Someone at this book store has a sense of humor, a good thing, considering the challenging year so many of us had.

It has been wonderful to spend 2011 with all of you, and I wish us all better times in 2012. See you next year!

There's a rhythm to the marine layer here. On cold mornings, you'll see it offshore, furled tight and low in the pre-dawn chill.

It loosens as the sun comes up, spreads and starts to move.

The sun appears, then it's gone again, enfolded in white.

Right now, right here anyway, the sunshine is winning this particular war.

Today, your faithful photog sticks her head in the sand (metaphorically speaking, of course) and relishes a landscape which (if you ignore Barbra Streisand's chimney there in the top corner, and, if you're being picky, the non-native eucalyptus trees on the bluff, but really, if you're that much of a stickler, you've come to the wrong blog) shows no trace of the human race.

And if anything new happens regarding the owls, I'll let you know.

The photo is oaks and sycamores in the Santa Monica mountains. The post jumps because it was hard to write and, I think, hard to read.

It was two weeks ago that we found the barn owl. He was under an oak, no visible wounds, no trauma, his feathers all intact. It had been a bitterly cold night, one in a series, in fact, and I wondered if that had something to do with his death.

I moved him, put him in a private place in a drift of leaves near a fallen tree. He was so light when I lifted him, still fierce. I worried someone might come along and steal his feathers, so I moved him.

On Monday, like we do every day, like we have done every day for the last six months, the dogs and I, we walked in the oaks. And there was something strange about one of them, a bulge near the base.

We're there every day, shoot photos every day and if anything's different, we see it. And that day what was different was that someone had killed a barn owl, then bound his feet with orange twine and hung him from the tree.

It was grotesque and obscene and I know I'm just showing how sheltered I am but it was unbearable. Later, I thought I should have taken a photo, evidence or something. But what I did was put the owl in that same drift of leaves.

I called the property owner and haven't heard back. Called someone I know at the National Park Service, just for advice, and haven't heard back. Emailed Pete Thomas, who writes a great outdoors blog and that's how I wound up leaving a message at Fish and Game, to have a local warden call me. I hope I hear back.

Then a friend talked to a friend and yesterday, I moved the owls from among the leaves and gave them to Dennis at the California Wildlife Center. He found a bullet wound in one. They're going to X-ray the other.

I guess I'm telling you this because who knows, maybe somehow someone will know what to do and maybe it'll help. What helped me was that on the drive up Piuma, and then again at the wildlife center, a pair of bobcats trotted by.

We're there every day, shoot photos every day and if anything's different, we see it. And that day what was different was that someone had killed a barn owl, then bound his feet with orange twine and hung him from the tree.

It was grotesque and obscene and I know I'm just showing how sheltered I am but it was unbearable. Later, I thought I should have taken a photo, evidence or something. But what I did was put the owl in that same drift of leaves.

I called the property owner and haven't heard back. Called someone I know at the National Park Service, just for advice, and haven't heard back. Emailed Pete Thomas, who writes a great outdoors blog and that's how I wound up leaving a message at Fish and Game, to have a local warden call me. I hope I hear back.

Then a friend talked to a friend and yesterday, I moved the owls from among the leaves and gave them to Dennis at the California Wildlife Center. He found a bullet wound in one. They're going to X-ray the other.

I guess I'm telling you this because who knows, maybe somehow someone will know what to do and maybe it'll help. What helped me was that on the drive up Piuma, and then again at the wildlife center, a pair of bobcats trotted by.

Lots of statues, no irony -- it's the trailer park way.

Before it's too late (doesn't the Christmas tree start to seem irrelevant on Dec. 26?) I wanted to post this photo, a pine on Kanan Road. Someone decorates it each year, just the front, and only as high as they can stretch on tiptoe.

This year the decorations got an upgrade, more glass balls, larger and shinier, a few snowflakes and, deep in the greenery so it's kind of hard to see, a crocheted dove.

There was also a holiday miracle of sorts as, despite the fierce winds that howled through the canyon, the decorations stayed put. Well, most of them, anyway,

Merry happy jolly joyous everything to everyone.

This humble, homemade holiday display appears each year outside the gated drive of what has to be a somewhat grand home. I love that instead of something flashier, it's the lion and the lamb, painted on plywood, who nudge us in the right direction.

Jake and Maisie take a break from the holiday madness by playing ball on the bluff. As ever, Maisie's tongue auditions for acclaim from Guiness.

Icy cold here this morning, and windy. Slanted sunlight.

Solstice last night, 9:30 our time. So this is it, the first day of winter. From here on in (until June 21, anyway) every day, more daylight.

It starts like this:

And a century or so later, turns into this:

Unlike the hawks you see near roads and houses, who are acclimated to the sight of us humans, this one's utterly wild. You'll find him in this tree each day, but no matter how slowly or quietly you move, take one step too many and whoosh, far too fast for the point-and-shoot, he's gone.

Guys fishing...

A sweet little coot...

The light over Little Dume, changing.

Right?

Our local corner market, where instead of that awful holiday music, you get The Doors.

I've found a fool-proof way to get your heart broken. Fall in love with 456 acres of untouched coastal oaklands that don't happen to belong to you.

Wait a few months...

And then, voila.

Sometimes, it's all about the shape of the clouds.

Why isn't the little bird on the right drinking?

Because he's sharing a feeder with the homicidal maniac on the left.

Check out his cheek feathers (yes, that's a technical term, ask any birdologist) and you'll see how ruffled up they are from all the (more hard-core bird jargon) head-butts.

Soft light and filtered sound under these oaks, their branches touching, woven together in spots, a natural room where even the hardest rain falls softly.

We're fogged in and battened down, an icy rain falling out there, wet-dog smell in here.

I've been wanting to post the tiny Airstream, but the extravaganza of holiday lights around the Cove entrance this year puts you in mind of a Tijuana bordello, only not as understated.

This morning, though, it was old school, just a few strings of clear twinklers and, of course, some glowing pink flamingos.

Some blog posts need no help from me. At all.

On a walk the other day and this pair of wild parrots kept pace with us.

What? Can't see them? Voila:

I love the guy on the left with his little orange feet. (I told you the zoom on the new Canon is freakishly good.)

Headed to work, the dogs and I and suddenly, a swirl of monarchs.

They've been around for a month or so, jewel-bright at first but now more dim, a little papery.

I approached. They fled. A moment later, though, there they were and, in the sun, in the stillness, still exquisite.

We weren't alone admiring the sunrise, though I'm pretty sure this guy was warm and toasty in his bunk at the time.

Cold and quiet.

The Dume Room closed for good five years ago this month. It was vacant for a few years, and now a Subway sandwich shop has moved in. Progress? Of a sort, I suppose.

Meanwhile, from a commentary I wrote for NPR:

Tucked between a tiny dry cleaners and a take-out pizza joint, the Dume Room is the last gasp of rough-and-rowdy blue-collar Malibu. It's where the waitresses and welders, construction workers and conmen come after a hard day's work, where local celebs like...

...Pam Anderson, Nick Nolte and Emilio Estevez come to mix with the rest of us. But next week, the Dume Room's off my tour. Thanks to a real estate deal that has the whole town talking, the Dume Room is shutting down. After thirty-five years in the same spot, thirty-five years of channeling old-style, outlaw Malibu, it's over. Sold to a developer who's putting something more upscale, something more genteel in its place.

It's a raunchy spot, rowdy and crowded and borderline dangerous in the best dive bar tradition. During the day you'll see big, bad, flea-bitten dogs snoozing near the front door, waiting for their owners to drink their fill. At night it's everything a hole-in-the-wall should be - dark and loud and unpredictable.

In front there's an old wooden bar with carved legs, a dozen comfy stools, and a fancy, glittery fish tank that's kept spotlessly clean. In back is the funky pool table, the felt splotched by years of spilled drinks, but level and playable. The juke box is stuffed with so much good music, you can spend an hour just trying to choose. The drinks are strong and the bartender's friendly, there's live music on weekends and Karaoke on Thursday. Talk to anyone and they'll talk back, buy you a beer, shoot a game of pool.

Last call at the Dume Room is Sunday. Two a.m. It won't be quiet, that's for sure. Regulars have talked about buying the place, of moving it elsewhere, but they know it's just a dream. Instead they've settled for venting their rage and sorrow by writing in black magic marker on the mirrors that line the walls. Ask any of them if they're coming and they look at you like you're nuts. Where else would they be?

So these are the last days of the Dume Room. Except now they're calling it the Doomed Room. Doomed, as in here's the last place to remind you that millionaire Malibu was once a working class town, a historical haven for outlaws and smugglers and thieves. Doomed, as in once the chi chi restaurants put away their wine lists at 9 or 10 p.m., there's nowhere in town to get a beer. And when Monday morning rolls around, when the fish tank is gone and the pool table silent, the juke box unplugged and the front door locked, it'll be just plain doomed.

...if I just post another photo of Jake?

There were a couple of coyotes in the oak grove that morning, their scent still heavy in the air, and this is the instant Jake's excellent nose told him -- and Maisie, she saw him turn his head and zoom, she vanished in full (futile) pursuit -- where they had gone.

Nothing special about the photo really, except, well, everything.

No, the Occupy movement isn't over, and yes, you still can take part. The easiest way? Shop indie, for the holidays and the rest of the year. Who knew that supporting your local entrepreneurs would be the radical thing to do?

And thank you to Alison and John at Diesel, A Bookstore, for creating the coaster and button. Want one? Just drop by Diesel and ask.

Power to the people -- the little people.

We were lucky enough to be the first on the beach, the sand scoured clean by the wind, not a footprint (or paw print) as far as the eye could see.

Low and slow was the way this pelican managed in the morning wind.