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Category Archives: nature
“The earth is filled with Thy creation…”
My neighborhood is full of beauty, too much to truly see – I’m not big enough to take it all in. When I go down a different street or path, and even on the same old route, I always find some bit of leaf or flower so exquisite I can’t comprehend it.
This little rose is on an overgrown and untended bush with hundreds of others, a block from my house, and when I get to within ten feet of them they come right at me with their enthusiastic olfactory greetings, giving themselves to me and saying, “Love us!” I do. I almost weep over them.
A few streets over, I met some beauties who were less assertive,
but made me think that a wedding was about to happen.
Last of the whites, my close neighbor Vera’s roses
are the whipped cream on the wedding cake:
I think this rose is a Double Delight. It was a double delight in any case:
And lastly, a pittosporum in bloom. They smell like orange blossoms!
I’m hopelessly in love.
Walking with aromatics.
The first scent I noticed on my walk this morning was from the mown weeds, drying up and exuding the remembrance of new-mown hay, which I rarely encounter in my life these days.
There were conifers whose oils were being drawn by the warm sun into the air I breathed… and I forgot for a moment that I wasn’t camping in the redwoods with my family, walking on a duff-y path with gigantic trees towering on either side.
Just on the other side of the creek from the “hay,” was the soccer field with its green and rich scent I used to get once or twice a week, as I stood on the sidelines watching my children run kicking down that lush lawn.
And there were flowers hanging over from the back yards, honeysuckle and potato vine, and other flowering vines, all heady-sweet and making me wonder why I should ever think dessert was anything to satisfy.
I’m leaving this honeysuckle photo large because there seems to be a tiny long-winged fly hanging on to one yellow part right in the middle. Do you see it, too?
The most familiar aromatic of my walk must be the oaks, because they are ubiquitous in all the places in California that I have ever lived. I think these are live oaks, with their thorny leaves that cling to any concrete patio, etc. that you are trying to sweep them from.
I think those two pictures above, taken of two different trees, are both live oaks, but one has much more concave leaves than the other.
The last classic aromatic plant I passed before I left the path was roses, the little climbing pink and white ones that spill over the fence and pull me off the path to sniff them or take their pictures again and again. This morning I resolved to come back later with my shears — it’s only three blocks — to cut a few for the house.
“Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice…”
My weeds, massacred.
Two days ago I saw a mallow blooming along my path and I thought it was so pretty, I planned to post the picture I snapped as soon as I got home. I guess I snapped too hurriedly, because I didn’t get a good picture, and yesterday I didn’t get back there to try again.
This morning was foggy and then cloudy, which would make it easier for me to get a good image, but I as I put off my walk for one thing and another I started to worry that the sun would beat me to the spot. Eventually I set off, walking fast and looking up at the sky as I went, where indeed the sunshine was about to break through.
Soon I forgot all about the lighting, when I turned on to the path to see — decimation!
Clearly my city’s maintenance workers are confident about what is a weed: anything growing in a 3-6 foot swath along the bike paths is Unwanted and deserving of execution at any moment.
This is the spot where Common Mallow had come into its bloom:
I will post the picture I took in case I don’t get another:
My eyes were peeled looking for a mallow that might have escaped the mower and I found one:
I also went down by the creek to get closer to some cow parsnip to see if it actually was that, and saw lots of lush and wild plants who are safe for now… at least, until someone decides to dredge the creek!
That mix includes a kind of horsetail reed, probably Equisetum hyemale. I have another species in my garden, which I don’t have time to tell about right now, because I need to actually go into the garden and work, and pull up some of my kind of Equisetum, which I am considering a weed in some places, and in other places, an ornamental plant. 🙂
I noticed those plants above because I had taken a short-cut home, being somewhat disheartened by the ruin of my usual fields of research, and that led me past a less familiar stretch of the creek. [Update: The vine above I’m pretty sure is a wild cucumber or Marah, which is in the gourd family.]
Mowing is the thing to do this week, it seems. My neighbor Ray died a couple of years ago but someone is still “taking care of” his house, it seems. I don’t think it looks better than it did before they mowed the weeds he left behind, but I understand: now that our rainy season is over, all of these weeds will turn into crispy dry Fuel for wildfires, and after last fall’s devastation, people are duly careful.
Many weed portraits were added to my files in the last weeks while the plants were enthusiastically obeying their calling, and which I will use to continue my botanical, etymological and philosophical studies of weeds. So never fear! Weeds will return to Gladsome Lights, and I have no doubt they will also return to the borders of my walking paths.
Gladsome Lights 