Walking in a Green-Winter Wonderland

Tags

California, Central Coast California, green hills, Nature, oak trees, photography, Winter

Here on the central coast of California, we look forward to a green, rather than white, Christmas. While we love our golden hills of summer, we crave green in the winter. During last year’s drought our summer hills turned dun. Even the golden grasses dried up and blew away, and this lasted through winter. But this year our green came early and I’ve been revelling in it.

Here are some recent photos of the green-wonderland behind our home.

My husband and our dog Mitzy.

Amazing oaks!

 

A fallen giant.

 

Shadows and moss.

Sunlight breaking through.

The Three Sisters.

Home again.

My Roman Oaks

Tags

beauty, cycle of life, life, Nature, oak trees, photography, Roman ruins

Recently we had visitors who had just returned from Italy. We talked of how easily you can stumble upon ancient Roman ruins lying beside the road or tumbled along the edge of a parking lot. Paving stones from some ancient road where the legendary 13th Legion once marched; the foundations of a fallen aqueduct; broken urns and shards of pottery. None of it cordoned off to protect. None of it of much value.

It’s a common sight for the native populations, but an unexpected pleasure and exciting discovery for visiting tourists. In some ways these ruins impact us more deeply than the ruins we find with tourist guides or behind museum walls.

As we were talking, I pointed to the “Roman Oaks” in the meadow outside our window.

I’ve come to see these fallen giants, the ruins of ancient oaks that lie scattered in the hills outside our home, with the same sense of tender regard and respect. Once they had been huge and thriving ecosystems, little cities providing shelter and food for a vast variety of creatures large and small. Some dominated the landscape for centuries. Children were born and grew old and died in full view of their robust splendor. The trees that now surround these ruins were tiny saplings or green shoots or still bound within round acorns when these giants spread their roots across the hillsides and threw vast shadows across the land.

I’ve come to love these ruins. There’s beauty in the sleek stripped limbs, sculptured by the wind and rain and passing predators. Beauty in their moss and lichen painted bark. Beauty in the way their sharp ruins rise like flames against the sky. Beauty in their hollowed trunks and upturned roots. I walk among them with their fine mulch crumbled underfoot and feel a sense of timelessness. The past and present tangled together.

I’ve gathered a few photos here to share with you.

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A Walk to the River

Tags

hiking, Nature, oak trees, outdoors, Photo-essay, photography, river, walking

We walked to the river recently, my husband and I and our little dog Mitsy. A short hike down a canyon a few miles from our home.

I left a crumb-trail of photos, if you’d like to join us.

This is where we started. The river lies below that ridge of mountains you see in the background in the photo above.

The way winds downward and grows narrow.

Among the hollows the oak trees look so dark and wild.

Eventually the canyon opens up into a wide, grassy meadow before descending again to the river.  A place to linger among the oaks.

We find a tree perfect for a child to climb or swing from . . .

. . . and places to picnic in the sun-filtered grass . . .

. . . while we admire the gracefully curving branches of the oaks, some bending so low as to touch the ground.

We watch out for the critters, spotting the tracks of deer and a mountain lion in the mud left-over from a recent rain.

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And strangely enough,  we see the barefoot print of a child, judging from its size.

We cannot imagine what a child this young would be doing out here all alone in the wild. A fairy child, perhaps?  Or one raised by wolves? Or the one that lies down with lions and lambs?

Soon enough we catch glimpses of the river far below the meadow.  Here a ribbon of blue shows beneath a fringe of pine and oak branches.

Another glimpse, framed by falling strands of moss, shows where the river parts, passing in two strands.

Nearer now an old tree stump stands guard.

Closer still the river is almost lost among shadows and leaves.

The final steep trek winding down toward our destination.

Ah, the river, at last.

Looking to the east is a sign warning us to stay away–a military training camp lies beyond this peaceful setting.

Looking westward all is calm and still.

A stand of trees fed by the river rises straight and tall on one side of the shore . . .

. . . watching their white-barked cousins dance on the other side.

Our little dog sniffs among the leaves . . .

. . . and wades among the shallows . . .

. . . and stops to gaze upon the perfectly rounded world reflected in the still water.

Up close the river is just as pretty–a still life of rock and moss . . .

. . . lies beside the rippling water . . .

. . . while green fronds rise from the mud below.

One last drink before we head home.

The walk back is just as lovely as the way down, the path still dappled in sunlight.

I never tire of admiring the oak trees, each so unique and elegant . . .

It’s almost two lovely to leave . . . .

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A Frosty, Sunlit Morning Walk

Tags

backyard, frosty mornings, Nature, oak groves, oak trees, photography, spanish moss

Yesterday when I woke the frost was so heavy on the grassy meadow behind our house it looked like a light pattering of snow had fallen in the night.

By the time I went out the sun had risen beyond the hills and streamed down through the trees.

I’d forgotten gloves and my fingers were freezing but I kept walking, snapping up photographs of things I found and wanted to share, like the frost-laced fronds and mushroom below . . .

Or the old upturned tree stump, lined with moss and dusted in frost . . .

. . . and the mossy tree branches . . .

and lichen-spotted tree limbs.

I loved the light filtering through the trees . . .

. . .  and the Spanish moss dripping from the branches . . .

Mostly I loved how each oak tree is so unique and elegantly shaped.

Finally, on the walk back, I loved seeing my home nestled among the hills and oak groves, and the man I loved waiting for my return.

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Bee Karma

Tags

bees, karma. La Paz, Nature, oak trees

Last year the oak trees behind our pool were alive with buzzing bees.  Always, at any time of day or night, we could hear the loud humming, like millions of tiny engines revving up endlessly.  Each twig and leaf quivered in the golden glow of their soft fuzzy bodies.

They liked to sip from our pool, gliding in so softly as not to break the water’s tension while they sipped and flew away again—when they were lucky.  Many weren’t,  paddling furiously with their tiny wings to lift themselves into the air, or floating listlessly, exhausted, as if in despair, or already dead. 

Each day before we swam we’d skim the pool, rescuing hundreds of bees, dropping them over the fence into the oak groves.  But that didn’t stop them from joining us while we swam. 

I’d watch them while doing laps, pushing them out of the way, or stopping to cup them in handfuls of water to set them on the patio, where they’d sit in puddles, then stumble to dry ground, becoming a blur of rapidly pumping wings until they were dry enough to fly away. Or back into the pool for another drink.

We must have saved thousands of bees that summer, and I took some small pleasure in knowing I was helping to sustain a threatened species hugely important to the propagation of plants, if stories of the bees’ demise are true.  

I was looking forward to the humming trees this summer, but sadly the oaks are silent.

Our daughter is not so sad.  She is terrified of bees. 

This is the same woman who is an avid skydiver and surfer, who hikes through the wilderness as an archeologist, completely undaunted by the threat of mountain lions, rattle snakes or bears. 

I’ve seen her jump from planes at 14,000 feet to join hands with other skydivers, creating fantastic formations while competing in record-breaking competitions. 

I’ve heard tales of her surfing dangerous breaks off Point Conception where the only way out of the sea was to time the waves that could crush her against the rocks if she wasn’t careful, so she climb out with her board safely.  I’ve also heard of her encounters with bears in the wild, including one amusing tale of the bear trying to hide behind a small bush, apparently unaware that its own tremendous bulk was in full view.

But a single buzzing bee will send her scrambling, slapping wildly, for safety.

We’re not sure where this terror of bees came from.  Perhaps it was when a swarm of bees came swooping into our front yard when she was a toddler,  and her father grabbed her and her brother under his arms and ran into the house.  Or maybe when she swallowed a bee that stung the inside of her mouth that summer when she was only five. 

Her most frightening encounter happened when we were living aboard our sailboat La Gitana, anchored at La Paz, Mexico. 

She and her brother and a few friends were exploring El Mogote, a sandbar covered in mangrove jungles that encloses the harbor. 

They motored their dinghies through narrow channels surrounded by low-hanging branches.  Kelli stood in the bow, watching out for shallow water that could foul the engine.

The mosquitos were fierce that day and she swung a towel over her head to keep them away while she scanned the water. 

Inadvertently she swatted a nest of wasps that came tumbling down into the boat. Kelli was covered in stings before she could dive under the water for safety.

Now I like to think that each bee whose life I saved was an accumulation of good bee karma.  Like bees who gather nectar from flowers, converting it to honey to deposit into the cells of its hive, so I gathered drowning bees from the water, and each golden body I saved, like a drop of honey, was converted into good and deposited in a bee karma account in my daughter’s name.

Kelli, may you forevermore be surrounded by the protective, golden glow of good bee karma.