Tag Archives: conifers

Sisters +1 Jelly

birds, family, mountains, nature, trees, wildflowers, , , ,

GL P1020238What is proper footwear for a mountain cabin? My sisters and niece showed me how to dress properly, and even provided the gear.

I had a very full long weekend. Unfortunately it necessitated me driving two exhausting days for the sake of enjoying two layover days with family, at my sister Cairenn’s cabin that I was experiencing for the first time.

 

Good thing I had little I needed to do on my recovery day but look at photographs and write sentences to go with them. While I’m still in a grouchy mood I’ll get the bad parts of the excursion off my mind first. That way I can have pleasant pictures at the end and maybe go to bed feeling more elevated. But, okay, before we get to the bad parts, a beautiful jay. And a close-up of his blueness:

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Drought. Here in the lower elevations of the more southern Sierra Nevada, the lack of adequate snow and rainfall for several years in a row is evidenced by the sight of many dead trees. And on my way up the hill I saw Lake Success, which is at about 4% of its capacity.GL P1020490 Lake Success crpGL P1020397

Camp Nelson is a small community at a much lower elevation than our family cabin that is also in the Sierras. This town stays open all year, and the roads get plowed every day when it snows. The last many miles going in are so curvy, I got carsick even though I was driving. Of course that made the drive seem even longer.

I haven’t beenGL P1020435orig in the High(er) Sierra since July. Maybe the trees there are also yellowing and dying by now, but I suspect that these at the lower elevations and farther south are suffering more. At least one big tree on Cairenn’s lot needs to be removed safely before it comes down dangerously. It’s the one on the left in this photo with the peak of her cabin below.

In many cases it’s not the lack of water that kills the trees, but the bark beetle that does it. A USDA article explains: “Under normal conditions, trees produce enough resinous pitch to drown and ‘pitch out’ the beetles that attempt to enter. When trees are stressed they are unable to produce sufficient amounts of defensive pitch and the beetles are able to bore deep into the trunks of trees, eventually killing the tree.”

GL P1020394 Chamaebatia foliolosa mountain miseryOne plant that was a new discovery for me has always been disagreeable to my sister Nancy. When she first pointed it out to me on one of our several walks together around the village, I leaned up close and she cried, “Don’t touch it!”

She didn’t want me to be contaminated by its notoriously clinging odor. This wildflower in the rose family, called Bear Clover or Mountain Misery, is also not appreciated by most animals because of its smell. In the forest’s ecosystem it plays a complex role, as I read about in this article. It’s very drought-tolerant and recovers quickly from fire, too.GL P1020377

What else is super drought-tolerant? Our beloved manzanita. I took almost as many pictures of manzanita last weekend as of Steller’s jays. The ones in Camp Nelson get so tall! They all looked particularly healthy; I think they have the added protection of not being the sort of material the bark beetle prefers.

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In this picture on the right we have just discovered a manzanita seedling growing in the bank, and it is about to be transplanted by group effort to Cairenn’s lot.

We looked at trees a lot during our Sisters +1 Retreat. Those huge pine trees, Ponderosas and Jeffreys, are both found in this area. I have written about them before on my blog, but as often happens, the more you know the more you realize you don’t know…

 

 

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They resemble each other in so many ways. I hadn’t even heard before that the bark of one smells like vanilla; ah, but which one is it…? Both, as I read when I got home. The ones we sniffed did have that yummy scent.

I could tell by the way I was frequently lagging behind on these walks, that we didn’t have enough of a group mindset to do an intensive tree study, and anyway I’m not encouraged to spend a lot of time on the questions myself when I read that even experts have had to correct their identification errors.

GL P1020440 Camp Nelson wall art

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On our walks we saw donkeys and mules and deer. One evening we saw seventeen deer on the “meadow” that is a sort of town green.

And a bear track! I circled it in green below, looking something like a thumbless human handprint.

 

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As we relaxed at the cabin, eating, playing games, eating, reading and chatting, eating, the Steller’s jays and squirrels entertained us and kept me busy with my camera.

 

 

 

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After I took about a hundred pictures of the jays I got down to business and did some sewing. I sewed a button on to my fleece jacket, which I then hung on a hook and left at the cabin – ugh! GL P1020415

I worked on one of my patchwork potholders, and started to take apart a pillow that was made for Pippin by her grandmother 30 years ago. I hope to spiff it up and re-stuff it.

 

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I even did some coloring with my sister and my niece Jelly. The picture I chose to color was one of the simplest in the book, and it reminds me a little of the elderberry bushes that I have admired so often up in the mountains. I didn’t see any in this area, though.

 

 

 

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What I did see were mountain sunflowers and their seed heads.

 

Two days with dear people went by so fast… Next thing I knew, I was driving back GL P1020461down that curvy road, early enough in the morning to get some more nice pictures. I had been taking vitamin B6 for two days, and maybe that was why I didn’t get queasy on the descent.

Just a little lower down there were fewer conifers and more desert-y plants to be seen, and wildly painted rock cliffs to highlight their drama.

Below is another plant I didn’t take the time to research today. It looks like some kind of berry bush, growing out of a rock cleft.

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…and I have to admit that yes, its leaves do somewhat resemble those of manzanita. I guess I have a fondness for leathery gray-green Survivors.

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As I wound my way down, off to the south the morning light came over the ridges and fell on forests of manzanita bushes that spread in rough bands across the slopes.

GL P1020469The last mountain scene I captured was of more rock, with late penstemon blooming out of it. I was amazed, and honored.

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When I arrived on the flats of the southern Central Valley, I kept taking pictures, because of the olive trees. More gray-green and hardy specimens! Tall ones dwarfing the orange groves…P1020495 Pville olives crp

…and just a few blocks from my old high school, old gnarly and knobby ones like this:

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I was grateful for the chance to walk around in this grove, and the brief encounter was very satisfying. Just hanging around the trees must have given me the strength to soldier my way up the Interstate for the remaining hours that were required to get me home. I like being home.

Good night.

 

Up and Down the Mountain

friends, mountains, nature, quotes, wildflowers, , , , ,

Last week was the occasion of a blessed excursion to my family’s mountain cabin, and this time I shared the time with my dear friend Mrs. Bread.

I’ve blogged about the cabin and lake before, here and here. The last two years I went mostly for time alone with God in His Creation. This time I enjoyed plenty of that experience, plus deepening of friendship, and working on improving or maintaining the house and property. Now that my father has passed, I am part owner of this place, and I happily but more intensely feel the responsibility to do my part, though I’m afraid I’ll never match the hardworking devotion of my siblings who live closer; some of them can dash up just for the day if they need to.

Here I am painting the threshold and doorjamb against the elements of winter. One year–or maybe more than one–the whole cabin was buried in snow, just a lump in the white landscape.

The drive took me ten hours, what with a leisurely detour to pick up Mrs. Bread on the way. So we stayed four nights so as to have three whole days for taking pictures, cooking, reading together, cleaning, admiring giant boulders and listening to the silence of the forest.
How can it be so awe-fully quiet? There are birds flitting and chipmunks scampering, breezes blowing and even the occasional chain saw in the village. But the earth feels peacefully serene up there, weighted with quiet, heavy with a silence that speaks of God’s presence. I seem to soak up contentedness and rest.

I needed the rest, as I had come down with a cough and cold in the two days before. The altitude gave me a headache the first night, and we both suffered from the reduced oxygen, our legs uncooperative and slow when we dragged back up the hill after a walk down to the lake.

It’s the High Sierra, and up there the mornings start out below freezing this time of year, making you want to lie abed and watch the sky lighten out the window. By midday it can be sunburning hot out on the deck, so we sat in the shade of the umbrella to peruse the several tree guides that have found their way to the cabin’s bookshelf.

At first we limited ourselves to studying the general shapes and angles of branches, focusing in on the cones with binoculars. Eventually we walked among the trees below the cabin and noticed where cones had fallen underneath their mother trees.

The pines in the neighborhood are mostly Lodgepole, as illustrated by the picture here. But to be truthful, it took Pippin’s later confirmation of that suspicion to make me believe it.

As we walked together marveling at the various beautiful flowers, berries, and stones, Mrs. Bread said, “These little trees grab at my heart!” See why I love her?

  

What a lot can be seen in this photograph, taken from outside the picture window, while I was sitting at the table inside writing a letter to a grandson. You can see the kitchen behind me, and the lake reflected behind Mrs. Bread’s reflection.

I like having these pictures of myself at the lake, something besides the ones of my feet that I took last year when solitary. Thanks, my friend!

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These three trees stood out from the pines with their trunks shown off by the granite slabs.  Mr. Glad thinks they might be red cedars.

The first morning at the cabin I read in the Psalter, “For Thou hast said: Mercy shall be built up for ever,” (Ps. 88) and was musing about the image that phrase conjured in my mind, of an edifice being constructed. And why not the image of towers of clouds, that often rain down showers of blessing? From now on, when I see cloud skyscrapers rising fast, piling layer upon layer, I will think of the way God’s mercies do the same, every morning.

Someone brought this small remembrance of our father up to put on the bedroom wall. If you click on it a couple of times you can read the labels. I love seeing my father’s handwriting, which didn’t change in all the years since this collection was made when he was in college.

Mrs. Bread helped me firm up my resolve to try really hard to come up to this beloved place more next year. It’s not available for very long, though: This week shutters will be put up, water turned off, chimney covered, to mention only a few of the many tasks to protect the house from blizzards–and if we can get through the snow to open it up before the first of July we’ll be happy.

I’ve never been up more than twice in a summer; I wonder if I really do have the liberty to even dream of spending a week, or visiting twice or three times. I’ll pray for a miracle, and wait to see how the Lord chooses to pile up His mercies next year.

Meadow and Trees

family, nature, travel, , ,

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?