The unpaid intern up at the barn, on her afternoon break.

Remember how these tiny guys:

...became these little guys?

Well, now they're these big guys. Ducklets.

It's blue right now, blue and warm, but this morning, early, alone on the sand (well, except for a Tiny Labrador) it was cool and silvery and oh-so-very, very quiet.

Marine layer to the south of us but to the north, blue blue skies.

Cloudy at the beach this morning, the marine layer doing it's annual May Gray thing.

It's the unofficial start of summer, and if Saturday and Sunday were any indicators, be prepared for plenty of traffic and lots of cops.

This is how it looks a lot of the time, the mother coot swimming, the baby racing along in her wake:

But then she'll stop and do a bit of foraging:

And with the baby's red-rimmed face the perfect target (to say nothing of that wide-open mouth), breakfast is served.

I like to think about the previous life of this Ball jar, where it was first bought, what it held, how it was stored before it came to live in the many kitchens of a serial sea glass collector/mobile home remodeler.

Ever since the Springs Fire earlier this month, we've been seeing more coyotes.

It could be the drought driving them down from the hills to drink from lakes and ponds and sprinklers (and to dine on well-fed cats and toy poodles) but it's also 28,000 acres worth of scorched habitat that has displaced who knows how many wild animals.

Not an easy life.

This one's from the archives, the beach at Paradise Cove.

I'm not a fish person so to me, this is a little gross, but yeah, also amazing -- thousands of tiny catfish who just nibbled their way out of their sac and now have free run of the lake.

Somewhere nearby is the papa catfish, who's the one who dug the nest, lured the female, then fertilized her eggs. AND, after all that, hung around as the eggs hatched, fanning them with his fins and tail to keep the sediment away and the oxygen flowing.

Who knew?

These guys:

Are now these guys.

What a difference a few weeks make.

First, a tiny nest of tiny birds inside the split of this tree. Finches, says the friend who found them. You can see the mother dart in and out with food, a streak seen from the corner of your eye. Get too close and stepawaystepaway -- an irresistible order issued from a branch above.

Next, this crazy mushroom, as big as a dinner plate, that grew overnight.

And my favorite (well, until the nestlings show their little faces), a kayak at the lake, putting the scale of the slope behind it into perspective.

Hot for some today, breezy for others. Either way, we're lucky to live in California.

It looks as though the guy just paid the psychic reader on the Santa Monica pier for a peek into his future, right? But if you happened to wander close enough, what you'd have heard was the psychic reader complaining about traffic on the 405.

If that's the topic, then we're all psychics.

So I know it's been a bit terse around the blog lately, with shorter-than-usual (and that's really saying something) posts arriving late in the day. It's because of work, of course, and remodeling. Spring fever has a lot to do with it, as does an ailing 18-year-old cat.

This week, though, the blogular brevity is because of a landscaping project that's thisclose to being finished, and which I can't wait to show you (and yes, Melissa, there will be photos, LOTS of photos, and probably even another slide show) but for now, let's look at what happened almost the very instant the bed in front of the house was finished, a moment that made the whole long and sweaty job worth it.

Look -- a butterfly.

Spectacular here yesterday, sea blue, sun gold, wind low and slow, easing through the grasses, part song, part sigh.

It's painful to look at the garden these days, all weedy and seedy and, thanks to the work happening in the house, neglected.

Even worse when you look back at the glory days:

Le sigh.

Rummaging in the fridge for a bite to eat.

(Is this turning into the bird blog?)

No matter how hard you squint, the thermometer here up at the barn reads 91 degrees. This is a little crazy, right?

If you've ever loved or cherished or protected or cared for another living thing, then Happy Mother's Day.

For a heavenly half hour, the Tiny Labrador reveled in the deep, thick lawn (her favorite thing) of this pretty South Bay park, blissfully ignorant of the fact that not only was she unwelcome, getting caught would have wiped out every last penny of her college fund.

Let's not tell her.

Mmmmmmmmwah!

For all of you before-and-after junkies who have been mercilessly filling my inbox with demands for even more renovation photos, here:

The bedroom before:

And during/after:

Also, this:

Happy now?

Last week the ducklings looked like this, still small and round and cartoonish:

This morning they looked somehow more duck-like, their heads more mature, the markings more distinct.

And they're clearly getting plenty to eat:

As the sunrise did this:

..the coastline did this:

The last of the storm clouds looked like this:

And this:

And my personal favorite -- this:

There's a hot spring that flows into the lake here in the hills:

And it has an avid fan club:

That is to say, turtles.

They're smiling, right?

About five minutes after getting this shot of the clouds gathering, it rained. So it was rain clouds that were gathering, and even though the shower lasted mere seconds, it was pretty great.

The north Malibu Starbucks, housed for a while in a food truck, has moved into its renovated space. (And look -- even more construction tk.)

In other news, the sun rose.

First, good local fire coverage from the Ventura County Star, which has amazing photos. Also, The Malibu Times and our local Patch site are posting frequent updates with breaking news from multiple sources.

Meanwhile, here in Malibu, the sun rose:

Hot and still and --

...smokey.

A swell rolled in:

And to the north --

...just beyond the county line:

PCH, shut down.

Paradise Cove. Sigh.

Of the 13 ducklings that hatched, four remain, a decent survival rate according to the intertubes. I keep hearing people say that snapping turtles eat the tiny birds, but the articles I found count coyotes, hawks, foxes and (sigh) herons as the main predators.

Here's the little family the other morning, doing a bit of cruising: