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Dear Friends, During this difficult and uncertain time for Westwind, we believe it is more important than ever to connect you to the landscape, plants, and animals of Westwind. We hope you enjoy these entries and most of all, we look forward to welcoming everyone back to Westwind soon! To help us through this period of loss, please consider making a charitable contribution to help get Westwind back up to full sail. Entry no. 3 – April 10, 2020 Spring has come on strong this week at Westwind. One of the sure signs that she is here to stay is the return of the Turkey vultures. Easy to distinguish by their tightrope walking way of flying. Their brown outstretched wings try to fool us into thinking they are something more noble. They are here in numbers now doing their important job: filling their niche, cleaning up after creatures that have moved on to other worlds.
The moon gave us a beautiful gift with her performance over Saddle Mountain. Her Nick Drake’s ‘Pink Moon’ phase shining in all of her glory and boldness, brought us some great tidal fluctuations. These twice daily movements exposed the beach sands’ exodus from the shore to the near ocean floor, thus letting us know that change is ever present.
The return of the sun energized many of our neighbors here at Westwind into action. Several bumblebee species came to play and to snooze after a hard day of pollination.
From the human side, Westwind was visited by the crew that is helping us construct our well upgrade, ensuring that we have ample supply of good clean water. Thanks for the Gray Family Foundation and the Juan Young Trust for making this project possible.
Nesting season is here as the seagulls have been staking out their territory on the three rocks in preparation for their egg laying to commence. The mating pair of eagles are back doing housekeeping on their nest up on Ranch Hill, cleaning and building and prepping for their brood. Let’s hope they are successful this year. They had bad luck a couple of years ago with the nest being destroyed by a large spring storm. Nice to know they still love this place as we all do. A raptor gave us a good detective story on Wednesday morning. White seagull feathers were sent flying from a Sitka near the Neskowin cabin. They lay all about the camp near the lodge. What went down? Who were the players? Eagle, Red-tailed hawk, or falcon finding its food flying overhead? It is not uncommon to find these clues on the trail into camp several times of year.
Westwind can provide some spectacular sunsets. Those of you who have stood at the edge of her shores and gazed at the sea, inhaled deeply her cool, calming air and felt her warmth on your face know of what I speak. This is a powerful balm needed more than ever to wash over us and give us a moment of peace.
This week has had me thinking about the absence of people here. In some sense I think Westwind needs us as much as we need her. People have been tied to and connected to this land for thousands of years. It feels good to think that we as Westwinders are in a symbiotic relationship together. Caring for each other in a deeply powerful and meaningful way. These strange and uncharted times that we are in, provide us strong punctuation to keep us alerted to the fact that we need Westwind and that Westwind needs us.
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