Category Archives: nature

Meadow and Trees

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When I went to the northernmost reaches of California to deliver the quilt I wrote about in my last post, I was able to hang around a while afterward and get a tour of the house my daughter recently bought with her husband. The outdoor setting and my nature walk are the subject of this post.

Living in suburbia as we have for nearly 20 years, I’ve noticed that trees more often than not are a problem, because they are too big for the small spaces allotted to them. But this property had plenty of space for trees to grow for 30 years, into their majesty. In the center of the photo above is a Douglas Fir with a cave-like space underneath where I told Pippin I could envision children playing.

It’s like a park, what with the forest next door, and the tall trees nearer the house. Here is a Blue Spruce.

The house was unoccupied for more than a year, but the deer included the yard in the territory they considered home. This fellow is one of a family of the critters that live here, whom the new owners call Spike.

Spike and his kin watched as The People moved some pots into a sunny spot in the back yard, and a few weeks later they watched some fruits get big. One day they ate all the topmost barely-pink tomatoes.

The People made a wider fence so that hungry animals couldn’t reach the next fruits that ripened, and in the middle of September two of the Belgian heirloom variety called Ananis Noir, or Black Pineapple, were finally ready.

 

I was on hand to enjoy their really good flavor!

There are some outbuildings on the property, such as this one that is begging for some chickens or goats to move in.

And “next door” is a huge meadow, where I rambled with Pippin, my nature girl. We went through some forest on the way. I hope you will come along on our exploration.

 

 

This is the fence through which we trespassed.
In our yard at home we have a pine tree that always looks dry and scraggly, so I was immediately impressed with the robust green needles on this Ponderosa Pine.


My guide let me know that it is hard to tell a Ponderosa from a Jeffrey Pine, they are such close cousins. But the barbs on the Ponderosa cone point outward and prick you when you hold it. The Jeffrey cones slant inward.

 

 

 

The forest floor is dense with needles and cones. Is that a blue jay feather I see on the left?
All over the woods were little piles where squirrels had made a meal of the Ponderosa cones and left the remains.

Sugar Pines are spindly, but their cones are bigger, like this.

We came out of the trees to see the expanse of meadow, with clouds blocking our view of the peaks. It looks pretty monotonous, doesn’t it? But there were a thousand different plants waiting to be discovered by a patient eye.
The ground under our feet felt odd. I looked down and saw this. The floor of the meadow is spongy, with a papery crust–the dried-up bog that makes walking out there difficult for most of the year.

Yarrow is one of those plants that blends in with the general golden tones of a California summer.

This looks like a member of the pea family.
The darker swath through this part of the meadow is where a stream ran in the wet season.


I guessed by the distinctive minty smell that this was a type of pennyroyal.

A tiny yellow flower seen only by God and us.

This plant below with tall purple blooms Pippin had never seen before. I hadn’t either, but that is more to be expected.

When I first glanced down at this plant, I thought of wild strawberry. But upon closer inspection, it didn’t have that kind of leaf.

My daughter knew that it was actually a type of ceanothus called Squaw Carpet. As I was taking these pictures, the drizzle was becoming rain, and we were headed back.

Less tame animals come around their place. This bear scat was fresh when they first saw it near the house, not long after the bear had gorged on manzanita berries.

Incense Cedars grow in the neighborhood. This little fruit is all the cone they make. But they aren’t true cedars.

Douglas Firs make these cones with “rattails” sticking out. But they aren’t true firs.

I’m happy that among the imposters stand trees that are true to their name, like this fir. See how its needles stand upright? True firs, and not the Douglas kind, make good Christmas trees.
Remember my first picture, of the tree branches arching over a cozy den? Spike was resting there later, and didn’t mind me taking his picture. I wonder who will next be enjoying that spot, his grandchildren or mine?

Beach Season

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It’s beach season here. Other than late summer and fall, the beaches are too cold and/or windy, and in early summer too foggy, to be reliably enjoyable. At no time of year is the water very warm: the ocean current flows from the north, which makes it chillier than on the coast of Norway, its beaches benefiting from water coming the other direction.

When we drove out to the beach for a birthday party the roadways were thick with Queen Anne’s Lace. If I’d been alone I’d have been very late for the party from stopping to take pictures. One guest brought a stem of it.

Of course, flowers love to grow at the beach cottage, too, and the young girls love to make bouquets.

After eating we walked down to the beach.
Years ago our friends released some domestic geese into the lagoon and we think it is their descendants who mingle with the indigenous fowl.

 

The young folks were playing a game
something like the Dr. Pepper of my grammar school days.

This rascally boy had something to do with his sister getting wet and annoyed.

He was with us and made it a lovely day.

Three New Wildflowers

mountains, nature, travel, wildflowers,
Scarlet Gilia

The last decade of my life has been intense with wildflowers. I tried, before that, to learn some of their names, mostly from my husband, and from nature centers in the forests that we camped in with the children. It seemed too expensive to buy wildflower guides, and the only time I would think of it was on vacation.

Then daughter Pippin turned into a naturalist. Then she got a camera, and we had computers, and wowie, Let the Learning Begin! I now have such a collection of (mostly) her pictures on my computer, taken wherever she may go, but mostly in California. Several times I have been where there were many flowers, and when my husband would let me stop and look at them, so I am learning more.

This summer was a treasury of flowers, and I actually did learn the names of more than three, but to keep this post short I will just tell you about the three that stumped Pippin and me. I looked in six wildflower guides, she looked I don’t know where, and we couldn’t figure them out. My friend Di put me in touch with her friends who live near Yosemite, visit there nearly weekly, and are cataloging the flowers in the park. They knew right away what these three were, so I give credit to them, and when they come out with a book I’ll let you know.

My picture doesn’t do justice to this plant that makes a soft lavender haze along the roadway, breaking the monotony of green trees and and grey pavement. Somehow from your car the impression and depth of color are more intense, though pastel. As you may remember, I called it purple haze or lavender mist. I just saw it last week in the more southern Sierras.

 

Sierra Vinegarweed

I sent this photo to my experts, and they told me it is Lessingia leptoclada. Wife Expert said that if she were naming flowers she would call it Lavender Groundsmoke. See? we think alike! But the common name, I discovered, is actually Sierra Vinegarweed. Not so appealing.

Sierra primrose

Mr. Glad was the discoverer of this flower on his hike up Clouds Rest in Yosemite. My Experts said it is rare in Yosemite and is Primula suffrutescens or Sierra Primrose. They had just “searched it out” and found it themselves two days before he did, on Polly Dome.

Scarlet Gilia

 

About this bright one they said, “Another favorite of ours…Ipomopsis agregata ssp. bridgesii, Scarlet Gilia (it used to be Gilia aggregata), also called Skyrocket, in the Phlox family. We see it every year along Tioga Road, and it was especially abundant this year.” It’s another one that makes a swath of color along the highway, as in the picture at top.

There you have it, a taste of my beginner’s nature studies.

Mountain Retreat

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I’m off to the mountains again this week. Two years ago I made my first solitary retreat in this remote destination, with some fear at the outset about being alone where there is no phone, and few people around. But the fear was gone the moment I walked through the cabin door and the reality of God’s presence came freshly on me. Why had I been talking about being alone up there, when it was really God and I together for a few days? And it did end up being best kind of retreat and rejuvenation of the spirit, by the Holy Spirit.

Perhaps this time I will spend more time at night looking at the stars. That other outing it was late September and almost too cold for it at that high elevation. There are none of men’s lights to interfere; I’ll put on my glasses and lie on my back on the deck. I remember how the sight of those uncountable stars filled me with awe for God, and with God Himself, so much that I couldn’t bear it for long.

Maybe I was unconsciously “thinking” ahead when I posted that poem and thoughts about night recently. I’ve been looking forward to the time for reading and prayer, and now that I start writing I’m reminded to anticipate the joy of the dark and starry night as well.

Our civilization has fallen out of touch with night.
With lights, we drive the holiness and beauty of night back to the forests and the sea;
the little villages, the crossroads even, will have none of it.
Are modern folk, perhaps, afraid of night?
Do they fear that vast serenity, the mystery of infinite space,
the austerity of stars?
–Henry Beston


But back to the bookish part of the opportunity. The process of preparing for the trip by choosing my reading material (and even the food to bring, I might add) is a sort of pre-retreat. I know I won’t be able to fully mine any of the treasure-troves that this list represents, but if I left one at home, it would surely be the one I’d want to dip into, right? In addition to a couple of the history or literature books from on my sidebar list, I’m taking these spiritually meaty ones.

Books for a Mountain Getaway:
Orthodox Dogmatic Theology by Michael Pomazansky
The Inner Kingdom by Kallistos Ware
Little Russian Philokalia Vol. 1 by St. Seraphim
Courage to Pray by Anthony Bloom
On Prayer by Archimandrite Sophrony

Well, I’m going on my adventure, and pray God will bring me home to tell about it. If not, you’ll all know that it really was unbearably glorious!