Monthly Archives: September 2024

The mother and daughters of acorns.

poetry, trees, , , , , , , , ,

When I drove up into the mountains this month, it was through the area burned by the Creek Fire in 2020. The year following that devastation I’d also passed that way and shared a picture or two here. This time, four years later, I mostly noticed a couple of the plants are thriving in the changed landscape. Along the road scores of milkweeds were lined up, and lots of young oak trees. I didn’t manage to take a picture of a little oak, but I got close enough to the milkweeds to see two kinds of bright insects on them.

The oaks in this case were the daughters of acorns that sprouted soon after the tall canopy above them had burned off. I read that “…fire directly promotes the establishment of oak seedlings by reducing competing understory vegetation, releasing needed soil nutrients and reducing numerous pathogens.” source

I think the ones I saw might be black oaks, Quercus kelloggii; the photos I found online.

EPIGRAM 9.312

Refrain, sirrah, from cutting the oak,
the mother of acorns;
refrain,
and lay low the old stone-pine,
or the sea-pine,
or this rhamnus with many stems,
or the holly-oak,
or the dry arbutus.
Only keep thy axe far from the oak,
for our grannies tell us that
oaks were the first mothers.

-Diodorus Zonas, 1st century BC, Italy

Translated by William R. Paton, The Greek anthology, Vol III

Oak, by Ivan Shishkin,1865

In The Odyssey Homer refers to a legend that men were sprung from oaks or rocks,
e.g. “But tell me of your family, since you did not spring
from a tree or a stone as in the ancient tales.”
Homer’s Odyssey XIX.

Return from the heights.

cabin, mountains, trees, , , , , ,

I don’t think I’ve ever been so sad to leave my High Sierra retreat, to come down from a truly mountaintop experience — and return to too-muchness. It was my longest ever stay up there at our family’s cabin, and no one else with me for any of the ten days, though I did chat with several other owners of cabins in the little community when I met them on my walks. Many of them were  packing up their goods and closing their cabins until next summer.

The solitude was true, in the absence of my usual social interactions via blogging and such; I did without the “news” or even uplifting articles online. Authors of print books I did engage with while I read, and it felt good to sink deeply into those books, and to spend time on other contemplative activities. I liked to sit on the deck to read, with the sun at my back and a blanket on my lap.

There was enough housework to satisfy my love of housekeeping. I always put a lot of thought beforehand into what food to take along, because it needs to last the whole time; if something is missing I’d rather make do without it than drive what would end up being a three-hour round trip to the nearest town.

I knew that the provisions I brought would be more than plenty, but I didn’t try to plan menus beforehand, because when I’m only feeding myself that is too much trouble. Also, I’ve found from experience on camping trips espeically, that when my mind is freed of a hundred distracting bits of business, I like taking time over the Coleman stove or in the cabin kitchen to be creative with the limited ingredients on hand. One thing I made was Greek Roasted Lemon Potatoes.

My last day at the lake, I made a delicious soup to use up bits of vegetables and leftovers, and put most of it into the freezer compartment of our little propane refrigerator. That gave me two more mini-blocks of ice to help keep other perishables cold on the drive home.

I had brought supplies for times when creativity was lacking: like this mix I’d had in my cupboards at home for months, without opening it. In the cabin on a chilly morning, purple yam pancakes turned out to be just what I desired.

Up on the dome, I greeted my favorite familiar trees. I asked them to bless me to return another year to be with them once more. Every time I am up there I think, How can this be, that I am given such a priceless gift, to be in a remote and lofty place, having sweet and solitary fellowship with God and His sublime creatures and vistas? One of these visits will be the last one….

The weather had turned cold the night before my dome walk, with the temps dropping into the 20’s, but the sun broke through the clouds soon enough that I was able to linger a while and eat my lunch, though I wished for a wool layer under my sun hat.

At one steep place, I snugged into the granite slope more closely, and found myself a few inches away from this dense and furry black stuff that I guess is lichen…? Or is it a different thing from the flatter, blacker lichen under it? Maybe my daughter Pippin will jump in here and tell us — likely she already told me, and recently. It had a tiny yellow lichen growing in its middle. Imagine these rocks and lichens and succulents under a thick blanket of snow, all winter long…. but then they will be right there next year when I return, may it please God that I do.

A red surprise popped up.

my garden,
California poppies with Iceland poppies in foreground – April 2020

In spring, the California poppies (Eschscholzia californica) swamp the front of my garden, and after a few weeks of exulting in their glory I have to pull them all out and uncover the irises, salvia and other plants that I want to see. A few more weeks, and the poppies have sprouted new leaves and sometimes blooms as well. Here’s an example at left, from just now.

The classic orange color is dominant, so orange flowers keep appearing, and I remove them as much as possible, so that my favorite pale yellow ones can shine.

But this week in the back yard, far from any other poppies, close by the bulbine, I saw a new red one blooming on a little plant. I think I may have scattered seeds for red California poppies here last fall, and forgot about it. This one flower is encouraging me to do that again.