Nothing I did or said could persuade Jake or Maisie to look into the camera.

We all knew it was coming, of course, the house that's going to turn this sweet spot high in the hills into another Malibu mansion. Turns out that doesn't make the start of construction any easier to take.

Got knocked offline last night and into today (ironic, no?) so my LAT layoff post hung out there longer than I wished. A visit to Brian at Malibu Computers (merci!) solved it and now I'm back.

Here's a shot of a pair of hawks who made another in a string of visits to my part of the Cove this morning, flying so low over my house I could look into their eyes, feel the hairs on my arms prickle at the sound of those merciless, keening screams.

So sad.

Here's today's sunrise, just because.

This is just a cell phone shot so bear with me, but this dog left behind while his owner went shopping at Ralphs, the woebegone face, those eyes, those frowny furrows, all telegraphing a level of longing that would have Clint Eastwood asking "Angelina who?", he just had to be shared.

I was just watching the fire news on a local station and the perky reporter said "It's going to be 98 degrees today -- just a week before Halloween. Can you imagine?" Uh, yes, as a matter of fact. Here in L.A., we call that autumn.

Anyway, here's the sunrise today. I zoomed in to get the hot shot. From further away, it looks just a bit more bearable. And here's the sunrise reflected in beach-front windows.

We're in the County's library system here in Malibu, and ever since they did away with card catalogs a few years ago, I've been, well, cranky. I miss everything about them -- the golden wood, the long, small drawers, the musty scent, the thick paper of each entry, some crisp and new, some foxed and fuzzy-edged from use.

We've got a computer system now, of course, as do so many libraries these days. Half the time it's really, really slow. Sometimes it's down completely. Often enough it's inaccurate and you have to do your search several different times and a few different ways to get a real answer. And now, our library, this most democratic of places, has added a new stumbling block to the card catalog search. Where once anyone could log on and look for a book, now you have enter your library card number. Just to search, just to look, you need to have a library card.

To be fair, the librarians say that if you don't have a card they'll do the search for you. But where's the freedom to browse, the freedom to look around without asking permission, asking for help, and without leaving an electronic trail? As I said, undemocratic and, in my humble (and cranky) opinion, wrong.

Evinrude, who was bored yesterday, went looking for rodents. Found spiderwebs. Was forced to sit for a portrait before we wiped his face clean. There was laughing.

I hit the Farmer's Market in Santa Monica every Saturday, partly because I'm headed to McCabes and Vidiots anyway, and partly because of the flowers. Get there late enough and one of the vendors cuts his prices almost in half.

You take your chances, of course, that the great colors and varieties are sold out, but even when it's down to daisies, dahlias and hybrid roses, you can fill every vase in the house. This last time, the guy told me submerging the stems for an hour or two makes the blooms last longer.

Did it work? Not really. But these colors in that big sink sure did look nice, so I shot a bunch of photos.

I love this tree, big and pink, just standing there. It's in an empty spot that has been the site of several art installations -- a pair of life-size deer, I believe, and a gorgeous horse caught in mid-gallop, circling around a crouching figure of early man.

I think it's perfect just the way it is, wish it could stay that way, but in a city where downtown land is measured in increments, by dollars per retail foot, I suspect Big Pink's days are numbered.

Yes, we're battered by layoffs and yes, our new owners have shrunk the news hole, but have you seen The Times' coverage of the wildfires? It's first-class. My colleagues are working non-stop, writing about and photographing one of the most ferocious starts to the L.A. wildfire season in modern memory.

Check the web site, not just right now but throughout the day, and you'll see what I mean. It's being constantly updated, stories flying back and forth from reporters to editors to the web staff, updates and adds, new photos, new links, both inside the paper and, unlike most newspaper web sites, outside of The Times as well, so you can get the fullest news picture possible.

Maybe you read the comment by Kevin this morning about a newspaper blowing into the gutter. Comparing a mythic Sunday paper of decades ago to a traditionally-light Monday paper tossed about by these crazy, gusting winds is disingenuous and, well, silly.

To do it when dedicated journalists, who hate that their hometown paper is being diminished by out-of-town owners, who are working 18-hour shifts to cover these fires even as they themselves face fresh layoffs this month, to make that misleading comparison right now, during a crisis, that's just plain unkind.

Fretful sleep last night as big winds rocked the house, drove the wildfire scent indoors. This morning, a plume of smoke across the horizon, ash falling, air so dry, cats wail as sparks arc from their fur.

Here's the sunrise reflected in a bluff-side house, red red red. And here's the ocean to the north, waves whipped to froth.

Here's today's sunrise.

What you can't see are two exasperated black dogs sitting a few feet away, sighing LOUDLY as they wait for me to get the shot.

Of the 200-plus trailers here in Paradise Cove, just a few remain untouched. In the lower section of the park, actual travel trailers once towed behind station wagons were parked and, over time, turned into tiny cottages. On the upper level, original trailers with names like "Meteor" and "Golden Mansion" were slowly transformed. First came aluminum siding, then new windows and doors. Additions were built, newer and bigger trailers were hauled onto the sites and, most recently, full-on houses were constructed on top of each old trailer's chassis.

Here's one of the last untouched trailers in the Cove. There's the ribbed metal exterior, still the original green, the carpeted stairs, the canted car port, the aluminum windows, the covered porch.

An elderly couple used to live here. You'd see them in the morning, walking arm in arm. You could see them in the house in the evenings, the curtains open, the lights on. Her harp stood in the center of the room. His books filled the shelves that lined the walls. They're gone now and, inevitably, the trailer will change.

I'm glad I got this shot of it though, a tiny piece of Cove lore that can still live on.

In the morning, before there's even much light, there's color. A kind of low, slow rose that comes humming down the beach, turns the sand a little pink, bounces off the bluff. Out at sea, a horizon packed with clouds, slate gray, reflecting water. No traffic, unless you count the gulls, their wing beats an alto thud in the still, chill air.

First, I've got a post up on Native Intelligence.

Now, the Malibu Pie Festival of 2008. Nice crowd:

Lots and lots of offerings in the silent auction:

And my pie, despite scorching a bit in my 1950s O'Keefe & Merritt oven, got a third-place ribbon. Then, at six bucks a slice, it sold out! (Full disclosure -- I bought two of those slices.)

Pies to judge, pies to eat, minor celebs to oogle (yes, I know the word is actually 'ogle') and a silent auction -- it's our annual autumnal rite, the Malibu Pie Festival.

I'm entering, as usual, an apple pie. (Full disclosure: blue ribbon in '06, 3rd place in '07). As usual, I bought the fruit at See Canyon at the Santa Monica farmer's market. They've got varieties of apples I've never heard of, apples so fragrant, apples so oddly shaped, apples with flavors so rich and complex that supermarket apples will never be anything more than fourth-rate.

The church that throws this shindig each year doesn't host a pie contest web site, so here's the info from the LA Times. I'll be the one hovering anxiously around the judging table, trying to read lips.

A friend of mine, who inspects houses as they're being built, has been hearing from contractors on the sites she visits that thieves are breaking into locked sheds and cleaning them out, making off with tens of thousands of dollars worth of hand tools and power tools and construction materials.

Some contractors have hired guards, others are using dogs. Here's an inspired solution I came across on one of my walks -- the tempting tool chest held safely out of reach.