May 6th - Sunday

It got down to 36 degrees last night. We went outside around 10:30 PDT, to see if we could see the "big" moon. It still was not high enough to be able to see it. To the east of us, an pretty close, is a big hill covered with trees. The moon/sun had to be pretty high before we see it.

I went over and had breakfast with the "guests." It was a buffet line again today. Scrambled eggs, really good link sausages (not smokey links, but still pretty good <grin>), waffles, several types of melons, and strawberries. I'm sure there was hot cereal some place.

After breakfast we attended church at a church in Rockaway Beach. The Pastor had just returned from a conference on youth issues. He passed along some information that while horrible, was nothing that people with any common sense don't already know. The vast majority of young people who fail to get an education have no father figure, the vast majority of prison inmates had no father figure in the home, the majority of teens suicides had no father figure in the home, etc. He quoted statistics on the number of kids in foster care, and the amount of times they get moved around. It was quite sad.

His push was that Christians should be doing more to take these troubled kids in and to give them a stable home environment. I agree with him but that is just one element. I also think that a little vigilante action might be in order. Society lets these dead beat dads get away with not supporting the children they produce. My guess is that if a town took these dead beats "behind the barn", where some negative reinforcement administered while it was pointed out that they better get to work and support their kids, things might change. If one job wasn't enough then they better get two. Perhaps if word of such actions got out the incidence of dead beat dads might decrease. But that is just the rantings of an old conservative who thinks people need to be held accountable for their actions. We are now in the "land of change" where such people are not only to be tolerated they are to be rewarded by being given what others have worked to obtain.

We came home after church and I took a nice nap. After the nap, and lunch, we went back to Rockaway Beach and walked on the beach.

Kathy had on a coat and a sweatshirt. I had a sweatshirt over a long sleeve shirt. It was 58 and the wind was blowing briskly. I'm not sure about the temperature of the water on the shore but I was told that the ocean water is only around 50 degrees. These kids played in the surf for a LONG time.

About a mile down the beach I noticed an area where a stream came out and rain out to the ocean. The water in the photo was about 6" deep. It was clear and flowing right along.

 After our walk we came back and sat on one of the benches. In front of us was a wall made of irregular large rocks, typically around 18" on a side. There were squirrels playing in the rocks. It became obvious that someone must sit on the benches and feed them. They didn't actually touch either of us but they did get close.

 A little while later this guy came out and started feeding them. There were at least 5 of these squirrels that would come up and take nuts(?) from his hand. Some of them would climb up his leg, like the one in the photo below.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.