Category Archives: cabin

From the mountains to the bay.

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Our last day together at the cabin, Kate’s family and I took a walk to “Gumdrop Dome” in the morning. This is the walk I do every time I visit, not trying to climb to the top anymore, but picking my way around on its “shoulders” and feeling exhilarated from a combination of the exercise, sun, pine-scented air, and expansive views.

I very much  wanted to introduce my grandsons to my favorite tree. When I mentioned my tree “friend” to them beforehand they asked what its name was — of course a friend would have a name, right? But I hadn’t thought to name it. So I said they could help me choose a name after they were introduced.

Prickly Hawkweed

It took longer than expected for the whole expedition, because as we walked through an empty campground on the way, we met the campground host who loved to talk, and then his two “surprise rescue,” exuberant pups. That was fun, but eventually we started our ascent, which was slow and deliberate going as we adults cautioned the children about the gravel and the steep slopes. I avoided the trickiest gravel-strewn expanses of granite, and led our group into the manzanita ground cover higher up on the back of that hunk of rock, where we admired the lichens and flowers as we headed for the small dome to the side, which is easy to climb.

Then I found my friend, which is actually two trees intertwined, a Sierra Juniper and a pine. It/they were christened “Double Hug,” seeing as the two are in a forever embrace by means of large roots lying next to each other, and even their branches tangled together. We hugged the trees, and posed on the bench formed by those hugging arms.

Below, I am exclaiming over a little tree that, having been bent down by snow as a sapling, is growing sideways along the rock.

I don’t remember the last time I was with other humans on The Dome — it was a nice change, to have them along  to “ooh” and “aah” with me. Tom also had never been up at the lake at all, and Kate not since she was a teen, so they were truly thrilled to be there.

In the afternoon we went to the lake for a canoe outing. The previous day, a neighbor had helped Tom and Kate get the very heavy boat out from under the cabin deck and on to his truck, to haul it down for the season. This day I rode down with the four of their family in their car to help them clean out the canoe, and I took pictures as they pushed off and paddled away.

Then I began walking up the hill back to the cabin, a hike that can be done in ten minutes, but this time it took me one and a half hours, because I meandered and wandered and explored the woods and ditches along the way looking at the many beautiful plants, and also watching a mated pair of birds hopping back and forth on the road in front of me. They were Pine Grosbeaks. This is what the male looks like, from an internet photo, because mine were from too far away. That was definitely a new sighting for me, and combined with the junco nest, very encouraging, because other than Steller’s Jays, I rarely see birds up there. Maybe in my usual visiting month of September the birds are already gone to lower elevations.

Some of the (mostly yellow) plants and insects I admired and/or identified by the roadside are below:

Pretty Face or Golden Brodiaea
Yellow Velvet Beetle on Ranger’s Buttons
Woodbeauty

I met on the road a mother and daughter whose cabin is not far from ours, and the daughter told me that one of our hugging trees on the dome is a Sierra Juniper, Juniperus occidentalis. I had thought it was some kind of cedar tree, but when I researched it later I realized that it is indeed a Sierra Juniper. True cedars are not native to the Sierra Nevada, though one conifer typically called “cedar” does grow there, the Incense Cedar (Calocedrus decurrens).

Lodgepole and Red Fir

The sad, sad day arrived, when we must pack up, clean up, and load up our cars, to caravan down to the valley and back to my house — but our vacation had not ended, only changed locations…

Soon Uncle “Pathfinder” had arrived to spend a day and a night, and we all headed out to the coast, to Tomales Bay, for a short walk through the entirely different biome. The sky was mostly cloudy and overcast, which is common in the summer.

In many places the paths were narrow tunnels through thickets of live oak and coyote brush, tall grass, fennel — and the dreaded poison oak reaching out threateningly. The boys’ uncle was a wise counselor who gently reminded them again and again to keep an eye out for those clusters of three leaves, often red and often shiny, so that they could squeeze by without their bare arms touching.

Pennyroyal marks where winter streams ran.

But mostly we walked through more open places with dry grass spreading away from the trail and far into the distance. I am actually on a path in this picture below. Kate had read a tick warning and no one wanted to venture into the foliage very much.

Pathfinder joined me in noticing various plants and talking about what they might be. He demonstrated to the nephews how the fennel fronds are pretty tasty for munching on, and he knew this flower that I didn’t, the Twinberry Honeysuckle:

Twinberry Honeysuckle

Raj and Rigo were hopeful of reaching the shore of Tomales Bay and getting their hands at least into the water, but every time we drew near, the ground turned out to be too boggy, and no one, including them, wanted them to sink into the mud, and who knew how far one might sink and stick into it.

So we continued looping around on the paths, going on faith that they would eventually lead us back to the parking lot…

At left Pathfinder is looking at the Rattlesnake Grass, Briza maxima, which is not native here but has certainly naturalized and grows “everywhere.” It is native to areas of Africa, Asia and Europe. Do you have it where you live? I didn’t get a good picture this time, partly because it was not a good stand of the stuff, and most of the “rattles” were very short. You can click on the link to see the Wikipedia photo.

Related to the Golden Brodiaea I had seen at the lake, is the Elegant Brodiaea in its much drier habitat near the sea:

Ocean Spray
Orange Bush Monkeyflower

This forbidding plant has the agreeable name of Coastal Button Celery:

Coastal Onion

 

Oregon Gumplant
The pennyroyal was extravagant.

Oh, it smelled so good out there, among all that dry grass with the fennel and pennyroyal and other species continuing to dry up under our noses, where their essential oil droplets could be breathed into our lungs. I wished there were a bench to sit on… but there wasn’t, and anyway, we had places to go, things to do.

When we got back in the car we drove up the Coast Highway, Highway 1, and found the oysters Tom was longing for at Nick’s Cove. We didn’t order any of their special fries, but we noted on the menu that they came with a sprinkling of — chopped wild fennel!

It had been a most wonderful outing, and the final one of this visit with my dear children. This morning they will all have departed to their homes, and we’ll continue our adventures separately. It has been a very special couple of weeks, filling my gladness cup to overflowing. Thank you, Lord.

Boys fish, hunt and climb.

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Kate and her family joined me at the cabin yesterday, and we’ve already packed in a lot of fun. This afternoon Kate and Tom introduced the boys, whom I nicknamed Raj and Rigo at their births, to fishing.

The boys also climbed around on the granite boulders near the shore, and after discovering tangled messes of used fishing line and candy wrappers, they began to enthusiastically hunt down every piece of trash they could find, crawling into crevices and scrambling up and down to score just one more item, to get the lake shore a tiny bit cleaner.

I identified a new buttercup I hadn’t met before, and saw again the lovely Pearly Everlasting, which in July has just opened the flowers that will continue to look nice for several more weeks.

Later after dinner, while they drank hot cocoa, I read to Raj and Rigo the story of Jack and the Fallen Giants, a recent retelling of the traditional tale by Jonathan Pageau. It has beautiful and evocative illustrations by Eloise Scherrer, and thought provoking elements such as riddles: “What has more weight, heaven or earth?”

In this telling, Jack is frequently famished and worn out, but he perseveres and climbs higher and higher every time, and receives bursts of strength that give him renewed zeal.

I think that whether they realized it or not, my grandboys could relate to Jack’s exertions because of all the tasks they’d accomplished for themselves this afternoon. In any case, in spite of a cliffhanger ending, we had a good time reading that story.

Boy adventures to be continued!

I ascend through goldenrod and grasses.

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My journey to the mountains took me more than eight hours, owing to the search for a fruit stand on the way. I followed several Google leads to popular stores where I might pick up peaches and a watermelon and other items close to the farm, just before leaving California’s gloriously productive Central Valley. This project led me out of my way and brought me to destinations along county highways with nary a turnout where I could imagine a fruit stand ever having existed.

In frustration and great disappointment I resigned myself to having to buy the produce at the last good grocery store further along my way in the lower mountains. But I prayed as I headed back toward the correct route, “Maybe, Lord, you could lead me to a fruit stand that Google doesn’t know about.”

And there, “in the middle of nowhere,” south of Madera in an area called Trigo on the map, I saw the sign that read, “PEACHES APRICOTS CORN” — It was a real place, not a mirage, a tiny outpost with a nice lady who helped me load my box of treasures into the car. I’m certain that as my happiness turned into enthusiasm and then extravagance, I bought way too much for Kate’s family and me to eat — I will probably need to make a pie or soup up here to use it all.

Then, as drove off and headed up through the sandy blond, hay colored foothills, baking under the midday sun, I calmed down and fully entered the experience of the rising elevation and of leaving that everyday world behind. No need for a map, because I know the way.

After the expanse of golden hills comes the area where orchards of date palms grow, and then the miles of oak forests, after which the climb gets steeper, and the foliage denser. There are the elderberries in bloom, waving their flowers in the breeze, and huge bushes of lupines growing on the banks and reaching out with loaded purple stems.

The goldenrod is spreading its gold across the meadows, and a certain elegant grass grows alongside. The Grand Mountain Dandelion is at its puffiest, and smaller puffs on the wild buckwheats refuse to pose for a photo but prefer dancing in the wind.

In spite of my dawdling along the way to say hello to these old friends, I made it to the lake and the cabin well before dark and was welcomed by my sister and her husband.

I slept very well, they went home this afternoon, and tomorrow the rest of my group will arrive. I’m in the High Sierra and feel on top of the world.

Return from the heights.

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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.