Category Archives: nature

Last (late) report on wet spring

family, garden, nature, travel, water, winter


I’m in Maryland as I write, but I just have to post a couple of pictures of the California scened as it was just before my departure day.

It had been so cold that I was able to enjoy a fire in the wood stove on my birthday — a first! and so rainy, that the Iceland poppies and even ranunculus were always drooping their fragile petals under the weight of water.

Maybe this rainbow was a signal of the end of the rainiest season. It’s lucky I was the one driving the car when we saw it so I could make the decision to stop and shoot.


 

Even in the midst of rain the tulips I’d planted at church last fall seemed better able to hold their heads up. I had forgotten that I’d planted them which made them even more of a joy. They probably will be gone by the time I return, because the weather turned balmy.

Maryland weather also changed since last week. I couldn’t take as many neighborhood walks I was hoping for because we had “wintry mix” of rain, hail, sleet and snow. But on The Lord’s Day it turned, and in spite of thunderstorms last night the temps are in the 70’s today and we went for a long walk.

But to finish up my report of last month, I want to tell you about our new coffee press. We had an old black Bodum something like this; we’d had it for at least 15 years, but I banged it against the bottom of my new sink and broke the spout one night. B. ran over to Target and found a new one for about $20, and I didn’t complain about the fact that it was red and didn’t really go with my new kitchen. It would be in the cupboard most of the time anyway. A few days later B. broke the spout of the new red one ! and I steered us to a different Target where they had more colors, including orange, which fits in better. And now we will both treat our coffee press like fine china.

Monday is a school day for all the grandchildren here, which gives me some time to finish this blog post. I haven’t yet figured out if I can upload pictures to this computer, but there’s not much time left now before I go home, so if I make a report of my family visit here it will probably have to wait until then.

This modern phenomenon of being able to be in Blogland no matter what other spot on the globe one might occupy is really fun!



Pacific in Pacific Grove

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Seaside paintbrush

Counting my dear sons’ wives, which I very thankfully do, I now have five daughters. It’s sad to think how I spent several years complaining that I didn’t birth more children; during that time I never anticipated the familial wealth that in-laws can bring.

Point Lobos

In an effort to enjoy our family friendships we women spent a few months planning our first mother-daughter holiday. When continents stretch between, the grandchildren have pressing needs, and the young women pressing schedules, so it’s a tribute to our devotion that we even tried. In the end, only half of us, two daughters and I, were able to get together recently, on California’s Central Coast.

Seaside daisy

Pacific Grove was our home base. Every morning I woke with the feel of long-ago visits to my Aunt Margaret, whom I knew mostly in my teens. She lived in Carmel in a cream-colored house with white carpets, under a sky that was often white with fog or overcast, and the mood was so quiet. The sort of quiet that is filled with the sound of surf and the cry of sea gulls.

Our gathering of last week was a quiet group, too, in spite of our much talking, which I imagine was still on the low end of charts that might be made of all-women excursions, as we often stood in silent wonderment over our surroundings.

In our Keen boots — really, no one one had coordinated our foot attire, contrary to all appearances — we walked a lot, up and down the hills of Pacific Grove and Monterey and Carmel-by-the-Sea. And we looked at flowers and trees and birds and tried to identify them all.

Flower is California hedge nettle
ceanothus in Pacific Grove

On Point Lobos especially the sweet smell of ceanothus blooms was filling the air, along with the buzzing of bees who were crazy over it. We liked the challenge of photographing busy bees. They liked how the pollen was offering itself to them on vast fields of stamens.

Carrying great loads of pollen
Protea behind Cannery Row
Lucky for us that Mrs. Bread showed us a Protea in her garden our first afternoon, so that we could guess their identities when we kept seeing them everywhere from then on. The genus includes a huge variety of forms that are really striking. I came home to find that our bottlebrush tree is not a Protea, however. Proteas seem to have come originally from the southern hemisphere, but they definitely like growing on this patch of the globe.

Behind Cannery Row murals have been painted along the bike path, evoking the culture and history that John Steinbeck depicted in his books. I liked browsing this lane better than the touristy shops which carry, as Joy pointed out, all the same stuff from China that touristy shops all over the nation carry.

Oh, except maybe the otter dolls. I was expending so much mental energy drumming up buyer’s resistance that I didn’t even think about how I could have taken a picture of one. There were three stuffed toy versions of the captivating creatures that we watched lolling and playing in Monterey Bay, and I can’t find one online that is as cute, to post here.

fava plant in bloom
While in Monterey it was quite fun to revisit the Cooper-Molera House so soon after our last visit, but long enough that the plants were further along in spring, as this fava bean plant with its black-and-white blossoms. There were even little bean pods forming lower on the plant.
Another Protea
cistus
Pacific Grove is called Butterfly Town, because of the Monarch butterflies that migrate there every year. I’ve long had a vicarious and romantic attachment to the place thanks to the book by Leo Politi, and now it has become a direct relationship with the same feelings.
Updated adobe cottage in Pacific Grove

The weather we experienced was surprisingly mild in spite of frequent short showers of drizzle or light rain — but I might find it difficult to stay long where the sun doesn’t show itself often enough to keep the spirits up.

Flowers seem to glow more vividly under grey skies, though, and that makes up for the drear a little bit. People paint their houses in cheerful colors. And peace and quiet count for a lot.

The Pacific Ocean is not always peaceful, but it was fairly calm this week. The tsunami from Japan didn’t make a big wave here. You can’t see them, but two otters are playing in this picture. And peace and serenity and love were all playing some quiet music in our hearts.

Scouting Around

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It was great fun to follow little Scout around the yard for an hour while he explored his world. I took a slew of pictures trying to catch something of the Serious Scientist and Joyful Naturalist I was observing.

He is so good at walking on icy snow…I wonder how it feels to be so close to the surface and have a short toddly stride. Evidently pretty secure. Walking on snow was part of the adventure he was enjoying, and he never once slipped.

 

Scout is also an expert at recognizing a crabapple, even if it has lain under the snow for a few months and doesn’t look like its former self. He can get one into his mouth, avoiding the large piece of gravel that is also in his fist, and calmly remove the pit, enjoying what little “fruit” was left. I was a bit concerned when he picked up a specimen that had decomposed to an ugly state, but after squeezing it through his fingers for half a minute he rejected that one.

The main project of the hour was picking up stones, acorns, pine cones and sticks. He’s not yet at the age when sticks are preeminent, but he did carry a few for a while, which meant that his capacity for rocks was less.



But when he found the field of acorns, the sticks were dropped.The question is, how many acorns can fit in one little fist?

In spite of the sun, I’m sure his hands felt pretty cold after splashing in little puddles and patting ice, but he was oblivious to anything that would distract him from his Purpose.

However, Grandma did feel the chill, so we went inside and took a few acorns with us.

 

New Friends on the Way

history, mountains, nature, travel, trees, , ,
Heteromeles arbutifolia – toyon

On my way to visit Pippin, The Professor, and Scout last week I stopped to see some of my tree friends. The lovely bay tree was blooming, all tangled up with the madrone, whose berries were almost gone.

toyon with manzanita behind

Also in the jumble was the toyon, with slightly fresher berries. I read in Pippin’s tree book that toyon is the only species in its genus, and it grows only in California and Baja California. Though I’d been introduced to Mr. Toyon many times in the last 40 years, I didn’t seem to pay much attention to him. I think we’ll be friends now. On this occasion I had the time and Google to help me focus and learn more, and I also have a blog where I can find him again if my memory fails.

another view of toyon

I did see quite a few of my most beloved manzanitas as well. Manzanita means “little apple.” The botanical name arctostaphylos means “bear berry,” though of course other animals also feed on these fruits. The common name of some varieties is also bearberry.

Right now the bushes are in bloom (so is the one in my yard); I saw pink- and white-flowered variations. There are about 60 species total, and most of those are native to California, so it’s a hard one to pin down as to which species you are seeing.

manzanita

Many of the trees I saw on this outing are growing on the slopes of that volcanic mountain I told about before, Mt. Saint Helena, in Napa County. On the weekend scores of cars were parked at the trailhead for hikes up to the top. The spot is in Robert Louis Stevenson State Park, so named because the author and his wife honeymooned on this mountain in 1880. He went on to use it as the model for Spyglass Peak in Treasure Island. One New Year’s Day a decade ago our whole family made the trek up and got amazing views.

I left the forest and after driving a while longer I caught a glimpse of something off the highway that made me flip a U across three lanes to go back and take a second look. I was lucky there was a turnout right opposite the meadow where 20 elk were grazing!

Later The Professor told me that he had seen this herd of tule elk many times over the years, in this their winter home; it is the largest migratory elk herd in California. Tule elk are a subspecies of elk only half the size of Roosevelt elk, whose habitat is even more narrow than the toyon: they only live in California. I stumbled through the star thistles and got my socks full of prickles, trying to get as close as possible and watch them for a few minutes before they escaped.

On the way home I looked and looked for the spot where I’d pulled over three days before, but I couldn’t even find the turnout across from the meadow, much less see any animals. If I can get a view of the elk another time or two, I might put them in the category of friends, though they didn’t show any signs of wanting to get to know me. So far I’m content to thank God for this happy meeting.