Tag Archives: neighborhood

To the creek and back home.

my garden, nature, , ,

Four days in a row I’ve taken a walk along the creek path. During the two or three months previous, while I was working hard in the garden, traveling, or concentrating on other various things, I could not seem to do this most leisurely and beneficial thing for  myself. Well, I’m starting again. Autumn seems to be good for new beginnings, in my case.

The top photo shows you how green and grassy and leafy much of the creekside scenery is, but leaves are turning in a few places, such as on this grapevine coming through the fence from someone’s backyard:

And a few trees with yellow leaves are letting them fall now, too. Some are silver maples, I found that out from my Seek app.

When I get back to my place at the end of these walks, I now have several new plantings to look over as I go up the front walk, like the Swiss chard and other greens, which I’ve gotten smart and planted in the front yard, because that’s where all the sun is:

In the back garden I did get the new manzanita planted, and the succulents replaced around it. I cleaned up the pine needles that had been making a thicker and thicker blanket on the plants in that area, and finished just before dark, when it was not good lighting for a picture. The wind came that night and brought down more pine needles, which I have yet to clean up. So I’ll show you McMinn (my name for the new bush, a “Howard McMinn” subspecies) another time. Here is one of the darling new succulents that I added there. I did pull the needles off of that one.

The weather has been unusually warm even for California. It was 80 degrees yesterday. But rain is coming again and will cool things off. It remains to be seen whether I will venture forth in the rain the way I did last year. Every day’s a new day… Will I find new ways to keep good habits? Maybe, with God’s help.

Another tree I have known.

nature, trees, , ,
November 2015

This morning I got out into the fresh fresh, rain washed air, still damp and loaded with nourishment from a mysterious and secret recipe, and I walked to and along the creek, and heard an unfamiliar and curious bird song. I wasn’t prepared for that, not having my phone and its Merlin bird app with me — I was trying to be a little bit un-modern.

I heard several bird songs, as it turned out, and saw a flurry of tiny birds on the paved path, scurrying under the privets. There was to be no sunshine today, but I still felt the pull of the reality, “Light of Light, True God of True God,” my own Source of Life.

I looked forward to a lunch date in a short while, so I couldn’t explore as long as I’d have liked; I turned back, along my usual route, past the pineapple guava that I have known and noticed for as long as I can remember. Many huge fruits were on the ground, much larger than anything mine ever produces… probably because it gets full sun all day long. I bent over to pick up one that hadn’t been bruised, but it was hard. Odd, that it hadn’t ripened….  and then I saw, a few feet away, the horror: the whole tree had been hacked to the ground, and I became aware of a large empty space above me.

Construction workers — or was it a demolition crew? — were in the driveway of the property on which the tree had lived, modestly, on the very corner of the lot, where it was not in the way of anything. Maybe a new owner was starting Something New. There the Modern attitude hit me where it had hit the feijoa, the idea we have of thinking that the best way is, Cut it all down and start over.

I looked through my old posts just now for a picture of that tall bush. I had mentioned it several times, but never took its picture. The owner of the property did not live in the house on that property, I learned that much some years ago. I also know that he never appreciated the guava for what it was; he always pruned it at exactly the wrong time, so that it rarely had a chance to show how many fruits all that sunshine could have sweetened to lusciousness.

I did love that tree. A few times I gathered a few of its fruits off the ground, and once my grandson and I picked its blooms to take home and add to our breakfast. I wonder if anyone else in the neighborhood will notice its absence?

Evening explorations with grasses.

nature, trees, , , , , , , ,

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.

This walk required two pair of boots.

beauty, nature, wildflowers, , , , , , , , , ,
mallow

This evening I made it out for a walk, which turned into two walks, because of something new I saw on my usual route. I stopped at the bridge to look down at the seasonal creek that is getting low… and up at all the bushes and trees growing out of it. Every few years the city maintenance crew dredges out these waterways, but right now everything is growing lush and thick.

The willows are the tallest plant that grows down there, and buckeyes are numerous. What was that I saw climbing up in the tallest willow bushes? White flowers… if I only had a better camera, or even binoculars… I pointed my Seek app at the flowers and it said Lady Banks’ Rose. Even as poorly as I could make them out, that didn’t seem right.

The roses were growing in the area in the middle of the creek bed, between two creeks right where they join to become one. I thought I would try to go down closer to the water where there is a jumble of unpaved dry-season paths that some people run on with their dogs, and a few children explore. Also there is a sloping cement driveway of sorts for the maintenance vehicles, that is submerged in the winter. Two paved creekside paths also meet at the bridge. But when I got to the place where I would cross the southern stream to get to that middle area, the rocks were covered with algae, and it all seemed too muddy and messy for me to attempt while wearing my new boots.

So I came home and looked up Lady Banks Roses. They did not at all resemble what I’d seen; I guess they were too distant for Seek to make out. The bright idea occurred to me: Why not change into my old boots that I was thinking of giving away, and go back? Why not, indeed?

lemon balm

When I arrived at the crossing place again I had to squish through the mud and the algae, but with only a few steps I was over, and my old boots were mostly waterproofed and barely noticed.

watercress

My, what a lot of plants in that mid-creek jungle! Once before I walked down there, but it was in September when everything starts drying up. The roses today were growing in the middle of the willows, honeysuckle, horsetail grass, fennel and bedstraw.

Watercress, Greater Plantain, and Bermuda Grass

Many of the plants are naturalized from backyard escapees. The Bermuda grass for sure, and the lemon balm, and the roses. Wild blackberry brambles snagged my clothes and grabbed at my hair, but I managed to feel my way with my feet along the edge of the creek that was hidden by bullrushes, right up close to the flowers I wanted to see better.

When Seek could assess the image better it identified it as Rosa multiflora or Rosa polyantha, a native of eastern Asia. It also told me I’d observed it two years ago near my daughter Pippin’s place in the farther north part of the state. These roses were to me the prettiest thing in all that jungle.

It really made my day to make this little excursion and discover who they were, and to meet as well many of their companions in the creek. I think I’ll hold on to my old boots.