Tag Archives: Russian River

From seals to snapdragons.

my garden, ocean, , , , , , , , , , ,

On Saturday I drove my out-of-town friend to the coast. We have several times made this trip when she is visiting her family for Thanksgiving. The weather was forecast to be sunny all day, which we received as a wonderful gift, though we are used to fog out there at any time of the year.

When we arrived it was truly a gorgeous day. No wind, and plenty of sunshine and blue skies. The long road to the parking lot next to the beach was closed to cars, with no explanatory signage. Maybe it was because of the king tides still happening, which make these already dangerous beaches even more so. But we were allowed to walk down, which just gave us more good exercise coming back, so that was okay.

Only about two dozen harbor seals were lying by the mouth of the Russian River. But throngs of gulls were coming and going above us, and then making a racket as they swam in huge flotillas of white specks on the river, the whole scene sparkling.

Suddenly, the fog arrived! Unexpected, but not surprising.
That’s how it goes on the North Coast.

After watching the seals and gulls for a while longer, Mother S. and I began our long, slower this time, walk back up to the car, and our long drive home again. We were well satisfied.

Moving on to this morning… When I was adding water to the fountain I heard a woodpecker up in the redwood tree in the neighbor’s yard behind mine. I rarely do hear those birds around here so it was a pleasant encounter, though I couldn’t get my eyes on him.

I did see a hummingbird checking out my new abutilon that is in a pot; I wonder if that is a flower that actually offers any drink to the hummers? Seems like they would have to fly upside down while drinking…

Today I cooked up the first batch of greens from the planting by the driveway. It’s convenient having them growing there, because I notice them at least several days a week when I get in and out of the car. These I picked Saturday morning, and stuck them in the fridge to wait a couple of days. Yum! The flowers are on either the Chinese broccoli or the kalettes; I got them mixed up. But they taste good so they went into the pot, too.

When Pathfinder was here he was looking at my olive trees that are growing in pots. One of them he gave me fifteen years ago, and the other I bought in a little pot at the grocery store a couple of years later. I also got them mixed up, because after years of careful pruning, they have the same shape, which they didn’t at first.

Pathfinder asked me what type of olive I had bought for myself, and I said it started with an “A.” That would be an Arbequina, he told me. And he knew that he had given me a Manzanillo; then he pointed out the different shapes of the olives that are right now on the trees. He knows the Manzanillo, which is this one with pointier fruits:

Which means that the Arbequina is this one:

I never noticed the difference before! They are on opposite sides of the path from each other, so I don’t see them closely at the same time. That’s my only excuse for my inattention, but it saddens me that I don’t know my beloved trees very well. Pathfinder cures olives, so he has an eye for them. And now I know them better.

The last unripe fruits to show you are my pineapple guavas. Last week I harvested six ripe ones from the ground under the bush. Today I searched, but no more had fallen, and even the largest of the hundreds still hanging on were hard. Probably few if any more will come of age; their mini climate is just not ideal for them.

At least the snapdragons are being beautiful along the front walk.

This week I’m joining quite a few people in the parish for a Thanksgiving dinner in our church hall. I’m bringing a large quantity of the famous Orange Yams, adapted from my mother-in-law’s recipe. I see that I’ve never shared that recipe here before, so I’ll try to remember to take a couple of pictures to go with a recipe to be posted later.

December is almost here… And then 2025 will be history!
We must breathe deeply and make the most of every day ❤

Seals and pelicans wait for the sun.

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At least, that’s what it seemed to me they were doing. At Jenner-by-the-Sea so many Pacific Harbor Seals give birth and rear their young on the sand spits that they call it a rookery or a nursery. It’s where the Russian River opens into the Pacific along the North Coast of California, and the beach there is called Goat Rock. This photo shows them on both sides of the river, the town hidden by fog above the farthest shore.

My friend and I had made the drive to the beach pretty early in the morning, having been told by the weather people that it would be mostly sunny. It was not — but 60° and not windy is pretty good for this coastline, where beaches are not consistently sunny until August or September.

You’re not supposed to get closer than 50 feet to the seals; I think we were a little closer than that, but we stood quietly staring and none of the animals seemed to mind us or change what they were doing. The seals didn’t move much, but their various colors were interesting, and they would go in and come out of the water occasionally, or look up at us.

The pelicans were more thrilling, and even more numerous, flying back and forth or just hanging with the sea gulls and seals. But they were also harder to photograph! In the middle of the middle picture below, it’s pelicans who are forming a flotilla in the river. We didn’t see any diving to fish.

After stopping by another beach where we enjoyed some of that “mostly sun,” we took a slightly different route back inland along a narrow road where bright patches of wildflowers caught my attention, springing up through the dry grass.

clarkia
rattlesnake grass

I especially noticed the leaves on the one just above, because they resembled those of the little native beach plant in my garden, Eriogonum latifolium or seaside buckwheat, that I bought at a local nursery three years ago. It has never bloomed, or even grown very much.

When I got home, I went out back to take a picture to compare, and what do you know? It is blooming right now!! And I do believe…

Flying high.

family, nature, water, , , , ,

30 vineyards and trees About twenty years ago my son and son-in-law were both learning to fly airplanes, and after they were qualified they offered at different times to take me up flying with them. I declined, I think because there was usually someone else more eager on whatever day they asked, when I didn’t feel relaxed enough to appreciate the experience.P1000035 Russian R

 

Yesterday when that same son-in-law Nate was here helping me with electronics stuff, he offered to fly me over to the coast, and I didn’t hesitate to say yes. I have all kinds of disposable time these days and in this case the time was available on a day when I was also in a happy and calm mood.

We flew over vineyards and trees, and along the Russian River as it flows to the ocean.

 

 

At the mouth of the river is Jenner-by-the-Sea.

48 at Jenner

flying ocean Jenner 5-15

P1000056 Hwy 1

 

It was a mild and lovely day, with some clouds. At times we bumped over crests of waves, waves of air that followed the contours of the hills.

And we flew along Highway 1 for a few miles, as it twists back and forth above the cliffs. In a plane, switchbacks were not necessary.

Just inland the Copper Mountain Mandala Buddhist retreat center was spread out over the hills in all its glittering and elaborate glory.

 

66 retreat center 7 w ocean

Nate didn’t have an extra headset so that we could talk to each other; I wore some hearing protectors I used to put on in the days when Mr. Glad’s drum practice was going on downstairs. So my pilot and I mostly rode along in a comfortable silence, unless I wanted to lift one side of my headgear and lean close to him to try to communicate above the loud hum of the propellers.

Nate said he was flying at about 150 miles per hour on his way over to my house earlier in the day; I don’t know how fast we were moving on this tour. I had no sense of time up there — every moment did seem precious, as the scenes passed behind us so quickly, and it was only a half hour, so I’m told, before we were floating down over the runway again and had landed with a soft bump.

Knowing that we are suffering drought, you might wonder at all the green in my pictures. We have been blessed by some late rains, as recently as three days ago. In another month or two, there will be more brown and gold tones mixed in.

On the theme of water I will leave you with a last picture, of Lake Sonoma, a source of water for cities and agriculture, created in the 80’s from the building of Warm Springs Dam on Dry Creek. Obviously the creek is not always Dry. Our North Bay counties are beautiful even in drought, but I’m happy as can be that I was given an aerial view just at this season, in a moist springtime.

76 Lk Sonoma

On the Way to Red Hill

friends, nature, wildflowers, , ,
The Russian River

Mr. Glad and I took our friend from college days on a hike at the coast. Up from Shell Beach, near where the Russian River flows into the ocean and sea lions sleep in clusters on the sand, a trail winds toward Red Hill. We didn’t make it to the top of anything, and the fog would have obscured our view anyway. But the overcast skies made it easy to photograph flowers.


Before we got to the trailhead we stopped on the bluff north of the river and looked down on the pale shapes of the sea lions, with a bunch of dark birds nearby, cormorants perhaps.

The slopes were covered with lovely pink grass, which contrasted nicely with white yarrow, and with yellow and blue flowers, too.
The blooms of this unknown plant remind me of a bouquet of fat and curling pipecleaners. It liked to grow in the poison oak and brambles.
Rattlesnake Grass – Briza maximaRattlesnake Grass is darling. Plantations of the stuff hid in the pink grass. It occurred to me to take some home and send it in a box to a grandchild, and as it didn’t look endangered I had no qualms about stealing.  Indeed, just now I found that it’s not even native to California, and is on the list of invasive plants, though its invasion is termed “limited.”

The giant yellow lupine bushes that one often sees near the coast weren’t in bloom, but smaller and mostly blue ones
dotted the sides of the trail.

As we trotted along comfortably, the breeze blew warm, though the sun was obscured. Noises from the highway down below were muffled, and the wild rose hid herself among some dead branches.