she would be able to find it. In reality there is no help for families of the mentally ill. And most of all there is no help for the schizophrenic. 

The families often have only two choices. Live with the problems or send the victim of mental illness out to live on the streets. And who is to say that someone with schizophrenia is a danger to himself or others.

My son joined the Navy and then fell apart. He went awol and came home. He cut his wrist. Then was in the old Navy Hospital near Balboa Park. They kept him there in the mental ward for several weeks while they worked on a discharge for him. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He was put on meds. After his discharge, he had counseling through the county for a time. The meds made him feel sick. He stole our car and drove it to Nevada. We had to go after him and drive the car back. His father had to go up to Idaho and bring our truck back. He was stopped at the Canadian border in a stolen car from Reno NV and spent some time in Eastern State Hospital in Washington state. He left home many times and then called home and his father would go and bring him home. His father flew to Washington state to drive him back after he drove our truck there. Finally he took the car we had brought back from Nevada and ran it into a creek somewhere in Northern California. That was the last time he took off in one of our cars.

I was still at the storage when he started throwing my furniture and he broke a maple rocker. I called the sheriff for help and they just made him leave. The next day he had made it up to Mojave and he called me and said that someone there must have been killed. He said that there was blood all over. I asked him if there were other people around and he said yes. I asked him if they saw the blood and he said that they didn't. A few months ago he mentioned that phone conversation and told me that he thought about it and decided that there wasn't any blood after all. When he told me that voices told him to hurt other people I told him that he didn't have to do anything they told him to do. He is not the kind of person that ever wants to hurt anyone else. I have sent him money Western Union when he gets himself stranded somewhere. His dad has made countless trips to towns in Washington, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, and Arizona to bring him back home.

When my son went off meds and refused to ever take them again, I tried to get a conservatorship that would have given me the right to hospitalize him for a little while. My stepmom said she would pay the fees and maybe we could get him back on meds. I made the right phone calls and someone from the courts came and interviewed my son. She told me that my son was not all that ill and that there was nothing I could do. She told me that unless she agreed that a judge would never hear the case. No recourse. That was over twenty years ago. We have gone through a lot.

Do we think that our son is a danger to us. No. He is basically a kind and gentle person. He can rant and rave and get angry over things we don't understand. Once he shoved his arm through a window and cut his upper arm. He woke me up and I wrapped a towel around his arm and I called 911. When the paramedics didn't come we had to walk out our long drive to the road to find the sheriffs were not letting the paramedics come to the house. I held my son's arm above his head while he bled and we talked with the officers and they asked us dumb questions. Finally my son was taken to the hospital. Someone there told us that my son needed treatment for his mental illness. Then when they checked into it...nothing...my son was sent home.

My son and his father lived in a separate house on my stepmom's place. After my stepmom died I bought the property. Hailey and I moved here from the storage about ten years ago into the house that had belonged to my dad and stepmom. Five years ago my daughter came to live here and she wanted her dad's little house so my son and his dad moved in with Hailey and me. It hasn't been easy for us. I truly love my son and Hailey loves her uncle. We hear him at night talking to himself...sometimes working himself into a fit of anger. I hope I'm doing the right thing. I don't sleep much at night.

Google Earth

Google Earth is an interesting program. It might be a little scary too. The first time I looked at a view of my place it looked like this.

The weired concrete shape at the lower left is our neighbors parking area. I've always wondered why they made it that way. The nice thing about it though...it made it easy to find my place.

Google Earth got better over the years and really improved in 2003 with color and a better picture. This was taken in Dec 02 and makes our area look nice and green.

A big change is the swimming pool. In the above photo the swimming pool is is a large brown spot circled in concrete at the side of my house. My dad was tired of the pool and decided to make a very large planter out of it. Over the years we had small kids pools for Hailey in the summer. She outgrew the kids pools so one year we got a blow up pool. That lasted one season. Then we got an above ground pool and it took us a couple of years to get it put up. Those things are not as easy as they look to install. So this shows a view of that pool. We added concrete around the pool.

My daughter came to live here for awhile and in the spring of 09 decided we should dig out the original pool. I posted photos of all the work it took in an earlier blog. Last summer she moved away. This is the latest view taken in August of last year. Summer time things around here get very dry and brown.

Google Earth has a street view that takes photos of the view from the street. Since we are back from the road our street view is just our long drive with the palms and one tiny view of the house across the neighbors field. And the view shows lots of green so the photos must be from this last winter or spring.

It is amazing how much the Google Street View photos show of most people's homes. Our house is back off the road so it is our palm lined drive that shows up in the street view.

Cactus Flower

Cactus Flowers

Humming Bird at Feeder

Lilies and More Agapanthus with Visitor

The difference in lighting is because the above flowers were touched by the sun and the photos below were in the shade.

Agapanthus

Agapanthus is a flower from South Africa. Here we see it everywhere. It is a favorite for roadway medians and minimall planter boxes as well as PUDs and apartment complexes. I think that is because they have long green leaves that don't die down so add green to the landscape all year long. My sister's back yard, she lives in a PUD, was edged with agapanathus bulbs. When her gardener thinned them she always had lots to spare so I asked her for some. She gave me all of three bulbs. It took several years but I now have a row of pots with these pretty flowers that I keep along the front of my house. I enjoy seeing them bloom at the beginning of summer every year.

Thunder Storm

We went out to view this big rainbow and it started raining. We sat in the rain and enjoyed seeing the rainbow...Then I ran in the house for my camera. The rainbow lasted for awhile. It was a complete arc and wonderful to see. The rain drops were big and warm and reminded me of the times my children loved to play in this kind of rain. They would splash the puddles that formed with their tennis shoes. And just have a fun time of it. I took the photos from my car port though my camera can stand a bit of rain.

Then I looked in the other direction and saw the orange sunset.

This evening we took our coffee out to enjoy the cool air, but my son was having some problems. He sometimes rants and raves and makes my life miserable. I took my coffee to my room and am waiting for him to settle down. He has schizophrenia.

I was reading that there are new meds for schizophrenia but then I read the side effects. My son will not take meds though he did back in the beginning of his illness. They made him feel very sick. That may be why he will not even take an aspirin when he has a headache. Anyway after reading about the side effects of the current meds I could never encourage anyone to take them. I do get upset but then the storm is over and my son settles down and I see what a great person he really is. So I let the anger of the moment flow over me and fade away.

The things some people do...

While I have not watched the trial daily, I have watched and read news about Casey Anthony. It is hard to miss. Husbands and wives that murder spouses, children doing in their parents, and parents that kill their children make the news. Everyone wants to know about and most of all to understand why. They said that Casey Anthony cried in court today. Casey has not been found guilty by the jury so I cannot say she did kill little Caylee. But to me whatever the jury says I tend to believe she did. And I wonder, why? Why do some people feel that getting rid of another person is what they need to do? Susan Smith, Scot Peterson, and all the others that ruined their own lives by taking the life of those that loved them must have something totally missing in their brains and hearts. They must be self centered selfish people. The rest of us see what these people do and we cannot really understand the why of it.

In our area we have had three family murder sucide cases. Bright beautiful children were murdered because the parents couldn't go on with their own lives. Things may look bad today, but there is always tomorrow. There is always hope.

Casey could have let her parents raise her child.

Pit Bull

On June 18th a seventy-five year old woman was the victim of a horrific bit bull attack. Her neighbors two dogs came through her fence into her back yard and mauled her. She lost her leg and suffered damaging wounds on her other leg and an arm. The dogs, along with eleven puppies, were put to sleep, but that doesn't help the victim of the attack.

Pit bull dogs are the creation of humans. They are bred for fighting and seem to revert to that at unexpected times. There is no reason to preserve the breed. There are people that say pit bull dogs are only dangerous to other dogs but too many children and people, often the elderly, have been harmed by these dogs. With so many other wonderful breeds of dogs to choose from why people choose to have pit bull dogs is beyond me.

Any large dog can be dangerous to children. I had lovely German Shepards at the storage when Hailey was little. They were not trained guard dogs and were totally gentle. I never once left Hailey alone with them. We did let the dogs out at night to wander the yard after the gate was closed. Hailey and I would walk with them when she was older. Still she never played with them alone.

Then we hear about people that let their children grow up with their pit bull dogs as if nothing could ever go wrong. Maybe nothing ever will but parents that take that chance with their children are not thinking. Unless the dog attack is fatal or very damaging to the victim we never even hear about it.