Category Archives: nature

Angora and Virginia

friends, nature, travel, , , , ,

They sound as though they might be sisters, but really they are only linked by being part of an outing Mr. Glad and I had this week, up to Lake Tahoe to stay with our friends Mr. and Mrs. C. at their cabin. I took hardly any pictures — too conscious of my backlog of unsorted photos at home — and now regret it, because there are things worth sharing. So I found some pictures online to supplement my words.

The wild horses were the first thing that made me want photos. We saw them at the end of the day in Virginia City, Nevada, through the window of the (I hesitate to tell you) Bucket of Blood Saloon.

We were the only customers on the day after Labor Day, so we had the best table, with a view down the hill to the lower parts of town and a panorama of the mostly sage-green slopes. About a dozen horses grazed a few blocks lower down, and colts reared up to play-fight with each other, then prance off.

I knew that herds of mustangs still roam in the West, but I only learned today that “The historic Virginia Range herd, over 1,400 strong, can be found living wild and free between Virginia City, Reno, Dayton and Carson City.” It comprises half of the wild horses in the nation. Getting a glimpse of this little group made for a highlight of the day for me.

We did a lot of browsing in shops, where I bought a dance skirt, and a bag of Sugar Babies for old time’s sake. Boy, were they a disappointment. Certainly it is the recipe and not my memory that has failed. The lovely way the candy coating would melt into crystals is not to be experienced anymore. Corn syrup does not equal sugar, for one thing.

The next day our hosts introduced us to their family favorite Place to Go When at Tahoe: Angora Lake, or more precisely, Upper Angora Lake. These lakes gave their name to the Angora Fire that destroyed so much property here in 2007, on record as one of the top ten most costly fires in U.S. history. We approached the lake on a glacial moraine ridge, tree-lined Fallen Leaf Lake on our right and acres of burned-out forest on our left.

Looking south over the Angora Fire area (GJ photo)

After we reached the parking lot for the lake, we hiked another mile before reaching the lake and the sweet resort that sits next to it.

On one side of the bowl a wall of granite rises up, not too sheer, with plenty of ledges and crevices from which to high-jump into the deep waters. Mr. Glad was the only one of us who swam, but we ladies waded for quite a while and wiggled our toes in the fine granite gravel.

From top: Tahoe, Fallen Leaf, Lower and Upper Angora
Upper Angora Lake Beach

The mister rented one of those rowboats in the photo so that he and I could enjoy a lazy time rowing around the lake and examining the lichens and berries that grow on or out of the granite cliff; we all spent a good while sitting in the sunshine when it got through the afternoon mountain clouds, reading our books, and watching chipmunks scurry around.

Sulfur Flower, sage, and Mr. G

On the way back I took my own photos, so among other things you can see my view as our little excursion, and our mini-vacation, drew to a close. You can’t see what a contented vacationer I was; you have to use your imagination for that.

Funny Wasp Thing

music, nature, ,

The wasp approached in the afternoon as I was sitting on a leafy patio listening to my companions’ leisurely conversation. He quickly got down to business and stung the back of my knee. I don’t recall ever having been stung by a wasp before, so I didn’t know what to expect, having seen and heard of extreme reactions.

I decided to go inside the restaurant and ask for some ice to put on the spot, to calm things down, and when I got back I explained what happened. Nearly all the people sipping drinks under the umbrellas were nurses or doctors, so they wanted to be sure I was o.k., but after I assured them that the ice was working fine, we went on talking about other things in the world.

Yellow Jacket

But I haven’t got to the funny part. On the drive home I had to leave off icing that still-stinging place, and it did start hurting again; the heat was spreading and stabbing a little, too. I’ll just have to take some Benadryl when I get home, I thought.

I switched on the radio in the middle of “The Flight of the Bumblebee,” but perhaps because it was not exactly a bee that had got me, I didn’t think anything of it. At the end of that piece, the announcer said that after that he felt he really must play “The Wasp Overture” by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

I couldn’t believe my good fortune — or what was surely a little medicine custom-formulated by God. The remedy seemed to work, because by the time I got back to my town, the site of the sting was not swollen or painful anymore, and there was only a little red dot where that (probably) yellow jacket had attacked. Mr. Glad called it a musical form of homeopathy: like cures like.

I didn’t even take the whole remedy, because the overture was still playing when I had to turn of the engine and go inside. It was a beautiful piece, more evocative of the lovely aspects of a summer afternoon than the wicked wasp himself — that is, what I noticed of it.

Mostly I was amazed, as I listened, that anyone would compose music with that title, and that I was hearing it for the first time after my recent insect encounter. Since then I’ve learned that it was written for a production of Aristophanes’ play The Wasps, and is a fairly popular piece. But at the time all I could think was, Could Vaughan Williams have written such a thing if he’d ever known a wasp the way I did that day?

California Mountains – Snow in Springtime

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Spring was a happening thing in the high Sierra. Last winter extended well into June, and on at least one date that month the snowpack was the highest on record. This means that at the end of July when we were there, quite a bit of snow was still melting.

Leopard Lily

From our trailhead at nearly 10,000 feet, we only ascended another 1,000 feet or so, but the difference in the flora was notable. Higher up, the flowers and shrubs were still in bud; the snow hadn’t been gone long.

Willow buds
Mountain Pennyroyal in bud

 


The violent weight of snow had deformed this cluster of trees in such a symmetric way as to be artistic.

 

Spearhead Lake

 

Rosy Sedum with Buttercups

At the highest elevations, every lovely bloom seems like a miracle, when you consider how much of the year the plants are just roots or seeds under the snow, how quickly they are required to respond to the light and warmth and come into their glory.

In some places they were sprouting out of a puddle where snow had likely been lying a few days previous, like in this low place I had to hop over to reach a spot overlooking Long Lake. You can see Mr. G. in the distance ready to spread out our picnic of cheese and crackers.

Around us and at our feet hot pink penstemon was making for a brilliant contrast with the midnight blue water and the granite rocks.

 

Spiders, Perfume, and Hot Lips

my garden, nature, trees


Technically it is summer, and we do have days above 80°. The summer squash and Blue Lakes are producing, and we even picked a Persimmon orange tomato, so I shouldn’t complain. But it’s a good year to notice features of the garden other than vegetables.

The manzanita was peeling magnificently a short while back and we stared with unbelief at its ability to hold on to the peeled bark with some kind of magical glue.
fennel between manzanita and snowball

It’s in the part of the yard where over a year ago I planted a tiny fennel bush that has now grown into a mighty giant. Spiders have taken over that end of the garden this summer and they really like building webby bridges from the fennel to the manzanita and over to the rhododendron and the pine tree.

…also to the snowball bush, and back to the fence, and including the wisteria, and….if Mr. Glad hadn’t taken the broom to a dozen squatters yesterday I’m afraid they’d have wrapped it all up and out of my reach for good.

This morning I got entangled in the sticky threads just going through the door to take more photos in the mist. The red sedum is in bloom, and one of the two types of rose geranium that share a pot in the middle of the patio where we are sure to bump the leaves frequently and release that heavenly scent.

The hybrid verbena lived all through the winter, and the New Zealand Spinach self-sowed abundantly, so they make lush neighbors to the summer squash at the other end of the yard.

In the Spring I planted a new salvia, called Hot Lips, if I remember right. Each little flower is a half-inch across. 

Do they make you think of a kiss? Well, then, I send them to you as a greeting on this summer’s day.