Monthly Archives: May 2015

We’re looking and making words.

poetry, ,

This poem reminds me of the effect Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood had on me the first time I read it. Her noticing of so many details in the history and geography and biographies of her life made me realize that I’d had just as fascinating a childhood. From then on I began to look around with a new eye.

Looking Around, Believing

How strange that we can begin at any time.
With two feet we get down the street.
With a hand we undo the rose.
With an eye we lift up the peach tree
And hold it up to the wind — white blossoms
At our feet. Like today. I started
In the yard with my daughter,
With my wife poking at a potted geranium,
And now I am walking down the street,
Amazed that the sun is only so high,
Just over the roof, and a child
Is singing through a rolled newspaper
And a terrier is leaping like a flea
And at the bakery I pass, a palm,
Like a suctioning starfish, is pressed
To the window. We’re keeping busy —
This way, that way, we’re making shadows
Where sunlight was, making words
Where there was only noise in the trees.

by Gary Soto

dry but so alive

nature, wildflowers, , , , , ,

Annadel park 5-22-15

Thanks to the encouragement of my friend Eleanor, I went outside my usual walking realm this morning on a trail she suggested, and with her along to make sure I didn’t get lost.

fb sticky monkey flwr
sticky monkey flower

 

She and I had enjoyed walking together a couple of times, say, ten years ago? but then our lives got busy with expanding family. Now that I don’t have Mr. Glad for a walking companion, various friends with whom I’ve had ongoing and indefinite plans to walk or hike will find me easier to pin down to a date.

We went up into those hills from which streams run down – but we didn’t get near any wet areas this time. The hills had their typical summer parched look, but lots of wildflowers were scattered over the landscape, and the oaks and bay trees had green leaves.   gl annadel lichen on branch 5-15

fb poison oak
oaks safe and dangerous

The poison oak was profuse. This picture shows the leaves with three leaflets of the toxic plant Toxicodendron diversilobum alongside some other oak sprout in the foreground, the “regular” oak having four leaves and a coarser form.

Poison oak is often, but not always, glossy, and it sometimes has these pretty colors, but the easiest way to identify it — except when is leafless in winter — is by the clusters of three oak leaves.   gl sticky monkey rocks tree Annadel

brodiaea elegans

 

So strange and dramatic to see a densely bright, perfect bloom rising above the pale and crispy grass. Even its name is a contrast to the setting.     fb P1000179 I was shocked when the names of three flowers came to my mind right while I was looking at them! I guess after dozens of instances of entering the same data into my brain, a synapse is finally ignited? I only had to think for half a minute to remember Mariposa Lily and Elegant Brodiaea when we came upon them.

manzanita
manzanita

This is a park where I’ve hiked many times, but not much lately. Maybe now that I’ve been reintroduced to its system of trails I might return on my own.

fb mariposa lily
Mariposa Lily

 

 

But I’m afraid this may be the last I’ll see of the spring wildflowers.

The nature of my neighborhood.

nature, , , , ,

bike path cb rose 5-15 On the paths that crisscross my neighborhood, there are wild things down by the creek, and tame things that hang over the back yard fences. This Cécile Brunner rose was a welcome sight; I stopped for a spell to pull a branch down to my face and sniff. We removed our own C.B. not long ago so I’m thankful to share this one, glad the owner doesn’t mind, or doesn’t notice, it trailing in a friendly way over the fence.

bike path new redwood 5-15
Coast Redwood

 

 

I’m trying to try, to resist my sedentary ways and go for more walks in the neighborhood, just normal brisk walks — or slower if my camera is along — of the sort humans have liked to do in many times and places, before the days when so many of us had gym memberships.

bike path bridge 5-15

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After passing by several tall Coast Redwood trees with bright new needles, about five minutes from my house I come to a bridge across the creek. It crosses right where two creeks come together, right in the middle of town.

bike path low road by creek 5-15

From the bridge there’s a view of the unpaved path closer to the creek, where you can walk free of bicycle and stroller traffic.

bike path potato vn 5-15

 

Roses, honeysuckle, figs and potato vine hang over the fences at various points.

This fig tree used to dangle its fruit lower down where I could actually eat some in season, but now it’s too tall.

 

bike path fig against sky 5-15

Where the path intersects a major road I like to look down from another bridge to see this lush growth in the creek bed. After the creek bed dries up in the middle of summer, the fennel and blackberries and willows will still be making it green down there, and eucalyptus trees will hang over the paths for shade.

bike path down into ck from sl

When I turn around and cross to the east side of that road, I can look up toward the hills that are the source of those creeks. On this morning the fog was staying late up there, so you can’t see the tops of the hills.

Sn Ln view overcast 5-15

But in this next picture you can see the line of trees revealing where one creek runs down.

Sn Lane creek view 5-15

Sn Ln giant rose 5-15

 

 

There’s a giant old rosebush at the edge of the field, which makes some lovely blooms in spite of being neglected by men.

 

 

Sn Ln giant rose bush indiv 5-15

bike path salsify May 15
salsify

I’ve seen two varieties of salsify along the path this spring — or at least two colors. A mountain woman friend of mine used to dig salsify roots to cook for a vegetable, but I never think about that plant until the flowers are blooming, at which point I’m pretty sure the roots would be tough.

My walking loop brings me past the neighborhood school and park, where our children used to climb these redwood trees — no mean feat — in the days before the city started trimming off the lower branches.

bike path morning May 15

And then I’m passing by that first bridge again, and almost home. If I haven’t stopped to take too many pictures, it’s only taken me an hour.

bike path lavender vine 5-15

Flying high.

family, nature, water, , , , ,

30 vineyards and trees About twenty years ago my son and son-in-law were both learning to fly airplanes, and after they were qualified they offered at different times to take me up flying with them. I declined, I think because there was usually someone else more eager on whatever day they asked, when I didn’t feel relaxed enough to appreciate the experience.P1000035 Russian R

 

Yesterday when that same son-in-law Nate was here helping me with electronics stuff, he offered to fly me over to the coast, and I didn’t hesitate to say yes. I have all kinds of disposable time these days and in this case the time was available on a day when I was also in a happy and calm mood.

We flew over vineyards and trees, and along the Russian River as it flows to the ocean.

 

 

At the mouth of the river is Jenner-by-the-Sea.

48 at Jenner

flying ocean Jenner 5-15

P1000056 Hwy 1

 

It was a mild and lovely day, with some clouds. At times we bumped over crests of waves, waves of air that followed the contours of the hills.

And we flew along Highway 1 for a few miles, as it twists back and forth above the cliffs. In a plane, switchbacks were not necessary.

Just inland the Copper Mountain Mandala Buddhist retreat center was spread out over the hills in all its glittering and elaborate glory.

 

66 retreat center 7 w ocean

Nate didn’t have an extra headset so that we could talk to each other; I wore some hearing protectors I used to put on in the days when Mr. Glad’s drum practice was going on downstairs. So my pilot and I mostly rode along in a comfortable silence, unless I wanted to lift one side of my headgear and lean close to him to try to communicate above the loud hum of the propellers.

Nate said he was flying at about 150 miles per hour on his way over to my house earlier in the day; I don’t know how fast we were moving on this tour. I had no sense of time up there — every moment did seem precious, as the scenes passed behind us so quickly, and it was only a half hour, so I’m told, before we were floating down over the runway again and had landed with a soft bump.

Knowing that we are suffering drought, you might wonder at all the green in my pictures. We have been blessed by some late rains, as recently as three days ago. In another month or two, there will be more brown and gold tones mixed in.

On the theme of water I will leave you with a last picture, of Lake Sonoma, a source of water for cities and agriculture, created in the 80’s from the building of Warm Springs Dam on Dry Creek. Obviously the creek is not always Dry. Our North Bay counties are beautiful even in drought, but I’m happy as can be that I was given an aerial view just at this season, in a moist springtime.

76 Lk Sonoma