Just to finish up with this camping trip thing, I bring you a few pictures that sum up nature’s struggle to adapt and survive on our changing planet.

Southern California suffers from major wildfires. This is not a new phenomenon, and I can’t say for sure if global warming is making it worse. But it sure isn’t making it any better…

Wildfires have swept the area around the campground numerous times. We had a particularly bad one a few years back, and the woods are full of trees that were killed when the underbrush burned and the lower portion of the trees were scorched, even though the trees themselves did not always burn. You can see the underbrush is coming back nicely, but it will take decades for the forest to return in some areas.

The thing is… (oh, why does there always have to be a thing?)… there is also an infestation of bark beetles… I think they are Japanese bark beetles, but I Googled it, and it turns out that there are a lot of types of bark beetle, and I can’t say for sure that these beetles are from Japan or somewhere else, but the point is, they are not native to the area, they were introduced by humans. I am going to assume this was not done on purpose. But these bugs are devastating the forests in Southern California…

I took this shot from the top of a hill on one of my hikes. You can clearly see the wide patches of dead trees across the mountain in the distance. I don’t know whether the beetles or the fires killed those trees, but it hardly seems to matter. Most of the fires are started by humans in one way or another. Come on, people. Let’s try to keep in mind that we are screwing up this planet in a multitude of ways, even if you are one of those people who think global warming is just a hoax. We are in charge of this place right now, and we still need to live here, so let’s keep it neat and clean like good stewards.

But all is not doom and gloom in these beautiful mountains…

There are still woodpeckers… even if they now have way less wood to peck…

And there are nuthatches, a name which I just can’t help finding delightful…

They can run up and down the sides of trees like nobody’s business, and are equally happy upside down.

There are lots of the adorable little mountain chickadees…

And there are the stellar jays, a loud, pushy, but beautiful crested blue bird that is fun to watch…

Okay, that is not a good photo for seeing the bird, what with him being all backlit, but I loved the way he was framed by those little branches. So I will put up one more picture so you can appreciate how lovely they are…

There are also wild turkeys running around all over California now. There didn’t used to be. I think people thought we needed turkeys here and just brought some in. Now they are everywhere. I have seen them walking down the street in front of my mom’s house in the Bay Area. And I spotted this mother and her three offspring not far from our trailer…

In fact, the campground and surrounding woods were crawling with turkeys. They are very cute and all, but I wonder what sort of problems these introduced birds are going to cause, some time in the future. We just can’t stop messing with the order of things, and mother nature does not like that at all.

Just in case you were thinking that taking a vacation for me meant taking a vacation from art, here is a little project we did on our trip, just for fun. We made tie dye shirts. Even my wife’s aunt and uncle each made a shirt, and they are not what you would call tie dye people…

Even if you never went to a Dead show, even if you think the whole idea is stupid, just bear this in the back of you mind…

It never hurts to bring a little color into the world.

Also, tie dye shirts are very useful. They do not show stains. So if you are ever going to enter an eating contest featuring food that comes slathered in barbecue sauce, or if you ever have to have your gums cleaned by a shaky dental assistant and you tend to bleed a lot, tie dye can be your friend.