Tag Archives: larkspur

Eat a picnic, kick a puffball.

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We all drove to the closest Giant Sequoia Redwood grove for a picnic among those mighty trees.

Bigelow’s Sneezeweed

On the way, I showed the family the place where my favorite patch of Sneezeweed can always be found, though I’m rarely able to see them at the peak of bloom as they are right now.

In the redwood grove as well, more flowers were in bloom midsummer than in September when I often come.

Western Azalea

Most, like the wintergreen and Violet Draperia, were past their prime, but I was still excited to encounter the plants at this stage when they are saying in color, “Look here!”

Violet Draperia

If I would ever make it up in June, I might see the dogwoods when they are beginning to bloom —

Pacific Dogwood

Though most of their petals are browned and fallen, the graceful lines of trunk and limbs are as elegant as ever. The gooseberry and currant bushes are loaded but the berries are not ready to eat.

Rigo patiently counted 242 tree rings:

Back at the cabin, we like to throw seeds off the deck for the chipmunks and Golden Mantled Ground Squirrels. Then the boys spent time looking under currant bushes for the critters’ hole. Raj came across a puffball under the deck, and never having seen one before, instinctively thought it was some kind of strange ball, and kicked it.

From the deck above, I heard his surprised voice saying, “Something’s wrong… there’s a problem — Grandma, please come down here!”

When I saw what had happened I explained to him about how it works with this kind of fungus; we arranged the unripe pieces to show that it’s a Sculpted Puffball.

Rigo thought that one of his Pokémon cards had blown off the deck, so while Kate and I were hunting around for that, and I was keeping an eye open for more puffballs, suddenly a bird flew up at my feet and revealed this nest in the grass:

As I’m writing the story next morning, I went out to look down at the nest; I had pushed a couple of sticks in the ground on either side to keep us from stepping on it. It looks like the mother bird is still sitting on her clutch of pretty eggs. [Update: I think they might be the eggs of a Dark-Eyed Junco.]

Breaking news: A few hours later, a baby bird has hatched!

Deadfall Meadows

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I’m currently staying at my daughter Pippin’s place in far-northern California. Her family lives at about 4,000 ft., but my first day here we took a drive and then a hike that brought us near Mt. Eddy and to an elevation over 7,000 ft., at Deadfall Meadows.

The meadows stretch up the mountain around Deadfall Creek, which fills Upper, Middle and Lower Deadfall Lakes. Thousands of butterflies seemed to be accompanying us through those meadows; we especially were taken with the small pale lavender-blue ones that gave the impression of flower petals fluttering in the breeze.

Actual wildflowers were even more abundant. I am sharing here fewer than half of the ones that we admired and usually tried to identify, or confirm the identity of.

Larkspur

Scarlet Gilia

Blue-eyed Grass

Bigelow’s Sneezeweed

As we hiked I was only using my phone to take pictures or use the Seek app, and I never checked the time. We had left the house before 9:00 and when we got back to the car with our hiking all done, it was after 4:00, which was to me completely shocking.

Jamie in particular felt the length of the day; he always says that he doesn’t mind hiking, it’s his legs that do not like it. He’s seven years old and is amazingly chipper even when droopy, or lying down on the trail.

Our goal was the largest Deadfall Lake, the Middle one. We sat on the shore for an hour eating our snacky lunch and cooling our feet.

A water snake streaked out from the rocks in the direction of my feet, but when he got a few inches away and had a good look, it took him a split second to shift into reverse and swim back into his hiding place. After poking his head out and looking at the more beautiful members of the family, he posed briefly for Pippin and eventually left the area altogether for deeper waters.

White Marsh Marigold

Some people ride horseback on this trail, and muck it up into mudholes in the many places where the path crosses the creek. On our way back down scores of little butterflies were drinking at the mud.

The pale lavender-blue ones are likely blues, coppers or hairstreaks. There are more than six dozen species in those three categories in California, so Pippin read to me when we later tried to narrow down the identity of the particular ones that day. We had to wait until the end of the trail to get a good view, when Ivy was given permission to catch a butterfly while it was focused on its refreshment.

Not long after our encounter with the drinking butteries, we were back at the parking lot and driving home. We had only hiked about three miles, but at our mostly meandering rate necessitated by those with cameras and short legs, and much trekking uphill, it had taken most of the day — a beautifully satisfying day.

Seep Monkeyflower