Category Archives: nature

The boon of a boy with the pox

family, food and cooking, my garden, nature, , , , , ,
Feeding the neighborhood cat

All the planets were in formation for me to have a blessed weekend. First, grandson Scout came down with the chicken pox. Second, his parents needed to attend a wedding and to travel through our part of the state to get there. Third, I had no obligations I couldn’t get out of. So he stayed with us for three nights! This was only a few days after we’d returned from that trip to his house over the Memorial Day weekend.

Though we have eight other grandchildren, this is the first time we’ve had entire responsibility for any of them this long. I was really busy with the little guy, and it was very satisfying.

His pox weren’t bothering him much, which made it possible for us to just have a good time. After the first full day he was here, I was so high I was ready to write a glowing blog post about the experience as soon as he went to bed. I put it off, and at the end of the second day I was exhausted and couldn’t relate to that woman of the previous day or remember the feeling. It’s a mercy he sleeps long at night so I could too.

That first day I was in the Mom groove — it reminded me at least a little of when I was a youngish mother 30 years ago with a lot to get done every day, little children underfoot and needing something every few minutes. You learn to make the most of every five-minute snatch of time when they are occupied, and you figure out how to get tasks done with them alongside and “helping.”

Scout’s very favorite activity at our place is watching the Kreepy Krauly pool sweep when it comes on for 2 hours every morning. I didn’t want to find out if he would be happy doing that for entire time it runs, because I needed to be right next to him inside the pool fence. I was indulgent to an hour’s worth, which was nerve-wracking enough.

Eventually I figured out that I could prune a few rose branches or sweep the fence while we were in there. Scout helped me dig weeds, too, when he wasn’t trotting from one side of the pool to the other following the machine, talking about it or to it, “Heh-woh, Kweepy!” I think I came closer to falling into the pool than he did, more than once.

Two of the three days he was here were unusually warm, even into the evenings, which made it possible for us to spend a lot of time outdoors. A big dishpan and the hose would have been enough to occupy him, but I also brought out the play stove his grandpa had made about 30 years ago, and some plastic tea dishes. He set to work making “chicken noodle soup,” or so he said.

One of the ways one makes use of the minutes when caring for a little one is to explore together — watch bugs, smell roses, and notice how the hose water feels on the toes.

Scout is a talker and asks the name of every flower he sees. I was able to satisfy him about most of the ones growing in our yard, and a few in the neighborhood. When we got back from one our walks he put his nosegay into a little pot.

None of our grandchildren lives close enough to us that we can see them frequently. For the present, Scout is the closest, and five hours isn’t very close. Maybe the arrival of his little brother or sister late this summer will give us the impetus to make the drive more often.

I’m ready to put in more Grandma Time!

Frilled Shasta Daisy

 

Maui Diary – 10 On the Bottom

Maui, nature, smells, travel, ,
All the books said that without an off-road vehicle, you should not make a loop around the island by driving all the way along “the bottom” of Maui. But permanent residents said it was o.k., so we did it! I was so happy for the chance to at least minimally explore this wide-open space, where little traffic is.
Mr. Glad needed a snack, however, before we would set out on the most lonely stretch of that road, and we found one of the famous Hana fruit stands on our route, a sort of Last Chance Saloon with yummy coffee and yet another new fruit find to give us a boost for the journey.
canistel or eggfruit

I bought mangoes, and an eggfruit, a.k.a. canistel. And while my husband sipped his coffee I snapped pictures of the garden and farm in back, and mentioned to the girl working there, “A friend told me before we came that Maui is a paradise — and he was right.”

“A lot of people say that,” she responded. “What do you mean by ‘paradise’?” We then had a philosophical and literary conversation about the books she has been reading, the Ringing Cedars series, in which the protagonist has ideas about creating paradise on earth, as I understood.


It was a rare sort of encounter for me, in which I find a stranger who wants to engage on topics of mutual interest, at a time when I also have the energy. I hated to leave her, and I took some more photos of the garden and farm behind the humble storefront.

This begonia resembled one I used to have in my house in California — but that one never bloomed….

 

 

Then we were on our way. The problems with the road are two: a stretch of several miles that is unpaved, and many miles of one-lane paved road. I was the driver for this trip, and I found the unpaved sections pretty easy. There were potholes, but the road was wide enough to maneuver around them.

 

 

 

 

 

For a while at the outset rain poured down and we kept the wipers going, but when it stopped we were quick to open the windows and let the ultra-fresh air blow through.

The breeze carried a mysterious and new fragrance, certainly the breathings of that wild coast’s unique set of botanicals.

 

 

Even the eroded lowest slopes of Haleakala Volcano on our right seemed to me the most beautiful sight, while I was getting that kind of air in my lungs.

 

 

 

On the left side of the road, we looked down on the beach, empty of humanity.

 

 

Once I stopped to get a closer whiff of this plant — but on its own at least it didn’t smell much.
 

Mr. Glad discovered a rainbow behind us, and I let him do the honors of capturing that extra blessing of our adventure. Lacking a scratch-and-sniff feature on my computer, or any kind of words that can do justice to this stretch of coastline, I’ll let it be The End of this day’s diary of Maui.

I smell roses and bake cookies

family, food and cooking, nature, other gardens, travel, , , , ,

When Mr. Glad and I drove north to visit some of our children and grandchildren last week, I didn’t expect to bring home anything to blog about. After all, I have posted plenty of pictures of these places before, and we weren’t planning any outings beyond the immediate neighborhoods.

BUT we hadn’t seen this part of the country at exactly this time of year, and nature with all its surprises called out from every direction, “Look at me! Have you ever seen anything like this before?” No, I’m sure I hadn’t!

We stayed at Pippin’s homestead and were shown around by Scout who rarely tires of exploring and at the same time chatting with himself and/or whoever is around about every discovery.

Some things we took notice of together were the birches in the back yard, and what I think was a moth working the lilacs. I took a long movie of the whirring creature but in it his wings are still moving too fast to see clearly.

The Squaw Carpet I’d seen at other seasons of the year was in bloom this time. It was covered with pine needles, in the forest just outside the back yard.


Bright Walls of Water are protecting the tomatoes from frost, a prudent precaution since it snowed here as recently as the day before we arrived.

 

In the front yard next to the road I found this lovely vine blooming. I had never seen one before, but a little research tells me that it’s a pink honeysuckle.

For Memorial Day we drove farther north to Pathfinder’s home in southern Oregon. Right now they are having an unofficial flower show all over town, featuring rhododendrons and roses.

Mardi Gras

My favorite was in their back yard, a prolific yellow rose with the sweetest scent. I wanted to set my chair up close and drink deeply.

Golden Celebration

Something like a broom ground cover was definitely more constant in its brilliance than the sun was that partly cloudy day.
Back at the cousins’ place, there was a wealth of (also yellow) equipment to work with, and a dog to peek in on.

The big kids were playing with Scout, or playing a card game with Uncle Professor, or watching some grown-up boys practice their knot-tying. We grown-up girls kept the food bowls full and did a fair amount of rose-smelling. I was introduced to Annie’s new doll Elizabeth (for whom I have not yet sewn any clothes).

I had made some cookies for the occasion (recipe below), which got scarfed up during the appetizer course. That was a good thing, because Auntie Iris had prepared a dessert finale for our event that included brownies, and an ice-cream cake designed to please the littlest member of the family.

All present seemed to love these cookies that Pippin planned and I baked, with a little Scoutish help. I remembered just in time to take a picture, when all but four had been eaten.

Chewy Lemon Cookies

about 4 dozen

1 cup (salted) butter, softened
1 3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
4-5 teaspoons lemon zest
4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoons baking soda
3 cups all-purpose flour
about 1 cup powdered sugar for rolling

Cream butter and sugar until light. Add vanilla, egg, zest and juice and beat well again. Mix in all the dry ingredients except the powdered sugar. 

Put the powdered sugar in a bowl. Break off heaping-teaspoon-size pieces of the dough and roll into balls, then roll the balls in the powdered sugar and place on lightly-greased baking sheets. They will be flattish. 

Bake at 350° for 10-11 minutes, until starting to brown on the bottom edges. If you use insulated cookie sheets they may not brown very much but they should still be chewy. Cool on racks.

 

Maui Diary 9 – Bamboo Forest

Maui, nature, smells, travel, water, ,

I hadn’t read up on the hike to Waimoku Falls, so until we entered the middle stretch of the trail I was unaware that a bamboo forest was even in my future. Just after we passed the giant banyan tree we started to notice the bamboo; at first the growth was not too imposing, and sunlight shined through.

The green walls became thicker and higher as we walked on, and the individual stalks larger in diameter, blocking out the light.

Depending on the soil and climate, the species of bamboo and the age of the rhizome clump, the stems of this grass can be narrow or wide, but they always emerge from the ground at their full thickness.

The growing season is only three or four months long, at the end of which the the stalks have reached their full height, and begin to harden. In five to eight years they decay from fungal and mold growth and die.

The darkest and dankest part of the trail was also the smelliest. Being more of a monoculture than the rain forest of the Pacific Northwest, it had nothing like the delicious aroma I drank in when visiting there. I tried hard to make a place in the olfactory regions of my brain where I could enjoy the aroma of rotting bamboo in deep layers, but I finally gave up. Because I didn’t like that odor, I also didn’t care about finding descriptors.

Signs along the trail told me it wasn’t a true monoculture. Not even counting the small and microscopic plants that were probably growing somewhere, an occasional red-orange flower on the ground revealed that an African Tulip Tree was blooming prodigiously up closer to the sky where I couldn’t see.

When I saw a knobby tree trunk beside the trail, the contrast was such a relief I spent quite a while trying to capture it.

And as we neared the falls, the canopy opened up enough again to reveal a wealth of other tropical plants.

The trail we hiked was in the southern area of Haleakala National Park, a large territory that also includes the summit of Haleakala Volcano, where we had visited at sunrise just a few days previous. Two fingers of parkland extend to the ocean on the south of Maui, and we were climbing within one of those fingers.

When we arrived at the 400′ high Waimoku Falls my powers of concentration were challenged. I think that it’s because waterfalls are constantly moving that they are impossible to focus on in the manner that my slow mind prefers. I get restless.

So I looked around and found an African tulip blossom that had worked itself into a streamside niche and a picture reminiscent of Andy Goldsworthy. It held its position long enough for me to think about it and become attached to it. So glad to have a camera.

Then we walked back through the bamboo, feeling as though we were on another planet. We wouldn’t have been surprised if a giant panda had dropped down on the path ahead. But soon we’d come to the end of our strange tunnel and within an hour I was at the wheel of the car guiding it along the loop that would wind back to our home base.