Wordless Wednesday: Frogs, Katydids, Skinks!

Word Wednesday: Our Day On The Yuba

I wish I could tell you how hard it is to photograph rainbows rippling endlessly across a flowing river. I think these picture convey that difficulty.
We were supposed to get up early Tuesday morning to meet our new geezer hiking group for a major hike in the high country. We didn't.
Oh yes, we woke up early enough, but rushing around to go for a hike just didn't seem the right way to start the day.
We anguished about it because we love that our neighbors invited us on their Tuesday geezer high country hike, and we felt like total jerks for not showing up.
But it occurred to us that one of the things we love the most about retirement is that we don't have to leave the house at 7:40 am to do anything. EVER.
And our consolation prize was this: a hike on the south fork of the Yuba River. It was such a beautiful day there at the very end of summer, even if I couldn't quite photograph the rippling rainbows.

PS: That's me trying to do a Betty Grable pose. Oh well, the fun is all in the trying!

Bats in the Belfry

Well not really a belfry, but we do have this crazy canopy on the deck (off our bedroom) that we bought to sleep in when the nights got too hot this summer. We haven't slept out there yet, but we have found some froggies and other critters camping out there. Mostly the critters were a mild surprise, not entirely unexpected. The typical find was insects and lizards that criss-cross the deck a zillion times a day. But twice now, quite surprisingly, a bat found its way in there at sunset. Not sure how, because the canopy is closed at the top and only weirdly open at the bottom, which we fold up and tuck inside to try and create a boundary. How and why do the bats come in? We are not sure. We have managed to release them both times. They are truly the weirdest mammals we know, well except for modern humans who really do seem to have bats in their belfry.

Wordless Wednesday: Late Summer

Wordless Wednesday: Almost Famous

The photos of the Ctenucha rubroscapus on the Butterflies and Moths of North America website are mine! I'm almost famous!

garden

aren't these awesome?

is this as tall as an elephant's eye?

our hopscotch relo from port townsend to grass valley, via arcata and santa cruz, meant that we missed 3 years of gardening. we have a grand garden this year and we are relearning several things. like; don't plant too close, how many tomatoes can we eat and freeze or dry, how many basil plants can we use, and again… how much room does a pepper plant need?



not to complain tho. we have chard, kale, string beans, zucchini, tomatoes of several sorts, onions, lotsa basil, carrots, yellow summer squash, delicata squash, butternut squash, watermelons, cantaloupes, tomatillos, beets, potatoes, corn, peas, chives, and something i've forgotten for sure. (it was the red peppers)



we do have the usual difficulty with wanting to eat everything our plants give us. there is no way to grow just enough. that's what the compost pile is for.



and next year....... chickens!

Our Day In The High Country

It's hard to imagine it's been almost ten years (to the day) that Roger and I hiked in the high country of the Sierra. But it's true. Ten years ago on September 11, 2001 (yes that very day) we started what we thought would be our week-long summer vacation in the Lakes Basin area on the western slope of the Sierra. We woke that Tuesday morning to the sound of the phone ringing in our rented cabin, and my sister telling us to turn on the news. And so we did. The towers were still burning. How were we to enjoy our vacation hiking happily through the lakes and valleys, the mountains and forests, while the rest of the country was in mourning? We tried a few hikes but couldn't find it in our hearts to continue. We came home and had not been back since.



Interestingly, we now live only 45 miles from a remarkably similar set of lakes along the western slope of the northern Sierra. On Thursday, we took a ride. The last four miles of the road to get here, in Tahoe National Forest, is enough to set your teeth rattling and throw your back out of whack. A rock-strewn, rutted dirt road that makes four miles seem like four million. But we persevered, a small price to pay for a place on earth this beautiful to place a Vibram sole. This is just one of the hikes we could take from this trailhead, and there are so many other trailheads just a few miles north or south of this spot. The promise of many future hikes await us, this we know.

We chose the Round Lake trail to respark our enthusiasm for day hikes in the high country. We were in a state of continuous elation from the sight of the very first lake -- and then hiking some 2.5 miles (600 ft rise to 7000 ft) -- to where we finally picnicked at Long Lake. There were stunning vistas from every bend in the trail, and lakes around every turn. We were surprised and delighted by the fields of late-blooming wildflowers and a zillion different species of butterflies.

Everywhere, everywhere we looked, we fell in love with the moment. The happiness of breathing in the quiet mountain air, the tea and toast at this nameless lakelet, the fish jumping, the cat paws of wind on water, the granite rocks jutting out and over everything.

It was the hike we started ten years ago, from a slightly different place, in a completely different moment.