Tag Archives: creek

A season soft and warm.

smells, summer, weather, , , ,

I am so thankful that a week and more of warm days has been bestowed on us here at the end of Summer. You can tell I love this season best, if you just look at all the posts over the years that have summer in the title. I am always searching my mind and and heart to find a way to describe what happens to me, when in the final weeks we often get the best of the season — the earth has warmed up, and for some reason the marine breezes don’t move in every afternoon and force us to put on our sweaters.

I’ve been taking advantage of this unusual situation as much as possible, and sitting in the garden to read my book, or just to soak up the feeling of being comfortable. I’m noticing.

(Not soft but stickery.)

When I walked along the nearby creek this week, I remembered another benefit of living in this climate with no summer rain, often for four months or more. The plants that thrive or survive the yearly drought eventually come to the end of their productive season, and if there is heat at this time, it draws out the essences such that I am grabbed by the aromas as I walk past. There is a lot of jammy scent right now, from the Himalayan blackberries that grow wild all over northern California; the ones that never fully ripened back in high summer are now dehydrating on their stems.

And the ubiquitous fennel, also growing wild, though it’s also not native. These exude a licorice flavor into the air about now.

According to the forecast, we’ll have another ten days of highs in the 80’s and even 90’s. I think that is just the best way to transition into October.

Gleanings from an evening walk.

nature, , , , ,

When Ivy and Jamie were here they got me back into the habit of an evening walk. Depending on how much time we had before dark, or how much energy remained for Grandma after the day’s events, we might just go to the bridge over the creek and back, ten minutes. Or we might do a half hour’s walk, farther on from there.

Wedged between twigs and the trunk of the live oak above, Ivy found a smooth and flattish oval rock. She brought it home and painted a frog on it, and placed it back where she’d found it. A day later it had been taken, so she next wrote a friendly note to the taker and managed to place it between the twigs. The note had been moved when I looked tonight, and now it’s likely to get blown down. She had leaned out precariously over the bridge to place her items in the first place, where I can’t reach, so I’m of no use in pursuing further written communications with other bridge-walkers.

Since the children went home, I’ve walked every evening by myself. Today dusk was early, because of it being a mostly cloudy day. No frogs were croaking in the creek, and few birds were to be heard. A towhee, the distant cawing of a crow, and few finches by the side of the path.

We’re coming into the season when the wild Himalayan blackberries get ripe, and they grow all along the creek and the path. Actually most of them never ripen, but this evening I found a few sweet and juicy ones  hiding in the back of a patch. One of them is in the photo, just before I plucked it. Dessert!

Along my street the neighbor’s bank of star jasmine is in full bloom, and it is exuding its heavy sweetness — too much for some people, and not a plant you want to have by your front door, because of the bees that will scare your guests. But it’s nice to catch a whiff when walking by.

Star Jasmine

And I passed the home of Deanna, whose door I bravely knocked on a couple of years ago to introduce myself and ask if I might have some of her dozens of summer squashes growing and becoming overgrown right by the sidewalk. She gladly gave me a few (already overgrown ones), but I never asked again. Last week I saw her outside when we were walking by, and she told me to come and pick from the current crop anytime. So tonight I did. I just twisted this little crookneck until it broke off.

These bike paths in my town that follow the course of the creeks typically back up to fenced back yards of neighborhoods on the other side. Growing through those fences are a great variety of not-so-wild plants: roses, trumpet vines, honeysuckle; for years branches of a fig tree hung over the path, from which I picked several figs, before it evidently got pruned back. Tonight I broke off a stem of honeysuckle to stick in my buttonhole, and breathed in its sweetness all the way home.

Little shining water.

nature, , ,
A favorite eucalyptus tree.

Yesterday my godmother called, suggesting that we go for coffee or a walk. What a nice idea! I knew I needed the walk, and didn’t need the coffee, so she came over, and we ambled along my usual path, but farther than I’ve been going lately. That gave me the oomph to go again this afternoon, on a Sunday of all days, when typically I need a nap more, and rarely get that…

It’s been a week or more since the rains, I can’t keep track, and the creek has quieted down to a silver ribbon. Actually I walk along two different creeks, and cross the bridge where they merge.

The tender fennel ferns are popping out greenly.

Evening explorations with grasses.

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In the summer it’s relatively easy to take a walk after dinner, if I put my mind to it. The last two evenings I did manage to do my 30-minute creek path walk; for some reason it doesn’t feel like a chore at that time of day. There was plenty of light, and time to stop to look at interesting plants. But first I paused on the bridge and looked over… It’s always amazing how much plant matter grows up in springtime and early summer and fills the channel so that it’s hard to see the water down below:

Harding Grass and Queen Anne’s Lace
Harding Grass

During my visit to Greece last month, I really enjoyed the exploratory nature of all the walking I did, in a place where so much was going on, and ancient history was confronting me around every corner. Since I returned it’s been hard to get back into walking along my old home ways, just to be walking. But this evening I did a little exploring, too, of the botanical sort, using the Seek app on my phone. Usually it can’t identify grasses, but this time it confidently told me about two of them.

First the Harding Grass, Phalaris aquatica. You can see it blowing around the Queen Anne’s Lace in the picture above, the breeze making it very hard to get a crisp picture of the seed heads waving on their slender four-foot stalks.

Then I noticed the way the blue grass was contrasting with the same white flowers. Seek says that is Creeping Wild Rye or Leymus triticoides:

Creeping Wild Rye and Queen Anne’s Lace

I noticed lots of young black walnut trees growing on the banks of the stream, and on my way back I met a big tree growing out of the creek bed and way taller than the bridge. Surely I’d learned what it was before? But evidently not — Seek told me it’s a Box Elder, and I read later that they do like wet areas, and grow fast. Maybe it’s California Box Elder. I wonder, when the city’s maintenance crew dredges the creek this year or next, if they will take out such a big tree?

Box Elder

I meant to write about my discoveries earlier, and go to bed at a reasonable time, but I started researching small drought-tolerant trees suitable for a garden like mine. I’ll have more to tell you about why I need such a thing. For now I’m content to have become further acquainted with two plants, reaching the stage of knowing their names. I will count the Box Elder as a new tree friend, and fall asleep late, but happy.